TWO CAN PLAY AT THIS GAME.   Pajamas Media commentator Jazz Shaw suggests the Democrats are in a good position to mau-mau the Republicans should nonrenewal of the debt ceiling require the Treasury to delay checks.

As I recently wrote in piece titled “Plan Nine from the DNC,” there are political opportunities aplenty waiting in all of those bookkeeping nooks and crannies, assuming the Democrats are willing to play politics with something like this. (Not that I’m insinuating Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s crew would ever stoop so low, mind you.) But if you stop and think about it, it’s a fairly simple matter to fail to send out a check or two to some medical supply companies. And when that happens, the Democrats find a young boy named Timmy in a wheelchair that didn’t get his replacement oxygen bottle this week, and suddenly he and his bedraggled, single working mom are instant television stars in political advertisements which run non-stop until the Republicans finally cave in.

But the Democrats would never actually do that… right?

Perhaps the major parties understand the problem of mutual assured destruction. Illinois, solidly under Democratic control, has been playing cash-flow games with clinics and other vendors for years.  Their antics have induced Northern Illinois University president John Peters to publicly object to University employees being asked to prepay medical expenses that are covered by the state-endorsed insurance plans.    To the best of my knowledge, no Republican has produced an advertisement showing the consequences of Democratic austerity measures, which have affected first responders and snowplow drivers, as well as university employees.