As Zakaria says, many people around the globe see the damage as already having been done.
So the house succeeded in that at least.
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn....one/?hpt=hp_c1
Quote:
We face downgrades and investor panic not because of our deficits but because we are behaving like deadbeats, refusing to pay our bills, pouting while the bill collector waits at the door.
We do have a large deficit and debt and we do need to get it under control. That the Tea Party has raised awareness about this is admirable. And I agree with their view that the current set of entitlements - Medicare especially - have to be reformed dramatically to get our fiscal house in order. But that is not an excuse to endanger the good standing of the United States.
First you pay the bills and then you figure out how to change your spending habits.
The tragedy here is that the damage may already have been done.
From now on, every time the debt ceiling needs to be raised, the world will wonder: Will the U.S. stand by its promises or will it break them?
Something that was taken for granted - the credibility of the United States - is now surrounded by uncertainty. In her interview with me to be aired this Sunday at 10am ET/PT on GPS, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde says that "Global markets have always had a positive bias towards the United States but that is now eroded somewhat."
For this erosion, we have only ourselves to blame.
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Most of the analysts I have read, incidentally, are saying that the medicare problem was caused by medicare part b, the prescription drug payment plan championed by Bush and teh republicans. The one in which we guarenteed massive pharm company profits while making it illegal to negotiate for lower prices.
The wars, the bush tax cuts, and medicare part b make up the largest part of our deficit growth.
I dont see republicans lining up to criticize medicare part b. They lump that in with the original medicare, which had been doing okay, and was at least fairly well funded in budgeting (at the time), unlike the completely unfunded medicare part b.