Calling All Adults, Calling All Adults

Whether you think Barack Obama is the worst president ever -- and if you do you clearly should brush up on presidential history -- do you really want to challenge him, the Treasury, the Fed, the International Monetary Fund, Moody's and 235 world renown economists that failure to raise the national debt limit will be catastrophic?

Republicans claim that August 2 is an "artificial date without dire consequences." We can only pray they don't put their delusions to the test.

Their assertion "this is a spending problem not a revenue problem" is nonsense. We've already done the spending...for eight years under George W. Bush by not paying for enhanced national security, the war on terror, Medicare Part D, two wars and the 2001 and 2003 tax breaks. The credit card bill has arrived.

Republicans want to pretend those years of out-of-control spending and insufficient taxation never happened and start the debt clock in 2009 by blaming it all on Obama, public unions, middleclass benefits and the stimulus, which even the conservative leaning Financial Times credits for preventing another depression.

A majority of Republicans voted to raise the debt limit seven times between 2001 and 2008 while taking the country from a $127 billion budget surplus and a national debt of $5.7 trillion at the start of Bush's first term and handing off a deficit of $1.2 trillion and a debt of $10.4 trillion to Obama.

Suddenly now it's time stop raising the debt limit? Yeah, I know Sen. Obama voted against the 2006 debt increase but his protest vote wasn't about to crash the economy either.

Republicans insist any deal increasing taxes on Big Oil, agribusiness, Wall Street and millionaires in the midst of a recovery is "unthinkable." Evidently the $2.5 trillion they're demanding in middleclass spending cuts which would have an even greater impact on the recovery is thinkable. Guess we know who's in their thoughts.

I'd be a lot less snappish about the Grand Old Panderers insisting lower taxes create jobs if there was the slightest evidence they had ever done so. They've told the Big One so often it's become Republican folklore.

Here, facts! Look! See! Comprehend: 33 million jobs created in 12 years under Carter and Clinton with higher taxes; 20 million jobs created in 20 years under Reagan, Poppy and Junior with lower taxes -- the same lower taxes Republicans now insist on preserving that were in place throughout Junior's administration which had the worst track record on job creation since 1939.

We got into this together and we need to get out of it together by cutting spending, adjusting entitlements and raising taxes...but only after we're out of the woods. For now Republican delinquents need to stop playing with matches in the dynamite shack and raise the damn debt limit.