Five truths about the pending debt-ceiling fight that the mainstream media doesn’t want you to know

“Both-sides”ism is rampant. And it’s seriously misleading the public.

For his Tuesday sub stack newsletter former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich takes on the so-called “debt ceiling fight.” Once again it is a fight that Republicans only care about when a Democrat is president. During the presidencies of  both Bushes and Trump Republicans just raised the ceiling without a peep.

Reich also points out is the media’s complicity in making this a “fight.” They do this for ratings. Remember the old axiom about news in general whether it be TV, radio, internet or printed page – “If it bleeds, it leads.” And of course if it doesn’t bleed, the media does all it can to open the wounds so it will bleed and get ratings.

And that is where we are at with the debt ceiling. There is no real fight. What we have is a Republican created terrorist attack on the American economy in pursuit of ending the major safety net programs from the New Deal. They are literally holding the country hostage and threatening to crash the most stable economy in the world. They want to basically end this country as we know it for their goals to make people suffer.

If Republicans were truly serious about their stated goals of taking on the deficit, the first thing they would do would be to reverse their many tax cuts for the rich since the time of Reagan. So where are their proposals for raising taxes? If they were serious about reformingSocial Security they would raise the salary cap for taxes going into Social Security.

They have simply run up the bill and now refuse to pay it, threatening civilization in the process. And our media is giving them cover.

Here are the five points that Secretary Reich makes on the debt ceiling and the media:

Truth #1: The fight is being waged solely by the Republican Party. The Democrats did not pick this fight. When Trump occupied the White House, Republicans voted to increase the debt limit three times without incident. Over the last quarter century, it has been raised over a dozen times.

Truth #2: The fight has nothing whatever to do with controlling the national debt. It has to do with paying the nation’s bills. The “debt ceiling” is merely an accounting convention. The national debt is comprised of obligations already incurred. If Republicans were serious about controlling the national debt, they’d be willing to consider tax increases — including repeal of the giant Trump tax cut that went mostly to big corporations and the very rich. But the national debt isn’t on their minds.

Truth #3: For the last half century, Democratic administrations have been more fiscally responsible than Republican ones. I was part of Bill Clinton’s administration, which balanced the federal budget after Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush had racked up record deficits. Obama cleaned up after George W. Bush’s runaway spending and tax cuts. The Trump administration added a whopping $7 trillion to the national debt.

Truth #4: The real reason Republicans are waging this fight is they see it as a backdoor way of attacking the two most popular (and largest) safety nets in the federal government: Social Security and Medicare. They dare not take on these programs directly. But the GOP believes that negotiating over the debt ceiling gives them an opportunity to begin to shrink these programs.

Truth #5: The act of holding the full faith and credit of the United States hostage is the economic equivalent of aiming a nuclear missile at the American (and world) economies and demanding concessions. It’s not a bargaining tactic. It’s a terrorist tactic.

Secretary Reich discusses each point. As usual his comments are pointed, hitting with a powerful punch.

Note the last point – it is a terrorist tactic aimed at OUR country! National policy is to NOT NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS! That includes domestic terrorists posing as a political party.