MICKEY KAUS: Greece Could’ve Used A Tea Party, No?

Is it really clear that, thanks to the Tea Party, the U.S.’s creditors are at greater risk than they were, say, two years ago? Yes, the Teeper “madmen” have made default–through a failure to raise the debt ceiling–thinkable in a way it wasn’t before. On the other hand, they’ve made changing the trajectory of federal spending thinkable in a way it wasn’t before. Lower spending makes it easier to raise the revenues to close the budget gap, no? Greece could have used a Tea Party. . . . If Congress had just extended the debt ceiling with no strings attached, as it had done 60 or 70 times before, would S&P have downgraded? Hard to believe. If not, then why would a debt ceiling extension plus some spending cuts provoke a downgrade? Aren’t spending cuts progress, credit-rating-wise?

Plus this:

Psst, Jake Weisberg! I thought you wanted to limit the size of the federal government to 22% of GDP. So why are you lamenting that even the unreached Obama/Boehner “grand bargain” was “imbalanced in favor of spending cuts over revenues by a ratio of 4-to-1.” If we’re going to reach 22%, shouldn’t you favor spending cuts? (Not in a recession, you say? But the cuts were heavily backloaded so they’d come after the recession is over, at least in theory.)

Hey, they blamed the Tea Party for Jared Loughner, too. They always blame the Tea Party, because they don’t like the Tea Party, and they want Americans to dislike it, too, so they can continue with business as usual until the last possible moment. And if Greece had had a Tea Party, all the apparatchiks would have called it crazy and destructive too, because it would have threatened their short-term interests, which, as has become clear, is all apparatchiks think about . . .

UPDATE: “Tea Party Downgrade”? They Can’t Possibly Sell That.

The downgrading of U.S. debt is an extreme embarrassment for the government in general, and the Obama administration in particular. So the administration has reacted in the only way it knows: by denouncing Standard & Poors, and by blaming its political opponents, the supporters of the Tea Party, for the downgrade.

The administration’s knee-jerk responses are somewhat inconsistent: if S&P was wrong to downgrade the debt, and the downgrade was based on a mathematical error, then it is hard to see how the downgrade can also be the Tea Party’s fault. . . .

Let’s take a walk down memory lane. What did the Democrats do with respect to federal debt during the four years they controlled both Houses of Congress? Here is a summary of the deficits the Democrats racked up during that time:

FY 2008 — $460 billion
FY 2009 — $1,410 billion ($1.4 trillion)
FY 2010 — $1,300 billion ($1.3 trillion)
FY 2011 — $1,600 (estimated) ($1.6 trillion)

Of the $14.5 trillion national debt, nearly $4.8 trillion–one-third of the total–was incurred during that four-year period when the Congress was exclusively controlled by the Democrats. Moreover, and equally important, during that time the Democrats did nothing to assure the markets that they have a long-term plan to deal with the country’s burgeoning debt. On the contrary, for more than two years the Congressional Democrats have refused to adopt or even to propose a budget! If you are looking for the reason why rating agencies have lost faith in the ability of our government to get its spending and debt under control, you need look no farther.

If you can’t even propose a budget, you don’t get to blame others for the downgrade.