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It's why I used it recently.
There are a few things to consider.
** Would not increasing the debt limit be bad? That matches the analogy. The one woman didn't think killing the tyke would be all that problematic; the other did.
**Are there worse things than not raising the debt limit? In other words, are there things more important than the baby's life? Again, it matches the analogy: More important than the baby's life was letting the birth mother have it.
The real question involves who the birth mother is in this analogy. She cared more about the kid's life than she did about winning. Let the kid be given to another--I'll suffer great loss, but so long as he's okay that's fine. Nobody's stepped up to this role yet. *Any* of the players could, however.
The Senate (D) are mostly just sitting back, apart from the Gang of 6. Even that isn't exactly a worked out plan. It's sort of a suggestion of an outline, one that's certainly roiled the waters and riled the rabble. Like that sort of thing ever goes from the outline presented to a clean text without being morphed from bonobo to komodo dragon. No, no mother there.
The (R) are explicit but too diverse to deal with easily. Some act like they don't think there's any danger involved--sure, hack away, it's just a cheap smurf sword anyway. Others think that it would be a shame, but a necessary evil. They want to bring down the deficit, and it's a tool. If there's no debt limit increase, that, all by itself, will overfulfill their requirements, albeit painfully. They're more of the sort that would say, "If you kill the baby, maybe it'll bring home the plight of all the other destitute stolen children and finally get something done to save them!" Then there are those who think that there's a real downside, but again seem to be playing chicken. It's easy to play chicken when the sword's pointing at somebody else and you act like its not really your responsibility. So much for responsible grown ups.
Obama, the erstwhile grownup, should be the top choice for nurturing, empathic mother. But his rhetoric makes him sound oddly like the more delusional (R). A catastrophe looms--but X, Y, Z, alpha, qoph, and the entire Arabic alphabet up through nun would make him veto any debt limit increase and unleash the catastrophe. Perhaps he's bluffing and wants to trick us all. Perhaps he's not bluffing. Very few of the things that the (R) are demanding would be implemented at once, and none have been matched by a publicly presented counter-offer; very few of the long-term things he's denounced would be undoable by the 2013 Congress, but he's going to the mat for them. Over the long term, the revenue increases he's asking for a pitifully small, $80 billion a year versus a deficit of $1.6 trillion (5%, versus an average 8% increase in the baseline spending in the first actual spending bill he signed in 3/2009). The only one that couldn't be easily mitigated would be a small debt limit increase, and that's the one he's threatened to veto the most. Right now, he's a mother sitting there saying, "Well, as long as she keeps the kid quiet after 10 p.m., lets me have the johns that tip well, doesn't hang the diapers on my balcony or ask me to babysit, and lets me borrow that really sweet green dress on Friday nights, sure, I'll be the really responsible adult and let her have the kid." Not impressed. I can see a 16-year-old saying this kind of stuff. Not a real grown up.
There's hope that somebody's bluffing. That they're just trying to milk the deal for all its worth, but will settle for chump change in the end if that's all they get.
Most disturbing is the attitude I keep hearing and reading that whoever actually evinces concern for the economy by yielding is really a loser. All the respect seems to go for the hooker who would rather see the infant dead than for the one who was spineless and would yield up a kid to save its life. Hell, the heartless whore seems to have really large cheerleading sections on both sides of the aisle. I keep hoping for change. I keep seeing change, but not the kind that produces hope.
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