The Debt Ceiling Thread

Love that guy. It's bad that I am fonder of Mexico's current players than I am of the States'. Guess I'm not a real Murican.

 

Well, if they do let this slide and fail to raise the debt ceiling, the one nice by-product of the impending economic depression is that everyone but the crazies will look back and say, "wow. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all."

The influence of the tea party is strong but will be short lived. They either lose this battle (to our benefit) or they win and will be discredited by their own beliefs.

 

The Reeps could come to their senses

Exactly, i doubt they really want to repeat this. Maybe I'm naive to assume they might break at the last minute and that Obama's deal is still a possibility. Sure, they said it's off the table but really, who expected this to be sorted out before the last minute?

 

See now, why hasn't anybody else figured that out? I don't hear today's Dems talking like that, nor the media. The Republicans have zero right to negotiate anything from the President on the debt ceiling. They can register a protest vote if they like, the way that Obama did in '06, but nothing further.

 

I just had a great idea for a The Last Supper type comedy/satire/horror movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Supper_(1995_film)

Someone fed up with our political journalism buys a house with a basement. And he systematically starts kidnapping the biggest wankers in political journalism...Mark Halperin, Tom "Suck on This" Friedman, John Harris, those a-holes. He straps them to a bed in his basement/dungeon, and tortures them by forcing them to watch substantive discussion of issues. And every once in a while, he injects something into their veins which causes them great pain...or maybe makes their whole body itch like mad, while their arms are strapped down. And every time he does this, he says ironically to the victim, with a gleam in his eye, "time to move the needle!"

 

I agree - the only problem with this is an analogy I've used on the other thread - it's like dangling the economy from a balcony. Sure, no one expects you to drop it, but then again, there is the small chance that you're crazy or that your hand slips. Usually political grandstanding is meaningless because it has no practical effect, but a default of the US government, even a techincal one, is a massive consequence.

 

Obama endorses Gang of Six plan. Apparently the Senate is all hot and bothered thinking this is a good plan.

http://news.morningstar.com/all/dow...aises-gang-of-six-deficit-reduction-plan.aspx

Except it's pretty much a load of crap, since the Gang of Six plan rests largely on two legs -

1) We'll control Social Security costs only we haven't said how yet
2) We'll keep Medicare costs at CPI + 1% (just like Paul Ryan's budget) only we haven't said how yet.

Sounds as if the deal is that everybody but the Tea Partiers will support a vague plan that they will later walk away from, while the Tea Partiers will bad-mouth the plan and carry on about purity. Then everybody but the Tea Partiers gets re-elected because they are in districts that like "centrists" who posture, and the Tea Partiers get re-elected because they are in the red-meat districts that like purists who posture.

Everybody's happy!

 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_07UNOwXMA"]‪I'm Proud to be an American-Lee Greenwood(Happy Birthday America!)‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

Where's my lighter?

 

Wow a deficit-reduction plan crafted by dealmakers that has been months in the making and will ensure that there is no default...if only the news hadn't jumped all over the hysteria bandwagon...

 

Presidential = crapping on the Constitution even more then he already does? Um, ok.

 

What?

The law as of right now says going into debt more than X is illegal. If the President, the head of the branch that spends the money, wants to incur more debt than the law allows, then he can ask Congress to raise the credit limit. But if they don't, they don't.

If the President has spent under the assumption that the law was going to be changed, and didn't manage the nation's checkbook appropriately, then he has been derelict in his duty and deserves to lose his office.


Any default is his fault and his fault alone. Congress is under no obligation to raise the debt limit if they choose not to.

 

You may be surprised, but I disagree.

I think his warmongering, his lack of any respect for civil liberties, his continued waging of the War on (mostly minority users of) Drugs, his war on whistle blowers, his belief that he can kill any American outside American soil, and basically his continuance of the George W. Bush presidency qualifies someone as a negative influence on society. I would say the same about George W. Bush.

And he's spent so much without consideration for the law (the debt ceiling is law) that now we're threatening to default.

 

"Our plan is to make a plan!"

essentially this gang of 6 plan.

 

I get that you're a small-government, not-that-into-you-Keynes kinda guy. So your reaction to the debt ceiling debate is understandable.

But your beef is with the system, not the guy.

You understand that, whether you like it or not, the raising of the debt ceiling has, until now, been treated as a formality. And whatever policies have been enacted in recent past, it doesn't change the very real likelihood that not raising the debt ceiling will get the global economy in deeper doodoo that we're in now. You also understand that Tea Partiers aren't opposed to raising the debt ceiling as a matter of practical policy - they oppose it because it's a nice symbol to rail against. And that they're not interested in saving the economy. In fact, they *want* the shit to hit the economic fan. Whatever you think of Obama's policies, he's the one who's working for a compromise. He's the one who's willing to meet in the middle (well, that's not true - he wants meet waaay to the right of the middle). You understand all this, yet you're okay with Obama, and not the TPers, being the fall guy.

 

Congress passes the budgets.

 

It most certainly has been used as a political weapon in the past. As with most things, this time is different and the republicans have taken it to a new level of ridiculousness. That Reagan video was equivalent to last April. It was gamesmenship as we approached the debt ceiling. That happened last May. No party has ever used it as a political weapon to take us up to default like this as far as I know.

 

Why do you think Reagan railed at the Dems? It's a formality.