Laughing to Stop the Rage

As I watched the debt ceiling debacle unfold from my living room, I found some solace in Tom Toles' political cartoons on the debt, available at the Washington Post's website.  As anger boils over at Washington's general incompetence, we might as well laugh at the whole thing a little bit, too.  My favorite cartoon is the one where Pres. Obama and House Speaker John Boehner are falling out of the sky, along with airplane parts.  The President says, "We're going to have to hurry to rebuild this airplane," and Boehner replies, "Helicopter."  That about sums up the whole boondoggle, I'd say.

There are so many things to say about this whole debate, but I'll limit myself to seven:

1.  Pres. Obama deserves some blame for scaring people about their social security checks not coming.
2.  This thing is definitely taking our eyes off the ball -- what about jobs?
3.  The long-term problems with our economy and the deficit will never get solved this way.
4.  The Republicans have been negotiating, but they aren't compromising on spending cuts or taxes.  The President came a long way toward their position, but they barely moved.  They are defending the wealthy and corporations that pay a lower tax rate than most middle class Americans in the name of "growing the economy."  I don't think the middle class has been helped in any way by the Republicans' negotiations.
5.  The House is filling its Constitutional function controlling the "purse strings" of the government.  I guess no one expected them to pull quite this hard on those strings. 
6.  The political fallout is still being felt, but this deal means we will see more of this posturing at Thanksgiving and Christmas -- I guess that's one way to ruin the holidays.
7.  In the end, I don't think this debt ceiling debate accomplished very much.  The whole thing was created by Republicans' self-imposed restrictions.  A 10-year budget is essentially meaningless anyway, as the budget gets rewritten almost every year.