WASHINGTON—America’s dismal debt crisis ended Monday night with an astounding twist — the show-stealing return of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, back on the House floor to cast a heroic vote to save the country from default.
Giffords stunning appearance, her first since being gunned down by a would-be assassin on the streets of Tucson in January, sparked standing ovations, bringing one of the bleakest demonstrations of political paralysis to an unexpectedly heartening close. Her vote counted. But it was hardly essential, as a last-ditch budget deal unloved by all sides flew easily through the House of Representatives, passing 269-161.
Translation: Crisis averted.
The package now will fly through the Senate in the morning, ready for President Barack Obama’s signature well before the government’s midnight Tuesday deadline, allowing the country to borrow anew — and putting global markets at ease, as the calamity of potential default evaporates.
After that, watch for Washington to slink away for its August recess, with politicians of all stripes hoping what remains of the summer will be sufficiently distracting to tamp down public disgust.
The anger is global, as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made clear Monday when he hurled invective, accusing the United States of “living like parasites off the global economy.
“Thank God that they had enough common sense and responsibility to make a balanced decision,” said Putin, a frequent critic of the U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s default currency.
But it is the American verdict that worries Washington most. A new pulse taking by the Pew Research Center showed the three-week standoff earned the contempt of nearly three-quarters of respondents.
Asked to characterize their leaders’ behaviour in a single word, the Pew/Washington Post survey said the Top 10 responses were: “Ridiculous,” “Disgusting,” “Stupid,” “Frustrating,” “Poor,” “Terrible,” “Disappointing,” “Childish,” “Messy” and “Joke.”
As the U.S. commentariat worked through the fine print of an austerity bill to slice some $2.4 trillion from the U.S. deficit over 10 years, more fury still — much of it directed at Obama and the Democrats for what one New York Times columnist called “an abject surrender” to the unbending hawks of the Republican Tea Party movement.
With Republicans preening and Democrats aghast, the rhetoric on Capitol Hill was approaching viral. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who on Sunday said hinted the devil would be in the details, declared the package a “Satan sandwich with a side of Satan fries.” But she ate it anyway, voting for the bill because there were no other viable options.
New York Rep. Charles Rangel was among more than 90 House Democrats to vote no, citing the total absence of any language likely to improve the tepid U.S. employment picture.
“If the Republicans would have had to hold the President hostage, I wish they would have held him hostage on the things my constituents wake up every morning thinking — how can I get a job, how can I get back my dignity?”
But Monday’s House vote also forced the hands of a dozens of Tea Party-aligned conservatives, who stepped up to help pass the compromise bill, opening themselves up to primary challenges from ultra-conservatives in their home districts. The threat of primary challenge, first delivered in a thinly veiled Facebook posting last week by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, was a constant throughout each act of this agonizing bout of political theatre.
It is difficult to envision what this leaves Obama to celebrate on Thursday, when he turns 50. The ever-changing White House bottom line — which began with insistence that America’s wealthiest pay their part in the austerity to come — ended with Team Obama not having to worry about the debt ceiling issue until after the 2012 presidential election.
Yet it is abundantly clear the budget brinksmanship will erupt anew at least twice before the year is done — at the end of September, when a continuing resolution to fund the government is due to expire, and again, later in the fall, when the bipartisan debt commission created by this bill is due to produce recommendations on what precisely this plan will actually cut.
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