Don’t believe the hype: Ted Cruz and Tea Partiers weren’t big losers. Most other people were. The recent partial shut-down and near default of the US government led by rogue deficit hawks cost American taxpayers at least $24 billion (according to Standard & Poor's), paid furloughed workers not to work, cut economic growth and, as …
Continue reading Washington artful dodgers postpone responsibility
The Red Sox move on to the ALCS, Gronkowski may play for the Patriots on Sunday, a Newton-based foundation is poised to save Boston's First Night Festival, the school buses are rolling in Boston after an illegal one-day strike, so all's right with the world. Not so fast. Even these positive headlines can't compensate for …
Recent memories of Cape Cod breezes, warm sunshine and gentle waves can’t dispel the acid taste left in the mouth by Congress’ despicable( and self-inflicted) game of chicken around raising the debt ceiling, followed by the eighth largest drop in stock market history. Small wonder that public disapproval of Congress is at 82 percent, according …
Continue reading As markets tank, politicians hit the links, oblivious
Former Senator Alan Simspon, a Wyoming Republican, just about summed up my reaction to the debt ceiling impasse. He said that the extent to which pettiness has overcome patriotism is nothing short of disgusting. Despite Republican longstanding charges about Obama’s failure to embrace “American exceptionalism,” it is not he who is prepared to risk the …
Continue reading Partisan debt ceiling politics exasperating and dangerous
What better day than Independence Day to contemplate the meaning of the U. S. Constitution? What better issue to use as context than the current debate about raising the debt ceiling? Three groups of politicians, Republicans, Democrats and 59 Tea Party Congressmen, are at loggerheads. Sensible people among Republicans and Democrats know the debt ceiling …
Continue reading The 14th Amendment: a solution to the debt ceiling impasse?
It was vintage Barney Frank at last Friday’s meeting of the New England Council. He was savagely funny, insightful, acerbic and provocative. This was particularly true when he discussed the federal deficit and lifting the debt ceiling, the deadline for which seems to have now been moved from May back to August. He ruffled more …
Continue reading Barney Frank’s back to his old self, provocative and, this time, unsettling
Marjorie Arons-Barron 