On Friday, Republicans deployed two talking points - one new, one old - in response to the grim news that the U.S. economy added no new jobs in August. The same GOP leaders who in January gave credit to the "newly elected House Republican Majority" for the economy's strong performance in the fourth quarter of 2010 shifted the blame to President Obama for the grim August numbers. But as they've been saying for months, Republican propagandists insisted that the slow recovery of the American economy is due to "uncertainty" in Washington.
They should know. Because with the debt ceiling crisis they manufactured and the ensuing U.S. credit downgrade it produced, Republicans in Congress are responsible for the economic uncertainty they pretend to decry.
While RNC chairman Reince Priebus lamented that "America's job creators cannot hire workers while handcuffed by regulations, crushed by mandates and threatened with taxes," House Speaker John Boehner put the GOP's "uncertainty" sound bite front and center in response to the persistent 9.1% unemployment rate in August:

"Private-sector job growth continues to be undermined by the triple threat of higher taxes, more failed 'stimulus' spending, and excessive federal regulations. Together, these Washington policies have created a fog of uncertainty that's left small businesses unable to hire and American families worried about the future...
I'm hopeful the White House will take this opportunity to work with us to end the uncertainty facing families and small businesses, and create a better environment for long-term economic growth and private-sector job creation."

If that sounds familiar, it should. Because back in December, Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell repeatedly demanded the immediate extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to "reduce the uncertainty that's affecting employers all across our country."
But sadly for Speaker Boehner, analysts reached a different conclusion about the source of uncertainty fueling the disappointing August jobs report.
As Reuters explained, the Republicans' debt ceiling debacle was the likely culprit:

A worsening debt crisis in Europe and an acrimonious political fight over U.S. debt, which culminated in the downgrade of the country's AAA credit rating by Standard & Poor's, ignited a massive stock market sell-off last month and sent business and consumer confidence tumbling.

"The extreme uncertainty over the outcome of the debt-ceiling debate probably did extra damage to the August (job) figures," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.

The Christian Science Monitor echoed that conclusion:

Why has the job market cooled so much? An important factor, many economists say, is that signals from government lately have been hurting rather than helping confidence. The protracted talks over the nation's debt ceiling this summer appeared to dampen the spirits of consumers and businesses alike.

The New York Times similarly revealed that "nonfarm payrolls numbers were unchanged after a prolonged increase in economic anxiety in August that began with the brinksmanship in Washington's debt-ceiling debate, followed by the country's loss of its triple-A credit rating, stock market whiplash and renewed concerns about Europe's sovereign debt." Economists, the Times noted, blamed "the heightened uncertainty over the economy's direction for the slow pace of job creation, saying political deadlock was in effect creating economic paralysis." And while the AP reported that "consumer and business confidence has been sapped by the political standoff over the federal debt limit, a downgrade in the U.S. government's credit rating and a debt crisis in Europe," MarketWatch explained:

David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities International Inc., who had expected a weak report, blamed it on a "financial wall of worry" in early August.
Stocks fell sharply during the fractious debate in Congress over raising the debt ceiling and after the U.S. lost its triple-A rating from Standard & Poor's.
"Things went into a dead stall," Resler said. Businesses decided to "sit back and see how things shake out."

For its part, S&P left little doubt where blame lay for their downgrade of U.S. credit. Noting that "new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options" and that "reaching an agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and will remain a contentious and fitful process," Standard & Poor's concluded:

"We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act."

As for the uncertainty the debt ceiling debacle produced, S&P pointed the finger at the GOP, the only party willing to countenance a default by the United States:

A Standard & Poor's director said for the first time Thursday that one reason the United States lost its triple-A credit rating was that several lawmakers expressed skepticism about the serious consequences of a credit default -- a position put forth by some Republicans. Without specifically mentioning Republicans, S&P senior director Joydeep Mukherji said the stability and effectiveness of American political institutions were undermined by the fact that "people in the political arena were even talking about a potential default," Mukherji said. "That a country even has such voices, albeit a minority, is something notable," he added. "This kind of rhetoric is not common amongst AAA sovereigns."

But it was commonplace among the Tea Party hardliners of the Republican Party, and has been for months.
Within hours of November's midterm voting, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled the GOP would oppose boosting the debt ceiling needed to avoid a global economic panic unless there were "strings attached." Appearing on Meet the Press just days after the GOP won its new House majority, South Carolina Senator Jim Demint made clear what strings he had in mind. Asked if he'll support raising the debt ceiling, Demint responded:

"No, I won't. Not unless this debt ceiling is combined with some path to balancing our budget, returning to 2008 spending levels, repealing Obamacare. We have got to demonstrate that we have the resolve to cut spending ... we cannot allow that to go through the Congress without showing the American people that we are going to balance the budget, and we're not going to continue to raise the debt in America."

And despite warnings in January from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner ("Failure to increase the limit would be deeply irresponsible"), Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee ("If we get to the point where you've damaged the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity") and even Speaker John Boehner ("That would be a financial disaster"), the GOP's Tea Party caucus made clear the debt ceiling would be raised only if their demands were met or not at all.
In April, Sarah Palin declared, "Hells no. I would not vote to increase that debt ceiling." She joined her Minnesota twin Michele Bachmann in decrying Geithner's warnings at "outright blatant lies" and "falsehoods." For her part Bachmann joined Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) and fellow GOP White House hopeful Tim Pawlenty in opposing a debt ceiling increase despite the warnings of the virtually the entire economic and business establishment.
This spring, Michele Bachmann declared we shouldn't raise the debt ceiling, but we use the revenue still coming in to pay off creditors first and whatever we think most important second. That way, we "don't violate our credit rating" and "prioritize our spending." In response, a stunned Ezra Klein of the described Bachmann's fantasy as "the scariest thing I've ever heard on television."

