Blame Republicans for the Debt Ceiling Crisis

Are you watching your 401(k) drop? Are you seeing your retirement tank? Are you waiting for higher interest rates on your credit cards and mortgages? Are you nervous about another recession?

Well, thank the Republicans.

This debt crisis is totally of the Republicans' making. From the beginning we should have had a clean vote—up or down—on the debt ceiling, just as Ronald Reagan and other presidents have done.

If Speaker John Boehner and the Republicans allow a default with their last minute antics things are only going to get worse. That is clear.

[See a collection of political cartoons on the budget and deficit.]

And the very notion of revisiting this silly scenario in six months is absurd. For the life of me I can think of no quicker way to sink our economy. Will that give confidence to the markets? Not a chance. Will it result in a downgrading of our credit rating? In all likelihood it will.

The sad truth is that without the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, without the oil and gas loopholes and, most important, without two wars that the Republicans and Bush failed to pay for, we would be in the black right now, or close to it.

Democrats will have to come up with a grand compromise, hurting many segments of our society, to bail out the Republicans, much the way Bill Clinton did in the 1990s. Revenues will have to be part of that package. Hopefully, that can happen when cooler heads prevail and the Tea Party stops their nonsense.

[See a collection of political cartoons on the Tea Party.]

In the meantime, if the stock market continues to drop and Americans are taken to the cleaners, pick up the phone and thank John Boehner and the Tea Party Republicans for what they have done to your bank accounts and your savings.

All this sound and fury comes out of the majority in the House and not one bill on jobs, not one piece of legislation to help our economy. Sad.

• See a collection of political cartoons on the economy.
  
• See a collection of editorial cartoons on the GOP.
  
• See a slide show of 6 consequences if the debt ceiling isn't raised.

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