With an agreement on the debt ceiling being extended, a massive sell-down on Wall Street, and Standard & Poor's downgrading of America's triple A rating status, it's not a surprise that Americans are more down on their political leaders than seemingly ever. But if you were wondering whether Congress' record low ratings means they're ready to work together (compromise?), there was little evidence of that after watching Sunday morning television.
John Kerry had the soundbite of the day on NBC's Meet The Press by saying to host David Gregory that the somewhat controversial move by the credit ratings agency could be laid at the feet of the Tea Party, of whom one can say unquestionably that never have so few (in terms of their popularity nationally) been so influential.
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GREGORY: Is this a wakeup call to Washington?
SEN. KERRY: Well, it's a partial wakeup call. I believe this is, without question, the "tea party downgrade." This is the tea party downgrade because a minority of people in the House of Representatives countered even the will of many Republicans in the United States Senate who were prepared to do a bigger deal, to do $4.7 trillion, $4 trillion, have a mix of reductions and, and reforms in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid; but also recognize that we needed to do some revenue. I think this is one of the most telling, important moments in our country's history right now. We've had a fairly straightforward economic road throughout the 20th Century. But now, David, this poses a set of choices. It's not just about a recession, it's about a financial crisis and a structure of our economy which really has been misallocating capital. ….And what we need is a Washington that stops this bickering, that gets rid of these hard positions that I noticed even in Speaker Boehner's comments about the downgrade, politicizing it in the sense that, you know, sort of blaming it on the Democrats and the lack of decision. Barack Obama put a $4.7 trillion deal on the table. Three times he was refused that deal because there were some people in the Republican Party, and Mitch McConnell even admitted this, who wanted to default. He said there were people in his party who are willing to shoot the hostage. In the end, they found that the hostage was worth ransoming. This is not about ransom. This is about our nation.
This article appears in Aug 4-10, 2011.
