Especially as… Reid’s plan’s savings trump Boehner’s:
Stick a fork in Boehner. If the default happens because the GOP/Teabaggers dragged their feet when the Democrat-led Senate had a better plan… Start cleaning out your office now, Johnny.
If only there were some sort of legislative process to limit the debt and cut spending if that is what is wanted. I dunno, some sort of budget process. I’m thinking there should be a process where every year or so the legislative body approves a budget and then once approved the associated debt would de facto be approved.
If only…
I think you might be on to something but let’s take it a step further. What is the fair market price of those national parks? Why should we just give that to our children and grandchildren. Lets put an IOU for the estimated future value of all national parks on the books as a credit to the current budget and we probably can solve this problem. If we do the same for those aircraft carriers that we have but they’ll be using and those interstate highways, we can all stop work right now. The place where we make coins in Denver is worth a mint.
You said SS and Medicare would bankrupt the US. Do you know what you post? You are wrong again. I am referring directly to what you claimed. That response is as usual wrong You are on a roll.
Are you supporting the GOP in threatening sovereign default?
Interesting columnist take on Bloomberg.
I didn’t realize the fun fact that since 1940 the debt limit has been increased 100 times. I’m pretty sure this is the only time with any kind of serious debate or more than a token nay vote by the non-majority party.
I was just watching a news program on the foreign markets take on our debt debate. They said horrified, shocked, aghast and other alarming terms. They can not believe we are so stupid. They just don’t know the tea baggers. They are that stupid and worse.
What would have happened if say in 2006 the Democratic House had refused to agree to release funds to the military for supplies, paychecks, medical, etc unless there was a matching tax increase on the wealthy. Folks would be outraged. Yet all we hear is about how we need to compromise with the kidnappers, etc. I hear about how these folks were elected to get debt under control etc. Fine, then do it in the fucking budget process, do not play chicken with the country’s financial security you FUCKING MORONS.
I do not, but I also see the situation in similar terms as Sam. It is good that there is a periodic national debate on the debt. Just like the threat of government shutdowns at the end of each year seem to focus the mind on budget priorities, the potential for default has done wonders to take a hard look at the overall fiscal situation of the United States.
The main problem here is that one side of the discussion – the House Republicans – is completely incapable of forming a coherent position. What they support one day, they oppose to the death the next. Bipartisan Senate proposals endorsed by the most fiscally liberal and fiscally conservative senators won’t even see the light of day in the House. And worst of all, the American people elected dozens of new people to Congress who actually think that defaulting on our debt would be a GOOD thing, in spite of their oath to uphold the Constitution including the 14th Amendment.
But just because one side has been recklessly irresponsible in this debate doesn’t mean that we should vaporize the constitutional responsibility of Congress to be the steward of the nation’s finances. Hopefully this will end up being a lesson to the American people that if you want to go to the ballot box next November and vote for gridlock, be prepared for the consequences.
I would like the American people simply to go to the ballot box, period. The enemy isn’t the Republican Party, the Democratic Party or even, God help us all, the Tea Party. The enemy is the Apathy Party.
Pointing this out to the idiots will do no good. They’ll view the foreign aghastness as proof that the Teabag path is correct.
Even here at SDMB, I see stupid posts about foreign countries with the Doper bragging that he never travels abroad.
Sure, it should be done during the budgeting process. That is when the decisions about how much to spend versus how much we take in are made. This is blackmail, pure and simple. And the other thing is there is not a debate about the fiscal situation of the United States. I hear about how the debt is too high, but is it, really?
The debt ceiling was raised a hell of a lot of times without much resistance. It was only raised once in Truman’s term because he actually, like Clinton cut the deficit down. Strange how the tax and spend Dems care about the deficit when they are in office, but the fiscally responsible Repubs crank it up .
Perhaps I’m jaded by too much time in DC, but it’s clear to me that the government doesn’t make ANY decisions on anything until the last possible moment. And, fact of the matter is that Congress hasn’t passed a budget resolution in the last couple years, which is supposed to be the comprehensive look at spending and revenues. Perhaps if that process had been followed, we wouldn’t be facing such a crisis today.
Sure there’s a debate about the fiscal situation. Are we spending too much? Are we not taxing enough? Do we need to reform entitlements? How quickly should the deficit be cut? But nobody is asking the question of how much debt is good because all sides have conceded the point that the debt and the deficit need to come down.
I think no one is asking how much debt is good because it is impossible to answer that with the current budgeting system used by the federal government.
With all due respect, what do you know about the current budgeting system used by the government?
The problem is I think some people actually believe that if they don’t agree to raise the debt ceiling, then we won’t owe that money.
