GOP Madness 
 
 They’re threatening an economic shutdown that will cause financial hardship and even ruin for millions of Americans. So let’s call these House Republicans what they are, says Jon Favreau. 
 
 The most terrifying speech I ever wrote for President Obama was one he never gave. On July 30, 2011, I began drafting an address to the nation about what would happen if Congress refused to raise the debt limit within 48 hours, thus denying the United States Treasury the ability to pay our country’s bills for the first time in 235 years. 
 
 Suddenly, all of the administration’s warnings from the prior few weeks became real. Without enough cash on hand, the government would be forced to delay indefinitely Social Security checks, the ones our grandparents depend on to put food in their mouths and a roof over their heads. Veterans who served this country would stop receiving the benefits they earned, and the men and women in uniform risking their lives for us wouldn’t get paychecks. 
 
 Every company in America that does business with the federal government, of which there are hundreds of thousands, would not see their contracts paid on schedule, an effect that would ripple down to their employees and their families. With each passing day, making our debt payments to businesses and governments around the world would become more and more difficult. When the world stopped seeing the United States as a safe and reliable place to invest, the cost of borrowing money would skyrocket for every single American—whether it’s a home mortgage or a personal credit card. And those high borrowing costs, coupled with billions in delayed income for seniors, soldiers, small-business owners, and their employees, almost surely would send our economy and the world’s into a crisis even deeper and more dramatic than the Great Recession of 2009. 
 
 Fortunately, the draft speech never left my computer screen. The next day, at the last possible moment, the House of Representatives voted to provide the Treasury with the ability to pay our bills. But their decision to negotiate at the brink, under a dark cloud of uncertainty, still led to real economic damage: the stock market had the worst single day since the 2008 financial crisis, plunging 635 points. Billions in higher borrowing costs were added to the national debt. Economic growth slowed. Job growth slowed. And for the very first time, the United States lost its triple-A credit rating. 
 
 The obvious lesson from this entirely self-inflicted fiasco is never, ever to treat America’s bill-paying authority as a bargaining chip in political negotiations. The president has learned this lesson. House Republicans have not. And so, incredibly—insanely—we find ourselves a few weeks away from the same self-inflicted fiasco just two years later. 
 
 Why? 
 
 Part of the reason, I think, has to do with the dull and confusing language we use to talk about this issue. Who the hell knows what raising the debt limit really means, anyway? While not in any way true, a higher debt ceiling sounds like a green light to pile up more debt. It suggests the authority to engage in more spending and borrowing. So when a pollster asks people whether raising the debt limit should accompany a negotiation over more spending cuts, of course they’ll say yes! If the pollster adds “even if it risks default,” many people will still say yes, because what the hell does “default” mean? It may sound vaguely threatening, but certainly not as frightening as the scenario I described in the draft 2011 speech. 
 
 Contrast all that confusion with the phrase “government shutdown.” People generally know what a government shutdown looks like. We have historical context, as it’s happened before. We can visualize closed buildings and offices; services halted and benefits withheld. And by a healthy majority, the American people do not support the House Republicans’ latest attempt to put us through a government shutdown just so they can deny affordable health insurance to the sick and poor for one more year. 
 
 Well, a failure to raise the debt limit would inflict far more pain on far more people than a government shutdown. Breaching the debt limit would trigger an economic shutdown of epic proportions. The president used that phrase, “economic shutdown,” in a speech last week. He should keep using it. The White House should say it every day, as should everyone who wants to avoid such a calamity. Because it happens to be true. 
 
 A vote to raise the debt limit will not cost taxpayers a single dime. A vote to raise the debt limit will not grow our deficit by a single dime. A vote to raise the debt limit will not give the president or Congress the ability to spend any new money whatsoever. These are incontrovertible facts. A failure to raise the debt limit, however, will lead to an economic shutdown that will cause financial hardship and even ruin for millions of Americans. This, too, is an incontrovertible fact. 
 
