Republicans Just Guaranteed Stock Market Will Crash in November

The Republican leadership team has picked their six members (three Senators, three Representatives) to serve on the so-called Super Committee this year. The names they chose all but guarantee that there will be another debt crisis, and subsequent stock market crash, this November. From the Senate, Republicans chose Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, and Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. From the House, they chose Representatives Dave Camp and Fred Upton, both of Michigan, and Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas. Here's the run down on the six members: Senator Portman was George Bush's budget director. He is, by any fair account, of the handful of people in the world most responsible for the mess we're in, financially. It's hard to imagine a worse choice for a negotiator. Portman's role is to pretend the Bush Tax cuts had nothing to do with increasing the debt. Senator Kyl is from Arizona, which really ought to be a disqualifying statement in and of itself. He also brought into the lexicon the phrase, my words "were not intended to be a factual statement." In other words, he makes John McCain, by default, the sane senator from Arizona. Kyl's role is to be the Sunday Morning news program talking head for the group. Senator Toomey was the Club for Growth president until his election. That sounds like a great thing, right? Sure...if you're a right-winger. He voted against the debt deal, which really ought to disqualify him from serving on the committee to now enforce the debt deal he opposed. Toomey is angling for the Vice Presidential nomination, and sees this committee as his chance to throw some red meat to the conservatives whose support he needs. Representative Dave Camp is the Chair of the House Ways and Means (taxation) committee. He's not going to budge on taxes at all. His job is pretend the group is interested in negotiating. Representative Fred Upton is the Chair of the Energy and Commerce committee. He'll be the point man for collecting the bribes from lobbyists. Representative Jeb Hensarling is there because he embodies everything wrong with the Tea Party. (Hensarling is a Tea Party favorite.) I don't want to call an elected official a moron, but, well, he's a moron. Hensarling argued that FY 2009's budget deficit was Obama's fault (the budget was Bush's last budget in office.) He argued that Budget surpluses came from George Bush, when in fact they were present under Bill Clinton. He's also the congressman who complained that government needs to get its hands off his mother's Medicare (before voting to cut his mother's Medicare, of course.) When taken together, these six Republicans can guarantee one thing for the Super Congress: there will be no tax increases — not even for extremely wealthy Americans. Unfortunately for the rest of us, that means the rating agencies like Standard & Poors will almost certainly downgrade the U.S. debt again, probably around this November. I say November because that's when the Super Committee is due to report out whatever bill it comes up with. If they cannot agree on a bill (and without tax increases, there won't be a compromise), the United States will likely see another rating cut. That rating cut will do the same as the last one: send stocks tumbling, send gold soaring, and give Jim Cramer a week's worth of ulcers. I don't intend to sit around and watch the market collapse again, while idiot politicians bicker over whether or not to do the right (and popular) thing. Yes, popular. An overwhelming majority of Americans want to see tax increases on wealthy Americans as part of the "shared sacrifice" budget deal. Yeah, good luck getting that past these six Republicans. In the meantime, I think I might cash in my 401k and put it all in something less risky, like lottery tickets or groupon deals.