Written by Jeff Barrett   

From a Tea Party blogger:
“...However, I strongly disagree with the idea that "this is not the time to be playing brinkmanship with the economic health... yada yada yada."

It is the time. This is exactly what we elected the congress to do. There was no confusion or double talk about it. Further, if they don't do it properly, we will vote every single one of them out and replace them with someone who will.”

I wasn't going to respond to this post because the statement that people were elected to play brinksmanship with the economy is just so radical and irresponsible. In fact, it may be that the Tea Party blogger wrote with an understanding of the background that supports the statement. That background ought to be discussed.

The fact is that damage to the credit standing of the United States will benefit some with very deep pockets. Milton Friedman, the Nobel Laureate (deceased), wrote the economic theory that drives the social and economic foundations of the Libertarian movement and the Tea Party. Dr. Friedman theorized that the economy of the United States is too strong and expensive to be competitive in the world markets and needs to be weakened in a way that will bring down the costs of labor. He asserted that the greatest portion of wealth ought to be in the hands of a small business and investment class with a much smaller middle class to support technology and the business operations with a high rate of unemployment to ensure a surplus workforce to keep the wages low. Anything here sound familiar?

During one lecture, Dr. Friedman overheard a nearby student comment: "My g-d, he's talking about turning us into a third world country!" Dr. Friedman responded, "And what's wrong with that?"

The problem with accomplishing Dr. Friedman's vision by damaging the credit standing of the United States is that this would create unintended consequences to all small and medium sized businesses that would like to expand into those international markets. Although the dollar would be cheap with a poor credit rating that would encourage the purchase of American goods, credit would be expensive and probably very constricted, making it difficult to impossible for small to medium sized businesses to tool up to meet the potential international demand. Now, multinational corporations with significant foreign holdings and resources would be able to benefit by the cheap dollar environment. They could self-finance, produce in the new low cost United States economy and engage in a vigorous international trade. The rest of us? Well, we will be riding the coattails of that very small percentage of our nation that we are told currently holds 90% of the national wealth. A lot of us will lose our homes and businesses with an economy lacking the resources for growth while the banks and bondholders get fat on expensive credit.

It seems to me that the very same people who finance the Tea Party and often speak through the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute have put one over on us and have convinced some that, unlike businesses and families, a bad credit rating can’t hurt the great United States economy. It is not enough to be a conservative or to have principles supporting small government. It is necessary to understand the likely consequences of our actions, despite what others may be saying.

So, dear blogger, I hope that you own a very large corporation or at least have very close ties with one, because this game of damaging our national credit standing is just grossly irresponsible to the rest of us who would like to make a living.