It makes perfect sense unless you, like me, had spent the previous few days talking to economists, investors and economic policymakers about what could happen if we start playing games with the debt ceiling. Their answers were across-the-board apocalyptic. If the U.S. government is so incapable of solving its political problems that it can't come to an agreement on the debt ceiling, they said, that's basically the end of the United States as the world's reserve currency. We won't be considered safe enough to serve as the investment of last resort. We would lose the most important advantage our economy has in the global financial system -- and we'd probably lose it forever. Skyrocketing interest rates would slow our economy and, in real terms, make it even harder to pay back our debt, which would in turn send interest rates going even higher. It's an economic death spiral we associate with third-world countries, not with the United States.

By this summer, the ranks of the "default deniers" and "debt kamikazes" had swollen further. Congressmen Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Steve King (R-IA) joined Bachmann in calling the Obama administration's warnings about the August 2 deadline lies. (Not to be outdone, Sarah Palin tweeted "Obama lies, economy dies.") Georgia Rep. Paul Broun called for the debt ceiling to be lowered to $13 trillion, would necessitate immediately cutting roughly three-fourths of all federal spending. And while Arkansas Rep. Eric "Rick" Crawford announced that a default "wouldn't work for just a few days, that would work for a few years," his freshman colleague Mo Brooks (R-AL) insisted no debt ceiling increase, no problem. As the Washington Post reported:

"There should be no default on August 2," Brooks said. "In fact, our credit rating should be improved by not raising the debt ceiling."
That stands in contrast to a warning from Moody's. The rating agency said Wednesday that it might downgrade the U.S. government's top-notch credit rating, "given the rising possibility that the statutory debt limit will not be raised on a timely basis, leading to a default."

The sickening impact of the Tea Party's toxic brew on the American public has been evident for months. Thanks to reckless rhetoric and dangerous deception of many of the leading voices in the GOP, the Republican rank and file was convinced that failure to raise the nation's debt ceiling posed no threat at all.
In May, polls by CBS and Gallup showed that Americans by a 2-to-1 margin opposed raising the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling. (Among Republicans, the gap was a staggering 70% to 8%.) Only as the August 2nd deadline approached (and thanks to the increasingly dire warnings of economists, think tanks, international financial bodies and even GOP-friendly business groups), the tide began to turn. A July Pew Research survey showed Americans split as to whether raising the debt or defaulting on U.S. debt obligations was the greater concern.
But among Republicans, there was no such schism.

As another Pew Research poll revealed, Republicans in general and Tea Party supporters in particular saw no crisis if the U.S. debt limit was reached on August. Looking at "the scariest debt-ceiling poll I've seen," Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, already worried about a default that would produce a "global financial panic that makes 2008 look like a warm-up," lamented "a plurality of independents and a majority of Republicans think everything will be just dandy if we blow through Aug. 2 without raising the debt ceiling. Terrific."

Which is why surveys taken in the wake of last week's debt ceiling compromise show that Democrats are the only group that appears to support it. Not because they liked the $2.4 trillion in spending cuts, but simply because they knew the debt ceiling had to be raised. But as polls from CNN, CBS/New York Times, and Gallup showed, Republicans were not only content to think the unthinkable, but to make it happen. As USA Today summed it up:

Though Tea Party conservatives succeeded in setting the parameters of the deal, supporters of the Tea Party are among those most unhappy with the outcome: 22% of Tea Party supporters approve of the agreement, compared with 26% of Republicans and 58% of Democrats.

Those poll numbers explain why the Republican presidential field has been so willing to pander to the GOP's Tea Party base which is so willing to undermine the full faith and credit of the United States. Virtually every major Republican presidential candidate was either against raising the debt ceiling period (Bachmann, Pawlenty) or only doing so only on the condition of the passage of the Republicans' "Cut, Cap and Balance" Act (Romney). All but Jon Huntsman would apparently have voted no on last week's debt reduction deal. While Romney used the recent Iowa GOP debate to reject the deal ("I'm not going to eat Barack Obama's dog food"), the entire stage of Republican contenders raised their hands to signal they would oppose a debt compromise package that included a 10-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to new tax revenue.
Eight months after he warned his new GOP House majority that "we're going to have to deal with it as adults" and three months after he told a Tea Party gathering that "we're going to have to raise it again in the future," Speaker Boehner by early July acknowledged that at least 60 GOP Congressmen "won't vote to raise the debt ceiling under any circumstances." That's why he walked away from a $ 4 trillion debt reduction deal with President Obama that included less than 20% from new tax revenue. That's also why, facing defeat for his own bill from his own party, Speaker Boehner added a balanced budget amendment certain to be rejected in the Senate. And that's certainly why Boehner played dumb when he claimed, "This debt limit increase is [Obama's] problem."
As the debt ceiling crisis his party manufactured came to a head, John Boehner responded to warnings that his own debt reduction plan would not satisfy rating agencies by proclaiming, "That is beyond my control." Afterwards, he crowed:

"I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I'm pretty happy."

Happy, that is, about having undermined Americans' confidence in their economy and having generated months of the uncertainty in global financial markets regarding the full faith and credit of the United States.
After the August jobs report, that much is certain.