Also, he doesn’t demand more money. He asked “the boss”, and the boss decided that he should get some more.
Well, the Board of Directors voted earlier in the year to spend much more than the company was taking in, but also voted against issuing more bonds. Lowering dividends was strictly off the table because the board would be voted out if they did. So what should the CEO do?
The CEO is well aware of the cash flow problem and wants to do something about it without drastically gutting the company, but is getting blocked by an extremist minority on the board. Now what should he do?
This was exactly my take as well; although perhaps “boss” means the rich? The “job creators”?
The cartoon is referring to a proposal (originally proposed by Mitch McConnell during last year’s debt limit crisis) that would let the President raise the debt limit for any spending that has already been authorized by congress (having a debt limit is retarded btw, you can’t spend money congress doesn’t appropriate) and it would take a 2/3 vote of congress to stop him.
So Obama sent that proposal to the senate a little while ago and the Republicans thought it was so ridiculous that they dared the Democrats to take a vote. When they did, they filibustered the vote.
The cartoon wrap up some notions of extortionate taxation into the mix but its hard to figure out wtf these yahoos are thinking.
I didn’t find anything particularly mysterious about the analogy. The fact that it feels ridiculous is, in fact, the whole point of the poster.
And of course Debt and Money(in this case Income) are two separate, but related things. If you do not believe this, then go to the bank and ask for a $20 Million loan. They might want to see if you are good for the cash. There’s your link.
For that matter, having just gone through the process of getting a higher limit on my credit card, they definitely wanted to see what I had already for debt and how much money I bring in each month. So I’m not quite getting the incredulousness of some of the posts here.
Should I go on? I’ve gone this far, I might as well go the whole way now :).
I suppose that the analogy would be stronger if it was his wife (or same-sex partner, if you’re going to go all rabid on me) running up the charges and now he has to raise the limit to cover what she’s (or he’s) already bought. But this would make the poster busy and dilute the message that our government’s finances defy all common sense.
Google reveals a facebook page (Facebook) with the original image and lots of tea-party-esque arglebargle and pictures of Obama as Caesar and a mugger.
You didn’t mention the best part. Mitch McConnell was again the Senator who introduced the proposal before the Senate. But then when it looked like it might actually pass, McConnell filibustered against it to prevent this.
I don’t think there’s been an official ruling on this yet, but many people are saying this appears to be the first time in the history of the Senate where a Senator has filibustered against his own bill.
What the sign is implying is that the government wants to raise the debt limit so more money can be borrowed and to do so it also wants to increase taxes to cover the additional debt. This is precisely what President Obama proposes to do.
In the real world the government is borrowing 46 cents for every dollar spent. There is absolutely no connection to taxes raised and money spent.