 Republicans are still whining about Dan Pfeiffer’s analogy that compared their list of debt-ceiling demands to someone negotiating with a bomb strapped to their chest. Perhaps they prefer Mitch McConnell’s 2011 declaration that the global economy is a “hostage that’s worth ransoming.” Either way, the Republicans should help us more aptly describe a situation where they demand we accept their ideological agenda in exchange for not wreaking havoc on our lives. 
 
 “The president must negotiate!” Really? Because in most negotiations, both sides stand to gain something. In this negotiation, the House Republicans get to pass policies on which Mitt Romney ran and lost, while the president gets to live in a country that isn’t suffering from yet another economic calamity, a country that isn’t seen as the world’s superpower turned deadbeat nation. How wonderful for him. What a shining example of bipartisan cooperation to be celebrated by the Washington media. 
 
 What a joke. 
 
 From budgets and taxes to Syria and Iran, this president has shown that he will negotiate on almost any issue, with anyone, at any time. But he will not—he cannot—negotiate with a roving band of anarchists who say, “Build our oil pipeline or the troops don’t get paid. Give us tax cuts for the rich or seniors don’t get their Social Security checks. Let insurance companies do as they please or the economy gets it.” ||||| WASHINGTON — Ending three years of brinkmanship in which the threat of a devastating default on the nation’s debt was used to wring conservative concessions from President Obama, the House on Tuesday voted to raise the government’s borrowing limit until March 2015, without any conditions. 
 
 The vote — 221 to 201 — relied almost entirely on Democrats in the Republican-controlled House to carry the measure and represented the first debt ceiling increase since 2009 that was not attached to other legislation. Only 28 Republicans voted yes, and only two Democrats voted no. 
 
 Simply by holding the vote, Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio effectively ended a three-year Tea Party-inspired era of budget showdowns that had raised the threat of default and government shutdowns, rattled economic confidence and brought serious scrutiny from other nations questioning Washington’s ability to govern. In the process, though, Mr. Boehner also set off a series of reprisals from fellow Republican congressmen and outside groups that showcased the party’s deep internal divisions. 
 
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 “He gave the president exactly what he wanted, which is exactly what the Republican Party said we did not want,” said a Republican representative, Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, who last year unsuccessfully tried to rally enough support to derail Mr. Boehner’s re-election as speaker. “It’s going to really demoralize the base.” 
 
 The vote was a victory for President Obama, Democrats and those Senate Republicans who have argued that spending money for previously incurred obligations was essential for the financial standing of the federal government. “Tonight’s vote is a positive step in moving away from the political brinkmanship that’s a needless drag on our economy,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said in a statement. 
 
 But outside Republican groups were sharply critical of the speaker. Both the Club for Growth and Heritage Action for America, for example, had put out a “key vote” alert urging members to vote against the measure. 
 
 “A clean debt ceiling is a complete capitulation on the speaker’s part and demonstrates that he has lost the ability to lead the House of Representatives, let alone his own party,” said Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots. “It is time for him to go.” 
 
 Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, commended the speaker and promised to pass the bill as soon as possible. “We’re happy to see the House is legislating the way they should have legislated for a long time,” he said. 
 
 But Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, said Tuesday in a statement that he planned to object to any attempt to raise the debt ceiling with a minimum of 51 votes, instead of requiring 60 votes — meaning at least five Republicans would have to vote with the full Democratic caucus — to get to final passage. 
 
 “If Republicans stand together, we can demand meaningful spending restraint to help pull our nation back from the fiscal and economic cliff,” Mr. Cruz said. 
 
 Mr. Boehner stunned House Republicans on Tuesday morning when he dropped a package that would have tied the debt ceiling increase to a repeal of cuts to military retirement pensions that had been approved in December and announced he would put a “clean” debt ceiling increase up for a vote. 
 
 Enough Republicans had balked at that package when it was presented Monday night to convince the speaker he had no choice but to turn to the Democratic minority. 
 
