The Debt Ceiling Crisis, which has been building for weeks, is reaching a dangerous stage, with only 12 days left until the US government defaults, but Moody’s and other credit rating agencies are threatening action to lower the rating on government bonds before that date!
It is clear that the Tea Party conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives have no concern about the default threat and the downgrading of government bonds by rating agencies!
The Republican Party is being criticized in polls for their intransigence, but seem unwilling to negotiate or compromise, even though the debt ceiling has been raised more than 100 times since 1917, and nearly ten times under George W. Bush!
They seem unable to understand that raising the debt ceiling is simply recognizing the need to pay OLD DEBT, just as much as all citizens must do the same to keep a credit rating, and have any ability to borrow money in the future!
The recklessness and irresponsibility being demonstrated is reaching a stage where Barack Obama MUST take action under his emergency powers, even if it endangers his Presidency and his reputation!
Obama needs to invoke the 14th Amendment, Section 4, and unilaterally raise the debt ceiling, no matter what conservatives and Republicans advocate, as they have lost all rights to respect and being treated as a fair partner in negotiations!
The danger, of course, is that right wing whackos in the House will use such action as an excuse to impeach Barack Obama!
That would be tragic, but not fatal, as there is no way that two thirds of the Senate would convict and remove Obama from office, any more than that would happen with the unjustified impeachment trial of Bill Clinton in 1999!
Such a move toward impeachment would only give further evidence of how extremist and irresponsible the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Reagan has become, and the American people would repudiate it in the Presidential Election of 2012 and the Congressional elections that would decide control of both houses of Congress for 2013-2014!
So Obama, by next Monday, with just a little over a week to go, and before Moody’s and other credit agencies take action, MUST assert his executive authority and let what happens to him occur, knowing the American people will be behind him all the way, and reward him with a second term, no matter what the Republicans do to counteract him!