Blink

There are oodles of pundits who think they know how the current U.S. federal financial impasse will turn out.  Right now it does look as though this year’s government funding (aka the “continuing resolution”) and the raising of our government’s debt ceiling on October 17^th are going to be rolled together into one gigantic fiscal conundrum.  Both the Republicans and the Democrats are vying for media headlines in order to force their opponents to capitulate.  It’s kinda like that old children’s game of fake-slapping of another’s face ... trying to get the other to blink.

The Republicans’ feints involve the House of Representatives passing a series of funding resolutions and then pointing out how the Senate won’t even consider them … even if this means helping to cure a child with cancer or the opening of the World War II Memorial to returning veterans.  The Democrats’ ploys include bellicose statements on their refusal to negotiate, attempts to talk down the stock market, and the use of their allies in the media to smear Republicans with playground taunts.  Both sides also keep pointing to polling surveys, however skewed, that support their positions.

Who’s going to flinch first?  I’ll be damned if I know.  If I could extrapolate President Obama’s behavior when dealing with international adversaries, I would easily expect him to back down first.  But for some strange reason, he is much more resolute here at home than he is on the world stage.  Maybe if Speaker Boehner could get Iran’s new President, Hassan Rouhani, to make the Republicans' fiscal case for him?