Question for the GOP: do you REFUSE to raise the debt ceiling and shut down the US Government?

The Left want to raise the debt ceiling and, at the same time, won't consider real budget cuts. The United States budget expires on March 4th.

Simultaneously, the GOP seems to be, overall, remarkably silent on the matter. I don't see McConnell and Boehner calling for radical cuts or the outright elimination of cabinet positions. So far, only $32 billion dollars have been put up for cuts. Less than 1% of the proposed budget. Less than 1%. That is, budgetarily speaking, a globule of phlegm in the bucket.

This is occurring whilst, at the same time, Mr Obama is attempting to project himself as more the "centrist" -- I'm sure you've been reading all the media hype about Mr Obama The Centrist, centrist here, centrist there, all over the DEM/MSM. As Politico writes, Mr Obama is indeed playing the media like a perfect Stradivarius. And some voters are buying it.

Mr Obama, the New and Improved Centrist. Perhaps he did learn something from Willie J.

But again, GOP, myself and many of my fellow bloggers -- and the recent November voters -- are broadcasting in what I call "the clear." And the message is clear. Those in DC need not only to stop the spending, but to start the cutting. NOT raising a budget isn't a "budget cut" as portrayed by politicians. A cut is a cut. Nothing less will do.

There are those who are saying and writing that a failure to increase the debt ceiling will cause the American economy to completely collapse.

George Will said:

I know of no other developed nation that has a debt ceiling. This is a purely recurring symbolic vote to make people feel good by voting against it.

The trouble is it’s suicidal if you should happen to miscalculate and have all kinds of people voting against it as a symbolic vote and turn out to be a majority. Because if the United States defaults on its sovereign debt, the markets will be — well, it will be stimulating.

Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said in January: “The debt ceiling is not something to toy with. If we get to the point where you’ve damaged the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity.” Goolsbee also noted that the impact of blocking a debt ceiling raise on the economy would be “catastrophic” and would bring on “a worse financial economic crisis than anything we saw in 2008.”

The sky would indeed fall.

Concurrently, we all know that the Debt Bomb has been hurled from the national bomb bay, and it is set to impact at some point. There is no avoiding it.

The bomb is falling, but those politicians on the ground, instead of seeking mitigation or firing a Patriot missile or utilizing the CIWS, are instead gazing longingly at their own navels, rife with corruptive lint. They know, by the way: they have their own bomb shelters into which they shall duck, and will predominantly not be harmed. They have "theirs." YOU are on your own.

All of this reminds me of a divided group of passengers aboard the RMS Titanic arguing as to how to arrange the deck chairs for proper aesthetic visual impact, whilst the bow drops precipitously into the Atlantic.

And still: the House will vote, next week, on possible blockage to funding ObamaKare. The House, of course, won't have the requisite courage. Votes votes votes! Perceptions!

Curiouser and curiouser, I say.

Question: do we raise the debt ceiling, or do we refuse and risk "Armageddon"?

BZ