 For Mr. Boehner it was a potentially momentous decision. Conservative activists, including the Tea Party Patriots, FreedomWorks, L. Brent Bozell’s ForAmerica and commentators on the website RedState.com are all circulating petitions to end Mr. Boehner’s speakership. 
 
 And it was Mr. Boehner who raised such high expectations around the debt limit. In 2011, he established what has become known as the “Boehner Rule”: any debt ceiling increase was supposed to be offset by an equivalent spending cut. 
 
 “This is a lost opportunity,” the speaker conceded. “We could have sat down and worked together in a bipartisan manner to find cuts and reforms that are greater than increasing the debt limit. I am disappointed, to say the least.” 
 
 The ramifications for Mr. Boehner are unclear. The speaker’s supporters commended him for shepherding through an increase in the government’s borrowing authority quickly and with as little damage as could be expected for his party, for the economy and the country. They said President Obama left leaders no choice once he dug in and refused to negotiate a deficit reduction deal attached to a debt-ceiling increase. 
 
 For those few Republicans who supported the speaker, however, there were few good lessons to draw from the vote. “I am disappointed we are not engaged in a more serious debate today,” said Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, the only Republican who spoke in favor of the debt limit bill. “But as disappointed as I am, I cannot in good conscience let the Democrats’ refusal to engage lead to a default” on the nation’s debt. 
 
 In a closed-door session Monday night, Representative Andy Harris, Republican of Maryland, accused the speaker of being in the pockets of the insurance industry, a charge that stirred outrage among many of his colleagues. Representative Tom Cotton, who is seeking a Senate seat in Arkansas, told Republican leaders they had put him into an impossible political position with his state’s conservative voters. He would lose support if he voted for a debt ceiling increase, but he would also lose support if he voted against the military pension restoration then attached to the debt bill. 
 
 The 28 Republicans who supported the bill were a coalition cobbled together from Republican leadership, moderates, and retiring members. Notably, however, not all of the top Republican leadership team voted for the measure. Representatives Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, the No. 4 House Republican, and Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the party’s 2012 vice-presidential nominee, both voted “no.” 
 
 That left allies of the speaker fuming that political considerations had left Republicans with no policy cover to accompany the debt ceiling increase. 
 
 Representative Ted Yoho, a freshman Republican from Florida who voted in his first days in office to depose Mr. Boehner, was in a forgiving mood. “With that many people and that many personalities in there, it’s hard to bring them all together on a common cause,” he said. 
 
 Most Republicans appeared content to move beyond the debt ceiling fight, focus on the 2014 campaign. 
 
 “Hopefully we can win the Senate, and we can have a completely different conversation,” said Representative James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican running for the Senate.
– In 2011, White House speechwriter Jon Favreau penned some ominous words predicting the disastrous effects of a failure to raise the debt limit, including indefinite delays on Social Security checks and halted troop pay and veterans' benefits. President Obama never had to give the speech, because the debt ceiling was raised "at the last possible moment," Favreau recounts in the Daily Beast—but the showdown still caused serious issues like the downgrading of the US credit rating. "The obvious lesson from this entirely self-inflicted fiasco is never, ever to treat America’s bill-paying authority as a bargaining chip in political negotiations," Favreau writes. But House Republicans haven't learned the lesson, and once again they're holding the economy hostage to their demands. Because of the language we use to discuss it, many people think that raising the ceiling is "a green light to pile up more debt," while "breaching the debt limit would trigger an economic shutdown of epic proportions." So let's call Republicans what they are, says Favreau: "Hostage takers, unrepresentative of the once-proud Republican Party, and unfit to govern the greatest nation on Earth." Click for his full column. Meanwhile, in the New York Times, Paul Krugman agrees: Failure to hike the limit would be a "financial catastrophe," not only returning us to a likely recession but also shaking faith in US bonds—the "bedrock on which the world financial system rests."