America Held Hostage

The Republicans are doing everything in their power to sabotage the economy and force us into a double dip recession because, as they have openly admitted, it will greatly enhance their chances in the 2012 elections. According to most economists, the debt deal recently forced on Obama at gunpoint will result in about 1+ to 2.0% decrease in GDP which in turn results in 0.5% to 0.7% decrease in employment according to Okun's law. Since current employment is 150 million, the result of the deal will be a loss in the neighborhood of 750k to 1 million jobs in 2012. Republican speaker John Boehner chortles, “I got 98% of what I wanted.” Republican senate leader Mitch McConnell admits, “I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting, most of us didn’t think that. What we did learn is this — it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming.” To top it off, not only will the spending cuts forced on a weak economy probably push the economy back into recession and result in weaker revenue, actually increasing the deficit, but these cuts have already cost us more in projected future interest payments than the cuts were supposed to save in the first place. A lose, lose, lose situation for the nation with the only winner being the Republican Party.

So, in summary: Republicans, behaving like terrorists, hold the American economy hostage with a gun (in the form of threatening a US default on its debt) and swear they will pull the trigger if the president doesn't give them everything they want. Obama, being the reasonable moderate sort of nice guy that he is, pleads with them to release the hostage until the last minute but then gives in to almost all of the Republican demands in order to save the country (1 Kings 3:16). The Republicans, knowing that no president has ever been reelected when the economy is in recession and unemployment is rising, get rewarded with a double dip recession and higher unemployment in an election year. Evil wins.