Again what I find strange is the debt limit doesn’t fund anything. It just allows the US to raise new debt. this wasn’t the budget.
I haven't caught up on any of the anorak coverage yet, of why Biden took this approach, but so far he seems to have got it right (again). Coverage continually conflates not defaulting on the US debt with actual spending (the budget) - but seeing Biden has to negotiate a budget as well, it seems like realistically the administration had to start in with that, but having it's redline on US debt (i.e, the US will not default or be held to ransom). Something that seems to have been misjudged is that the GOP negotiating position was quite a bit weaker than imagined.
You mean rational not weaker. I think that's to be expected though as McCarthy isn't directly in the extremist wing of the party. He's beholden to them in some degree and he walks this netherworld between the two.
I think it was originally meant as a restraint on too much spending. The threat of defaut as a way to have to compromise on how much to increase debt. I don't think the expectation was that it would be used by some to try to cause the default in order to destabilize the economy for political reasons, as some are trying to use it now. In retrospect, it wasn't a good idea. Although, I wish Argentina had such restrains. Not that it would matter, they'd likely be ignored by the autocratic populist peronist presidents anyway.
Apparently it used to be that Congress had to vote to approve each issuance of debt - but that was dumb and bad in a modern economy, so the debt limit was a way for them to oversee it in bulk rather than in individual bills. It's not intended to be some kind of budgetary check.
Sorry, I missed the smiley. But seriously, even a quick check at Wikipedia would have given some info. The debt ceiling was a convenient way to handle spending bills without having to issue new bonds for every bill. In reality, it is just a ticker to give us a status update on our spending. It was never meant for negotiation. It was meant for “Oh shit! We need to get more revenue or cut back spending!!!” The time for negotiating this is in the omnibus budget bill that gets passed every year, as well as tax rates.
Yes. I believed that restraining spending was the original intent based on how it had been used, as far as I remember. Jitty Slitter already clarified the point in his response to my post. I had no need to check wikipedia because what Jitty said made sense, as I acknowledged in my response to him.
So are you also going to recant calling everyone here “extremists” who’s upset at the GOP for using the debt ceiling in a hostage-style negotiation tactic instead of, you know, actually negotiating based on the merits of their position along with consensus and compromise?
It gets in the weeds but it is unconstitutional what the GOP are doing. It was more obvious with Obamacare where they tried to force the president to roll back his programmes. If you want to rollback said programmes you have to win elections and repeal the laws. An obvious example would be trying to force Joe to pass a federal abortion ban in return for not blowing up the economy. It's an obvious misuse of the process. Ditto in this case, if you want to reduce deficits, then win elections and increase taxes, reduce spending.
Important shift in language. It's not "stop wokeism" it's now "destroy" the entire left. It's a shift toward violence directed at over half the country. This is why everyone with any knowledge of historical fascism says, accurately, the GOP is a fascist movement. https://t.co/kp9Qrg87MH— Kyle Garner (@KyleGarnerMO) May 30, 2023 Even if you reject the idea that this is fascism, you can hardly still call this normal rethoric. Even the far-right over here does not publicly talk about destroying the Left. I mean sure they definitely want to, but they also know they need to maintain a minimum amount of Salonfahig-ness to attract people a bit removed from their natural base. It seems like this restraint is utterly gone from the MAGA wing of the GOP. Which I guess is almost the entire GOP at this point.
Recant? I don't think that one thing leads to the other. Yes, I thought that the intent was to restrict the debt (based on my experience having seen how it's been used ever since I started paying attention to US politics), and no, I had not read how it originated. That's why I prefased it by "I think" rather than laying it out as a statement of fact. And as soon as Jitty clarified it I accepted that his version seemed the more logical one, even before you confirmed it.. But that was not the point I was trying to make. The fact remains that it has in recent history been used - if not by design then by the way it evolved - to restrict debt. And the fact that it was an unintended effect rather than the original design doesn't mean that I will stop thinking that those who are willing to accept a default (mostly the Trumpists on the Republican side, but also a few Democrats) are extremists. They are still extremists, I'm not recanting that. (Although I don't know where you got that it was directed at "everyone here". I don't think "everyone here" prefers default to compromise. Do you? When it comes to economics, there always should be room for compromise. (I realize that this is not always the case with some particular social issues, but that's not what we are talking about here). Leaving that aside, I think the negotiations have been based on the merits. Obviously the specter of default should not be the motivation for negotiating, and it's unfortunate that it takes such a threat to get politicians to even sit at the table to negotiate. But negotiating is their job, and especially when the results of a fair election ended up giving us a divided government with one chamber leaning one way and another leaning the other way. Negotiating these issues is what they should be doing, even without a default threat hanging over their head. For example, the argument of whether or not and in which situations able bodied adults should be required to work in order to get certain benefits is a legitimate one, and we do elect our representatives so they can negotiate those kind of matters of policy. The act of extremism here is to refuse to negotiate.
