Media Matters:
Fox News is encouraging Republicans to once again hold up a routine increase in the debt ceiling to exact spending cuts in deficit reduction negotiations with Democrats, though the same tactic previously cost the government billions and resulted in a credit-rating downgrade.The word "though" in that sentence is incorrect. It should be "because."
Fox News is encouraging debt-ceiling brinkmanship because a prolonged fight over the debt ceiling would cause harm to the economy -- harm that Fox News thinks would be blamed on Democrats, because the president is a Democrat, and because the people at Fox and other Republicans have portrayed Democrats as the party of government.
This is not recklessness -- it's calculation, or possibly miscalculation, based on naked self-interest.
See also my previous post.
