Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

John Adams

Argument in defense of soldiers in the

Boston Massacre trials, 1770

The heated debate over the national debt limit, which has kept Congress tied up in knots for months, finally came to an end last week. The partisanship and rancor accelerated to astonishing levels toward the end as each side frantically alleged that their opponents were trying to derail the American economy.

It seemed that everyone was running around, with hands in the air, crying that the sky was falling. The Democrats in Congress were claiming that the nation’s debt ceiling must be raised in order to prevent an unprecedented government default and a downgrade in the historically impeccable U.S. debt ratings. Their arguments evoked images of the recent financial crises in Greece and Ireland; or even worse, senior citizens across the country peering into their mailboxes for their social security checks and finding them empty. On the other hand, Republicans claimed that the Democrats were just bluffing about the whole debt ceiling thing. There was no immediate crisis looming if the debt ceiling wasn’t raised on time. It didn’t matter and it was the wrong focal point anyway, they said. Rather the focus should be on slashing government spending, balancing the budget and reducing the national debt.

The two sides in Congress fought and bickered over this for months discussing little else. Meanwhile the apocalyptic August 2 deadline drew ever nearer. The nation’s economy, hardly a bulwark of confidence at this point, was becoming more and more jittery with each day.

Finally, a bill was passed on the very eve of the deadline. But while the bill raised the debt ceiling, it did little else. It was so watered down, tentative, conditional and uncertain that it provided little comfort to the nervous markets which just continued to plummet in the aftermath.

This do-little bill did accomplish one thing, though: it cast light on the real motivations of each side. Less worried about a default and credit downgrade, the Democrats were more concerned with being able to go on with the business of spending as usual. The Republicans, on the other hand, were worried less about applying the axe to government spending and balancing the budget than they were about the balancing act they had to perform for tea party constituents who, all the while, were holding sharpened axes in their hands. If nothing else, the diluted agreement reached by Congress last week betrays the fact that both sides were motivated, not by solving the problem at hand, but merely by a desire to avoid rocking the boat too much before election day next year.

Still, for all the talk that took place on the day after the bill was passed, you’d have thought that it was an historic compromise. Both sides claimed that the crisis had been averted. The bill had paved the way for a return to economic health for the country, they said.

But these assurances rang hollow to the American people. The sun had not set on the day after the bill’s passage before liberal voices in the country began postulating that it was a horrible time to cut government spending. Rather, a new stimulus package is needed now to bring the economy out of its slump, they said. The nation’s conservatives, on the other hand, were dissatisfied that the bill didn’t do enough to cut spending and balance the budget. Instead they felt it made only token attempts at doing so; too little too late.

Then on Friday, amid this maelstrom of debate, the truth shined forth through the clouds of politics. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the truth that anyone wanted to hear. Only days after being told that the crisis had been averted and the wolf was no longer at the door, Standard and Poors took a look at the whole thing and declared that the emperor had no clothes. The prestigious debt rating company blew its whistle and downgraded the U.S. debt for the first time since the rating system was established.

Suddenly, the gig was up. They’d called a spade a spade. It was exactly the crisis that Congress had just claimed to have averted. That stubborn wolf hadn’t left the door at all. He was still there and threatening to blow down the house.

There is an ironic beauty in the fact that it took the free market to bring this reality check to the nation and its leaders. It is nothing short of pure comic justice that an independent, private-sector, debt rating corporation is imposing regulation on our all-powerful federal government simply by virtue of asserting the plain, unpoliticized facts into the equation.

Now Congress and the President are left with that awkward problem of accounting for the past six months. They should have been leading the way out of this very real crisis with long-term vision and a sacred sense of responsibility that transcends election year politics. Instead they have spent their idle time bickering and infighting over meaningless trivialities. The hard-won deal for which they were so proud has accomplished absolutely nothing.

No matter how you massage and bend the truth, no matter how you politicize the issues, no matter how skilled you are at putting up a bluff or calling one, the truth will remain. Sooner or later, the bill always comes due. And it came due this week with an amazing disregard for politics and passions and in full view of the American public.

Now that the members of Congress are in recess and are free to return to their home districts, we can only hope that constituents all across the country will be giving each of them some stern schooling on the difference between fact and fiction. These folks seem to need reminding, now more than ever, that facts are stubborn things.