There is even more evidence this government shutdown is doing significant damage to the Republican brand. District level polling by PPP for Moveon.org shows Democrats now have lead in enough districts to take the House. Currently Democrats are 17 seats away from a majority. From Moveon.org:

The surveys, commissioned and paid for by MoveOn.org Political Action, show Republican incumbents behind among registered voters in head-to-head contests with generic Democratic challengers in 17 districts. In four other districts, the incumbent Republican falls behind a generic Democratic candidate after respondents are told that the Republican incumbent supported the government shutdown. In only three districts do Republican incumbents best generic Democratic challengers after voters are told the incumbent supported the government shutdown.

Twenty four districts were surveyed: CA-31, CO-06, FL-02, FL-10, FL-13, IA-03, IA-04, IL-13, KY-06, MI-01, MI-07,MI-11, NY-19, OH-14, PA-07, PA-08, WI-07, CA-10, NY-11, NY-23, VA-02, CA-21, NV-03, OH-06.

Obviously, this is a poll conducted for a partisan group so it should be taken with a grain of salt. It also test named incumbents against generic Democrats. A generic candidate will often do better than a named candidate because a “generic candidate” by definition has no personal baggage. There are no embarrassing dick pics of a “generic” candidate floating around.

That said all the public polling data over the past two weeks shows this shutdown is hurting the Republican party. The only real question is how badly.

Speaker John Boehner said in an interview with ABC News on Sunday that the United States government is on the path to defaulting on its debt . A default on US bonds would likely cause another financial crisis given the global financial system’s dependence on the stability of US treasury bonds both to hedge risks and backstop currencies. A default would trigger a mark down and likely collapse of numerous financial institutions which rely on current values of the bonds. A major mark down of US debt would also likely throw the derivative market into chaos given the low probability of the event and subsequent betting by speculators. Boehner claimed President Obama would be chiefly responsible for default due to an unwillingness to negotiate.

BOEHNER: My goal here is not to have the United States default on their debt. My goal here is to have a serious conversation about those things that are driving the deficit and driving the debt up. And the president’s refusal to sit down and have a conversation about this is putting our nation at risk of default.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So are you saying that if he continues to refuse to negotiate, the country is going to default?

BOEHNER: That’s the path we’re on. The president canceled his trip to Asia. I assumed — well, maybe he wants to have a conversation. I decided to stay here in Washington this weekend. He knows what my phone number is. All he has to do is call.

Obama has been equally steadfast so far in claiming that he won’t negotiate further concessions to Republicans over the debt ceiling bill. Obama has demanded a clean debt ceiling vote which he noted is not a favor to him but just responsible governing. Though that is a fair argument it is also somewhat problematic given that the Obama Administration has previously negotiated on the debt ceiling (as have other presidents).

Boehner said explicitly in his ABC interview that “We are not going to pass a clean debt limit.” He claimed there were not enough votes in the House to pass it though he likely meant not a majority of Republican votes. In any case the two positions are irreconcilable. If Obama and Boehner both hold to their stated positions the country will default on its debt obligations and likely trigger a financial crisis.

As we enter day 7 of the government shutdown it seems we are not just without a functioning federal government but may soon be without a functional financial system.

Beginning of a new week.

Government Shutdown, Days 5 and 6

- Treasury states government is “playing with fire” and Republicans play damage control on Sunday talk shows. In other words, nothing important happened today.

- On Saturday, both parties passed a measure in the House that “retroactively” paid furloughed employees when the government reopens. Now, about that reopening…

- Barack Obama: “Take that vote. Stop this farce. End this shutdown now.”

- John Boehner: The US is heading for default “if Obama doesn’t negotiate”

- Commerce Department secretary Penny Pritzker: The shutdown is already hurting businesses

- There is a growing danger that Tropical Storm Karen can be upgraded to a Hurricane and hit Louisiana at a time where the National Weather Service is down because of the shutdown. However, Karen has “dissipated”, which is good news.

- Pentagon states that most furloughed Defense employees will be going back to work.

- What would a US default look like it?

- The A-to-Z dictionary on all things shutdown.

- “While the country remains shut down because of irresponsible House Republican hostage-taking, progressive members of Congress and working families are looking ahead to fight against any proposed grand “bargain” that would include benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare. Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) spoke Thursday before working families and allies, specifically rejecting any such cuts.”

International Developments

- Navy SEALs have launched operations in both Somalia and Libya that were a bit successful, they captured one top al-Qaeda leader in Libya. It might backfire on the US since the consequences haven’t been in their favor. For instance, the Libyan PM demands why they were in his country, even though it’s a key stronghold for militants (remember that capitalist coup we did? Sure did the trick!)

- “Under tight deadlines, the experts, who arrived in Damascus Tuesday, will first have to destroy the Syrian regime’s ability to manufacture chemical weapons by Nov. 1”

- To paraphrase Naomi Klein, the fast food “brand extension“ has its sights on Africa.

- A recent analysis over the German elections.

- “Two suicide bombers targeted Shi’ite Muslims in Iraq on Saturday, killing at least 32 people on the eve of the anniversary of one of their imams’ deaths, police and medics said on Saturday.” [cont'd.]

Photo by Slack12 Creative Commons license