TEAR THE ROOF OFF THE SUCKER!

There's nothing like listening to George Clinton and that unmistakable P-Funk sound. That slamming baseline laid down by Bootsy Collins. That work that the late Eddie Hazel put in on the guitar. Those magical fingers of the great Bernie Worrell on the keyboards. The singing, and all of that uncontrollable energy. The wild vibe of George. There's sense of freedom, of body and spirit, which inhabits the music. It evokes, at least for me, memories of both the church and the club.

And it's downright infectious.

Just the other day I was winding down and decided to listen to some music. I grabbed a brew and for some reason--I wasn't really looking for it-- the P-Funk popped up on my play list. Not just any P-Funk song. But one I hadn't listened to in a while. As I downed that brew and started to chill, I heard these lyrics, carried by a pulsating base and on the backs of a chorus:

Tear the roof off

We're gonna tear the roof off the mother sucker

Tear the roof off

ON THE SUBJECT OF ROOFS

Interestingly enough, the subject of roofs has reigned the last few weeks. Or to be more precise, the talk has been about ceilings. Not just any roof--or ceiling, if you must. But a specific one: The statutorily imposed lid on the amount of debt that the Federal government can have outstanding. The current limit or ceiling is $24,8 trillion, and all the talk has been about whether that roof needs to be raised, temporarily suspended or, in a P-funk type move, just completely torn off.

Earlier estimates suggested that stuff would really start popping around October 18th, 2021. That's the day on which it was thought that Treasury Department would lack sufficient revenues and cash on hand to pay all the bills. The result, as were constantly told, would be a default on the debt. A recent move by the Senate to temporarily raise the roof by $480 billion kicked the can down the road a bit. Barring any policy intervention, the day of default is pegged at December 3rd, rather than October 18th.

WHAT HAPPENS IF DEFAULT IS NOT DEFEATED?

One thing for sure is this: There's a widespread consensus that an actual default would wreak social and financial havoc. A default would mean that the federal government's ability to carry out some of its basic functions would be imperiled. Households and individuals who rely on all sorts of public assistance to help meet their basic needs could see that assistance go up in smoke within a matter of days.

50 million social security recipients could experience a delay in their monthly payments. These payments--averaging about $1,600 per month-- make up, on average, more than half of all the income flowing into their households. Missing or delayed payments would be nothing to sneeze at.

60 million people are on Medicare, 75 million are enrolled in Medicaid, and 7 million kids receive coverage through the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). If the bomb goes off, then, hundreds of millions could find themselves without any health coverage. All of this, mind you, when we're still amid a pandemic!

And none of the foregoing considers how a default would further impoverish--even if temporarily-- the 42 million people on the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) Or the ten million people receiving housing assistance. Or the 30 million kids on the School Lunch Program.

Over 1.4 million active military personnel might have to wait to get that check.

What's more, in the case of a default, I'd expect to see the politically and economically powerful demanding that the Treasury prioritize who gets paid first and, not surprisingly, that lenders be allowed to head to the front of the line. In this situation, bondholders would go to the front, while folk dependent upon all sorts of assistance from our tattered social safety net would hold up the rear. Whether the Treasury could actually do something like this is another story. Still, it's hard not to imagine the well-off using all their might to protect their financial interests and hollering, so to speak, "run me my money." It' not hard to imagine them engaging in actions that say, in effect, "bond-holder first, the least last."

And then, of course, a default could generate a substantial loss in GDP, an increase in the unemployment rate, a hit to household wealth, plummeting stock prices, rising interest rates, and a global recession.

Again, all of this would be taking place at the very moment that folk are struggling with getting up from under the economic and political pain unleashed and deepened by the ascendancy of authoritarianism and anti-scientism.

RAZE THE ROOF

What we need to do is eliminate the debt ceiling. Get rid of it. For good. It has become nothing more than a weapon that the apostles of austerity seize upon to whack away at a government that they believe encourages personal irresponsibility by "social spending" and that puts a chokehold on so-called "free-markets" via putatively excessive regulation. The debt ceiling is the gat they pull out of their pocket to extract spending concessions. This is one of the ways they strap up to fight for the realization of the minimalist state. It doesn't matter that none of this about additional spending; that it's only about paying for commitments already approved and committed to. Their goal is triggering an image in the mind of the public of reckless liberals and progressives who are taking all of us down the road to perdition. What we're witnessing is manufactured chaos with dangerous possibilities.

It's way past time to do whatever we can to disarm this group. It's way past time to go P-Funk on this thing:

Tear the roof off

Tear the roof off the mother sucker

Tear the roof off

Catch you on the flip side,

Doc Greene