No. Are you supporting Obama in threatening sovereign default if he doesn’t get what he wants?
I know most of you think everything is the Republican’s fault, but let’s look at the facts here:
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Spending bills are written by the Congress, and signed by the President. The Democrats controlled both houses of Congress AND the Presidency before 2010, and failed to even pass a budget, let alone deal with the debt ceiling problem while there was still time to debate and while they had a majority. This lousy governance exacerbates the recession because without a budget, it’s impossible for companies who contract to the government to plan their businesses, or for other businesses and individuals to know what their future taxes will be.
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The Democrats still control the Senate and the Presidency, but have failed until now to come up with a plan of their own for getting agreement on the debt ceiling.
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President Obama’s last proposed budget was so fiscally irresponsible it failed to find a single vote in the Senate.
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To date, the Republicans in the House are the only ones to actually pass a bill to raise the debt ceiling. They’re the only ones until Harry Reid stepped in to the fray to even come up with any kind of proposals at all.
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According to the Republicans, Obama has not negotiated in good faith, or at best has been an inept negotiator, making promises he couldn’t keep or making demands that wouldn’t possibly pass the House. For example, according to Boehner, last Friday morning he had reached a compromise position with the President that included 800 billion in new revenue. After clearing it with his caucus, he went back to the White House to finalize the agreement, only to find that Obama had tacked on another 400 billion in tax increases.
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The Senate leadership, including Harry Reid, and the House leadership, including Nancy Pelosi, had reached a tentative agreement on a framework of a deal that had the support of Republicans in the leadership as well, but Obama announced he would veto it before they could write it up.
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The Obama quasi-proposal that originally enraged Republicans was a transparent sham. It looked like it had 2.7 trillion in spending cuts in it, but when it was dissected it turned out that the ‘cuts’ were phony from top to bottom. For example, it ‘saved’ something like 700 billion by winding down the Iraq war, and another 300 billion on interest on that 700 billion - trouble is, the war was scheduled to be wound down anyway, so this is not a change of any sort. Other spending cuts were vague and deferred for years into the future, to be decided by some other Congress. Everyone knows those kind of ‘cuts’ are completely meaningless. The actual amount of identified cuts in his plan was about $2 billion dollars, which is a rounding error on the size of the deficit.
Here’s the situation: The House underwent a major change in structure in the 2010 election, and the people elected specifically ran on a campaign to reign in spending in Washington and cut the deficit. That’s WHY THEY WERE ELECTED.
Remember after Obama won, and you guys were crowing about how elections have consequences, and if the Democrats wanted to ram through a huge health care bill well, too bad? The people had spoken, and put Democrats in charge, and so therefore they had a mandate to do the health care bill, even though it really wasn’t part of the campaign.
Well, the Republicans have an even stronger mandate to cut spending and hold the line on taxes, because that’s what they ran on, and they won in a landslide. So now they’re playing hardball and demanding no taxes and big spending cuts. Elections have consequences.
If Obama and the Senate won’t admit that, and won’t change their plans based on the results of the election, then there won’t be a bill to raise the debt ceiling, and all hell will break loose. But it will be just as much their fault as the Republicans. Both sides have dug in ideologically, and neither side wants to move.
This doesn’t mean the Republicans are blameless - They’re probably picking the wrong fight, and taking it too far. But given that reality, the Democrats have to decide whether their spending programs are worth defending at the expense of the U.S.'s credit rating.
However, one last thing: The markets and the bond rating agencies started squawking about downgrades and debt crises long before the debt ceiling debate kicked into high gear. So I’m not sure that just passing a debt ceiling upgrade will calm the markets. If the debt ceiling is raised with a sham promise to find some sort of cuts at some time in the future with nothing concrete, then I suspect the conclusion of the market will be that if the U.S. government couldn’t bring itself to make even modest changes in the fiscal direction now, they never will. That will also be bad. Not as bad as a default, but still bad.
Why blame the tea party? Why not blame Obama? You mean he is so devoted to his big government nanny state that he will let the U.S. default before he makes the most modest of cuts in social programs?
I think I shall just adress the first of a string of half-truths masquerading as points, let some others have some of the fun.
Sorta, kinda. They were elected to a majority in both Houses. So, going by that “will of the people” stuff, by rights they should have “controlled” the Houses.
I would be wiling to bet that you know what happened next, Sam. The Republican Party became the Obstructionist Party, with the sacred filibuster as their weapon of choice. So your choice of the word “controlled” is somewhere past disingenuous and headed straight toward mendacious.
Tsk, tsk,** Sam **This is beneath you, or damned sure ought to be.