Also, the president can guarantee that SS checks will go out. Last time I checked Treasury was part of the executive branch and they determine who gets paid and who doesn’t. Just like a government shutdown the president decides what programs get funded.
This type of negotiation is nothing new. Democrats promise future cuts in exchange for tax hikes now. The tax hikes come but the spending reductions never materialize. Both Reagan and Bush 41 got hoodwinked this way.
Really? Six months ago Obama said raising taxes in a recession is the last thing you want to do. I don’t think anyone questions how fragile this economy is right now.
Moody’s sucked Wall Street’s teat all through the CDO radioactive buildup and meltdown. Wall Street is not going to let Moody’s or the Republican party do any such thing.
Yorick - so maybe, just maybe, Obama can guarantee SS checks go out. But I’m not sure he can guarantee SS, the military, government employees, Medicare, ad nauseum can all get paid. Someone’s going to get shorted since “have to balance the checkbook” so who do you want to piss off least?
Looks like my father will be voting Dem the first time ever in 2012 if this really goes to the mat
It’s enough to make a genius want to go on strike, isn’t it?
That was yesterday (the day after the relevant interview), right? While I’m sure the negotiations aren’t all that friendly, I don’t agree with the characterization that Obama stomped away to make a threat about stopping Social Security payments. It’s not a threat, and the consensus in the political coverage seems to be that it’s the Republicans who are backed into a corner here, not Obama over his “threat.”
If Eric Cantor had said, “Mr President, don’t call my bluff on this,” pushed his chair back and stormed out of the room, he’d be the Grand Marshall in the fucking Tea Party Holiday Parade.
I’m gladdened to hear of the abrupt walkout from that session of negotiations. I want to see Obama stick to it - no deal without some tax increases. Let the Republicans do what they like.
And then when it’s time to submit a new budget, Obama can put forth one that has lots of cuts - from Republican priorities and districts, mostly - plus removing the incomecap on Social Security contributions, and expiring the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy - and then go to the American people and say “I’ve put forth a budget that solves most of our financial problems. The Republicans will not even schedule it for a vote, because they don’t really care about fixing these problems.”
Obviously Obama will do everything in his power to pay SS if the GOP refuses to pass the debt ceiling limit, Quasi. Hell, that would almost certainly be #1 on his list of people to get paid (perhaps only behind active-service military). And it’s possible (although not guaranteed) that he will have the proper authority to do so (somehow converting that intra-government debt to cash without bumping into the debt ceiling rules).
However, long-term, without an increase in the debt ceiling SS benefits will have to be cut. Even Paul Ryan’s plan doesn’t balance the budget in 12 years. Trying to do it on August 2 is impossible. And right now it’s the GOP that’s refusing to raise the ceiling.
That is correct. But the President of the United States is not empowered to violate Federal law duly passed by Congress simply because there are political consequences to not doing so.
By analogy, here’s a married couple. A earns the money; B pays the bills. They cosign bank notes. A hands B a sheaf of $5,000 in bills and $2,000 in income. A tells B he’s authorized no more than $2,000 in debt to the bank, then tells B to pay the bills. A refuses to budge.
B informs their creditors they may not be able to pay their bills unless A agrees to either give B more money or allow a larger bank note.
I kind of doubt that. He will make noise trying to make it look like he wants to pay Social Security, and blame it all on the Republicans. But he wants to make it as unpleasant as possible to put pressure on the GOP.
This is assuming he can shift the blame like that. He will have a lot of help from the MSM and the the Left. We have seen some of that sort of thing here, where Obama stomps out of negotiations and we get the usual flurry of denials that he stomped out of negotiations. But he is not the politician that Slick Willie was, so we shall see.
Hopefully it does marginalize his Presidency, so we can actually make some progress without him.
Who’s denying Obama stomped out of the meeting? I’m glad he did. I think he should have told Cantor to go fuck himself on the way out for good measure.
Or is it only ballsy when Republicans do things like that?
You seem to be under the impression that the debt ceiling won’t be raised. It will. This is all about posturing, pressure, and politics. And even if it isn’t, there is no way in hell that SS benefits will be the first thing not to get paid. Will they eventually not be? Sure. On Aug 3? Nope.
The threat of no SS payments was a clarifying moment - a way to get the public to pay attention to what not raising the limit really means. There will be more of those in the future if the GOP continues it’s intransigence. That’s exactly what Obama meant by “don’t call my bluff - I’ll take this to the American people”.
Except, of course, that only a handful of people know what actually happened in that meeting and they are telling different stories. You believe Cantor, others believe the Dem staffers (who do say he left, but that the meeting was ending and Ryan was being a whiny bitch). The first media accounts actually told Cantor’s story as fact, so if anything the MSM is covering for Cantor on this one.
As far as shifting blame, it’s not particularly difficult. If the debt limit isn’t raised it will be 100% because the House GOP refused to play ball. We’ve been through this before, we know how it ends. Even McConnell understands - hence Plan B.
I would love for the Republican apologists to be able to point me towards the Republicans standing on this same principle (no debt ceiling increases) during any of the last 8 votes to raise the debt ceiling?
Also, the day Obama starts communicating with the American public with fear of how Matt Drudge might distort his words or positions will be a bad day, indeed.
It is remarkable to read that from someone who has repeatedly insisted to us that the boom years in the 1990’s were due to the GOP-controlled House being Constitutionally in charge of the budget, and that Clinton therefore had nothing to do with it. We don’t need to wonder what changed, though.
