WASHINGTON – It’s not every day you hear the phrase “quantitative statutory budget restraints” in a rap song.
But these are extraordinary times in the United States of America as fierce, ongoing negotiations aimed at averting an unprecedented and potentially calamitous U.S. debt default have Americans on the edge of their seats.
There have been other debt ceiling showdowns in the United States _ even under staid Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower, believe it or not _ but few have captured the attention of Americans the way this one has.
They’re taking to Twitter to tweet the phone numbers of all the major Capitol Hill players in the debate, urging their followers to heed U.S. President Barack Obama’s call to contact their elected officials. A sea of them actually jammed Capitol Hill phone lines and crashed congressional Internet servers following Obama’s appeal on Monday night in a nationally televised address.
They’re fretting, justifiably so, about what a default will mean for their own economic fortunes if Republicans and Democrats cannot reach a deal to raise the debt ceiling by the Aug. 2 deadline less than a week away. Economists have predicted the U.S. dollar will take a beating, the stock market will plummet and interest rates will climb in the event of a default.
They’re even recording rap songs. Remy Munasifi, a comedian from Arlington, Va., has released a rap video in which he also manages to work “stimulus,” “Medicare” and “unsustainable” into his rhymes.
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Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor and media observer, recently took to that modern-day town hall, Twitter, to express his anger about the drama playing out in D.C. He also created a hashtag that includes a common profanity _ the tag starts with the letter F and ends in “youwashington” _ that has since gone viral as Tweeters from all walks of life vent spleen.
Jarvis defended his use of the profanity in a tweet on Tuesday, saying the word is “not profane. Willfully ruining the economy for political gain, that is profane.”
Tweets with the hashtag were numbering about 20,000 per hour on Tuesday.
“Boehner delivered a speech that was basically a televised ransom note,” one Tweeter wrote of Republican John Boehner’s rebuttal to Obama’s address on Monday night.
“Internet-based open presidential nominations and a possibly viable third-party option? I’m IN,” tweeted another.
Since Obama was elected in 2008, Americans have grown accustomed to 11th-hour deals following weeks of feverish political rhetoric over various pieces of legislation, most memorably the president’s signature health-care reform law.
But the stakes weren’t as high two years ago as they are today. Most economists warn that a failure to raise the debt ceiling could result in an economic tailspin worse than the meltdown of 2008 that has resulted in 14 million Americans being unemployed.
“I am really worried about the debt ceiling,” says Catherine Hardee, an attorney in New York City.
“I called my financial adviser to talk about whether I’m OK if they do the ridiculous and refuse to raise it. If it weren’t our country’s _ and the world’s _ financial future at risk, I would laugh at the corner the Republicans have painted themselves into. But it’s getting quite scary now.”
Indeed, recent polls suggest Americans are as fearful as Hardee about their future economic prospects. Many surveys suggest as many as 70 per cent of U.S. citizens believe the country is still in a recession.
A recent CBS/New York Times survey also suggested 40 per cent believe the country has entered a state of permanent decline while nearly half expect another major recession in the year to come. Consumer confidence has also plummeted.
The numbers seem to support the Democrats’ position in the debt debate. Republicans are deadset against any and all tax increases to chop the national debt, while Democrats want a combination of spending cuts and tax hikes.
In a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted overnight Monday _ in the hours after Obama and Boehner took to the airwaves _ 56 per cent said they want to see a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes. Only 19 per cent of Americans said they favoured a plan like Boehner’s.
A CNN/ORC International Poll released a day earlier revealed an increasingly exasperated public that is clamouring for compromise. Sixty-four per cent of respondents in the poll, conducted last week, said they wanted a deal that would combine spending cuts and tax increases, while only 34 per cent preferred a plan based solely on slashing spending.
Fifty-two per cent also say Obama has acted responsibly in the debt ceiling talks so far, while almost two-thirds say congressional Republicans have not. Fifty-one per cent say they’ll blame the Republicans if the U.S. defaults; only three in 10 would blame Obama.
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