It’s hard to choose just a single asshat for special recognition, but in this case, but in this case, Ted Yoho said something so stupid that notorious liberal rag ‘the Business Insider” called it the Stupidest Thing Said About the Debt Ceiling. Ted, come up here and show us why you’re a superstar.

“You’re seeing the tremor before the tsunami here. I’m not going to raise the debt ceiling. “I think, personally, it would bring stability to the world markets,” (since they would be assured that the United States had moved decisively to curb its debt).

Congratulations, Ted. You’ve proven that skill at being a veterinarian does not translate to world economics!

I hate the debt ceiling. I think it should die in a fire. One of the strongest reasons why is because the public has such a poor idea of what it is, and what it really means – basically it means that Congress can choose not to pay for the services they demand. So let’s simplify for the drooling masses.

Sitting down at the expensive restaurant and ordering the Steak and Lobster, and the $600 dollar bottle of champagne is the budget process. If times were sane, it would be part of passing the budget, but we haven’t had a real budget since 1997, so really that’s about the continuing resolution that is simultaneously under debate. That’s where you say ‘I don’t want the steak’.

The debt ceiling is where you decide to pay the check. It does not affect our steak order – that’s already in our belly. And we have more steak on the way. It just puts us in an impossible position, where our legislative branch has ordered us to give everyone free ice cream, but taken away dad’s credit card so he can’t pay for it.

When the GOP talks about ignoring the debt ceiling and letting things default, they are effectively talking about doing the single largest ‘dine and dash’ in world history. Eat the steak, eat the lobster, and then bolt the restaurant before the check lands on the table.

This is how the party of ‘fiscal responsibility’ chooses to govern today.

Here’s the thing. We’ve got more orders for steak in. We’ve got more orders for lobster in. The champagne is coming. Which means that we’ll either have to default again, or we’ll have to borrow money again, only this time on much crappier terms, because now the people who have been loaning us this money are going to demand much more beneficial terms to make up for the fact that we might once again leave them with their dicks in their hands.

Here’s the worse thing – there’s a lot of reasons that our deficits ballooned recently. For all of the talk about Obama, his predecessor is the one who took a huge surplus, and turned it into a $400 billion dollar deficit, thanks to two wars and a Medicaid expansion which not only he chose not to pay for, but he actually decided to do the opposite and add on tax cuts, cutting federal revenue.

This is all before the economy collapsed and added $1T to the deficit. What added to the deficit? Massive bailouts for banks undergoing massive runs, which were necessary to protect the life savings and pensions of everyone in America. Massive losses in tax revenues from failing businesses, unemployed individuals, and the sudden hoarding of cash, which both companies and individuals do instead of spending. Massive increases in demand on the social net, such as unemployment, since companies cease to hire in times of uncertainty, as hoarding their cash is by far the most logical thing to do in that scenario.

We’re still muddling through that experience, but things are much better. Blame/credit who you want, but our deficit this year is tracking towards being only $700B – still, stupid high, but about half of the depths of the recession mid-2009. The experience taught us the value of having good credit – you don’t want to have to USE your credit cards in your personal life, but if you have to undergo emergency surgery because your dick gets caught in the vacuum cleaner, its sure better to be able to pay your bills now, and pay them back later. Which is what we’re doing now.

Now think about what defaulting on the debt could actually look like:

1) It could cause a major recession. Not a major surprise, considering that we’re still 10 days away and the dow is already down almost a thousand points from its monthly high. This has a good chance of cratering even more this weekend – this is not the sort of thing you want to let run up to the last possible second. Speculators trying to guess what’s going to happen are going to try to move someplace safe before everyone else does. This could result in a massive run on US Treasure Assets.. It could destroy the value of the dollar. There’s a real chance it could make 2008 look like fucking Candyland.

2) And we’d be facing that recession without a credit card. Effectively, every bill that comes in would have to be paid immediately, since our credit would be maxed – but we’d face a massive loss in revenues due to increased unemployment, decreased consumer spending and massively reduced corporate receipts.

This shit ain’t funny.

Imagine letting banks that did nothing wrong fail, dragging all sorts of innocent investments and savings with it, as people rush to withdraw their savings. Screw the parks – they aren’t reopening anytime soon, imagine the loss of spending power in our populace as we choose whether or not troops or grandma gets to pay their rent. Oh, and through this all, our non-essential workers will remain furloughed, which means meat won’t be checked, scientific research will be stalled, student loan payouts will stop, gun permits will still not go out, passports will be nigh unobtainable, etc.

Basically, the Tea Party is willing to turn us into Mad Max because they are willing to risk that it might not be all that bad.

There is nothing fiscally responsible for this. The fact that we are debating not paying our bills not only threatens to wreck our entire economy, it’s also a national fucking disgrace. And until those sane in the world choose to make fucking noise about it, they’re going to keep on considering it.