Imagine this for a moment. You’re on a boat in the middle of the
ocean, and you notice a hole in the hull where water is pouring in.
The boat is starting to sink. You have two choices: you could either
throw your provisions overboard or you could fix the hole. What do you
do?

You’d better hope that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor isn’t your
captain. Fixing the hole, he would argue, is difficult. You might have
to sacrifice your seat cushion or your tailored shirt to fill the gap.
You might lose that cushy luxury or be forced to wear a mismatched
tie.

It would be much better, according to Captain Cantor, to throw
everything else overboard. The oars, your life jackets, the cooler
full of food, and heck, even some expendable children and elderly
sailors. But you could keep sitting on your cushions. Without all the
extra weight, the boat will stay afloat -- at least for a couple more
minutes.

As a lead House Republican negotiator in striking a deal to raise the
nation’s debt limit -- allowing our government to pay its bills --
Cantor is steering the nation toward an economic crisis. Failure to
raise the debt limit could result in higher unemployment, force the
government to delay Social Security checks, and drastically reduce the
funding available to enforce bedrock environmental laws like the Clean
Air and Clean Water Acts.

Why is Captain Cantor willing to watch the boat sink? It comes back to
seat cushions. He absolutely refuses to ask polluting corporations and
millionaires to pay their fair share. Late last week, his negotiating
team rejected proposals to eliminate subsidies for big oil, corn
ethanol and private jets.