{"id":6320,"date":"2011-07-31T13:44:49","date_gmt":"2011-07-31T12:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=6320"},"modified":"2011-07-31T13:44:49","modified_gmt":"2011-07-31T12:44:49","slug":"why-is-the-most-powerful-nation-on-earth-powerless-to-resolve-its-debt-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=6320","title":{"rendered":"Why is the most powerful nation on earth powerless to resolve its debt crisis?"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>&#8220;The crisis is ostensibly about raising America&#8217;s debt ceiling from  its present $14.3 trillion (\u00a38.7tn). But in reality the crisis is not  about the ceiling but a consequence of the polarisation of <a title=\"More from guardian.co.uk on US politics\" href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/us-politics\">US politics<\/a> that began under George W Bush and hardened with the arrival of Barack  Obama in the White House and the birth a few months later of the <a title=\"More from guardian.co.uk on Tea Party movement\" href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/tea-party-movement\">Tea Party movement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Larry  Sabato, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia, said:  &#8220;This is a very unusual place in American history. No one in my field  can remember circumstances like this. You have people in Congress who  will not sit down and compromise. Compromise is a dirty word. But  representative government is impossible without compromise. The  Republicans and Democrats are voting as separate units, which they have  rarely done in the US.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The crisis is being driven by a hardcore  of about 20 House members affiliated to the Tea Party. They are prepared  to put at risk the US&#8217;s faltering economic recovery \u2013 and economies  around the world \u2013 to push the Tea Party ideal of small government, in  particular cutting federal spending. Martin Frost, a former Democratic  congressman from Texas, writing on the Politico website, compared the  Tea Party to the Taliban in its drive for ideological purity, lack of  respect for tradition and unwillingness to compromise.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>An extract from an article in today&#8217;s &#8220;Observer&#8221; newspaper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The crisis is ostensibly about raising America&#8217;s debt ceiling from its present $14.3 trillion (\u00a38.7tn). But in reality the crisis is not about the ceiling but a consequence of the polarisation of US politics that began under George W Bush and hardened with the arrival of Barack Obama in the White House and the birth [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6320"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6325,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6320\/revisions\/6325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}