Since when did that matter on Big Soccer. If informed opinions were mandatory, no one would ever post here. I mean I haven't done a survey but I am pretty sure I speak for everyone.
And I thought that “Shit” was part of her regular diet. She is a purveyor of fine feces. Marjorie Taylor Greene: debt ceiling deal is like an excrement sandwich that I'll likely eat Matthew Chapman May 30, 2023, 9:02 PM ET
Man, that asf post sounds thoughtful until you break it down and see how disingenous it is... 1. No, the debt ceiling is not a negotiation stage, or at least it never is when the president is a Republican. Democrats raised or helped raise the debt limit without much fuss during the last 4 decades. 2. No, there is no equivalence between left and right extremists, not only in number (less than 10 to over 100 and probably 200), but in their demands, especially since the GQP demands are extemporary (See point 5). 3. There's one party that is not at all about compromise, it's their way or the ditch. 4. No, negotiations are not based on the merits, otherwise the GQP would not be demanding cuts to popular programs that amount to few percent points of the deficit, while refusing to negotiate on the real issues (tax cuts for the ultrarich) and the big expenditures (the military). 5. The moment to negotiate on the issues comes in the next quarter, when the GQP house should introduce their budget proposal for the next fiscal year, not just weeks before reaching the debt ceiling while holding the global economy hostage. But off course, they cannot pass their budget the regular way, because it is extremely unpopular. 6. Some of the GQP demands accomplish nothing and are nothing more than added red tape that will probably not add many "able bodied adults" to the economy, but they will cut people in need that fail to go through an additional level of hoops.
The very shape of the thing is ugly enough to challenge its legitimacy anyway. It isn't even presented as "we need to negotiate whether or not to pay these bills we already ran up," but more as "do what I want or I'll kill this little girl and her puppy."
But we should be happy that we got the girl and puppy back, right? I mean, that’s the desired outcome, and the situation just evolved that way. I mean, the hostage taker had no choice but to do this, and it has all worked out. Democracy in action!
Oh I would love to make her a shit sammy. I'll even put shredded lettuce, tomatoes, onions, hot peppers and lotsa, lotsa corn in it.
I know it's a cliche to blame the media, but there is some truth in that. People who have normal lives cannot be expected to read up everything about anything that they have an opinion on, and we do often develop opinions based on following stories in the media. I try to follow diverse sources, including the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, as well as Argentine sources like Infobae, Clarin, La Nacion etc. but still obviously sometimes we don't get the whole story, especially when it comes to background and history. That's why it's good to interchange ideas here. There will always be somebody who will out-nerd you and will have read something that you yourself never have read.
Yesterday, I caught Ailsa Chang on NPR finding a Progressive Caucus member and asking the “tough” questions about why democrats can’t negotiate this, and why they didn’t solve it before the last election BEFORE HE WAS ELECTED TO CONGRESS!!!! Never did she consider that the GOP shouldn’t be doing this, nor did she entertain his responses about what the GOP was trying to extract. Her whole framing was “you crazy extremist Dems just can’t be satisfied.” This type of reporting is so common, and so SO irresponsible. She is also the reporter that routinely asks Dems “HOW WILL WE PAY FOR IT?!?!?!?” in the “will somebody please think of the children!!!” voice. Well, Ailsa, you’ve been covering this shit and asking this question for well over a decade. How about you, ya know, ACTUALLY INFORM THE PUBLIC? In all this time asking that question, why have you no answer? My father, reliably now a Dem voter, gets really upset at Dems and gives me the “both sides” schtick from time-to-time. I constantly have to remind him how he’s fallen victim of deceptive framing, just like: how threatening the world economy to get an unpopular agenda through when the GOP narrowly has control of one half of one chamber of Congress…… and then we swallow the idea that Dems aren’t compromising or negotiating. The news networks say that they should merely be stenographers of events, letting YOU decide. That’s complete BS. What info they present and how they present it is an editorial choice, and biases the consumer of that info. They are culpable.
the media isn’t suited to a situation where one party goes rogue We’ve seen it recently with brexit where the media is reporting about the disaster as if there would ever have been a different outcome possible. in that way they fail to hold anyone accountable