The Super Committee, charged with shaving $1.2 Trillion dollars off the federal debt, failed to answer their mandate and now admits defeat. The committee was comprised of 6 Republicans and 6 Democrats. They have met since August, 2011.
I haven’t followed them. I saw that all 6 Republicans chosen for the committee were tied to Grover Norquist pledges so the entire committee became a joke. Committees should consist of people who have a willingness to compromise. Those committed to a pledge won’t be able to do that. Why were people chosen who were bound to a pledge that technically could not involve any outcome that involved taxes being raised anywhere? Do we all just look stupid?
Hold on to your 401k and other investments today. The ride should be like a roller coaster….all going downhill. The pledgers are bound to destroy us to save us.
No person committed to a pledge should have ever been chosen for a committee that by definition will require compromise. Thanks R’s. Thanks for nothing, again. And you want my Independent vote because? Yea, I want to be broke. I want my social security, my medicare and my other retirement funds broke. That just gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. Let’s protect the rich from any tax increase at all and stick it to the senior citizens and the middle class.
Our system is morally corrupt.
The deal reached just last spring stated that $1.2 trillion in cuts would come automatically if the committee failed to reach agreement by today. Half of those automatic cuts would be in defense. The committee failed. Fine, I say let the cuts begin immediately. There is no bigger source of wasteful spending than in the Dept of Defense.
Good point, Starry. I overlooked the obvious in my disgust. How many people in our area will lose their jobs? Think of the defense contracts that might go!
I would start by shutting down some bases overseas.
Last month, Rep. Frank Wolf blasted the emperor Grover Norquist for his “deep ties to supporters of Hamas and other terrorist organizations that are sworn enemies of the United States and our ally Israel.” He noted that Norquist “served as a key facilitator between Al-Arian, Alamoudi and the White House. … In June 2001, Al-Arian was among the members of the American Muslim Council invited to the White House complex. … The next month, the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom—a civil liberties group headed by Al-Arian—gave Norquist an award for his work to abolish the use of secret intelligence evidence in terrorism cases.” Rep. Wolf also pointed out that Norquist “even used Americans for Tax Reform to circulate a petition in support of the ‘Ground Zero Mosque.’ ”
We’ve focused on the 20 men who tried to bring America to its knees a decade ago and largely ignored Emperor Norquist, the 1 man who seems to have succeeded where others failed.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=46777
This would make me pretty content if I didn’t expect the lame duck Congress to ‘save the day’ and restore spending to it’s unsustainable levels.
Regardless of party – nothing changes.
Funny…. I read that it was the Republicans that offered a tax increase as part of a COMPROMISE……and that it was the Democrats that refused to even come back with a counter offer. THEY said…”NO.” Heck, they didn’t even say “NO.” They didn’t even show up to the table.
The Democrats refused to make ANY cuts. They want the process to fall to the committee so that THEY can be cowards and not make any hard decisions. That’s why the committee was formed. The Republicans compromised their principles to start a deal. The Democrats want to tax and spend….tax and spend. Yep..how’s that working out for us….I hear that there’s ANOTHER downgrade coming.
No bigger source of wasteful spending than the Defense dept? Really? No other domestic programs like Medicaid? Stimulus packages? Green loans? Fannie and Freddie? Dept of Education?
Fine….in that case, by all means….lets cut.
Where do you suggest, Starry? Let’s hear some actual ideas from YOU. Please…enlighten us. You talk a big game, but we never see any ideas from you. Where would you cut the defense spending? Which bases will be gone? How many carrier groups do we need? Do we keep the Marine Corps? Kill our bomber fleet? Downsize troop strength? Get rid of the Veterans’ Benefits?
C’mon…lets hear where all that wasteful spending is.
Or are you happy that the left is finally succeeding in weakening our military again to a hollow force, if these cuts go through?
Why is it that the military is getting the majority of the cuts? Oh…maybe its because the constituency for votes is much smaller than the constituency for the Medicare/medicaid group. Its all about the votes and being too cowardly to deal with the budget.
You know…I’m STILL waiting for the Democrats to present a budget….funny how they can get away with forswearing their oath of office.
How about we just freeze spending. No more increases. No cuts.
Is Congress saying that we can’t get along with current spending even though its been increased by a factor of 3? Cutting 1.2 Trillion over 10 years should have been easy. That’s 1.2 billion per year. And that’s on an increased baseline spending….so its not real cuts anyway. Just a cut in the projected increase.
The problem is that Congress doesn’t want a precedent proving that cuts are possible.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/11/krugman-only-fools-and-clowns-believe-republican-ideology-just-look-at-the-greatness-of-dem-policies/
Here’s Krugman….again…making a fool of himself. He’s been wrong on the economy for years.
Want to know why we’re crashing and burning? Here ya go. Everything is here in one place, Starry.
@Cargosquid
I would like to see that Republican tax increase. This is the first I have heard of it.
I don’t necessarily support the Democrats on the committee either. I was disgusted that Mark Warner wasn’t on the committee. He has tremendous experience at reaching across the aisle during budget negotiations and he is respected by both parties.
I don’t see how 6 people who have taken a pledge not to increase taxes in any way can go into a budget negotiation process. That is my problem. Anything else is an ‘also ran.’
I find it very interesting that pledges keep coming up. Just recently in “The Biggest “Fuster Cluck” of All” on this same blog, people who signed pledges were praised for signing them. In today’s rant, people are being damned for signing a pledge. So it’s OK to sign some pledges but not others–right? I wrote a piece for this blog that basically said all such “pledges” are not good. The only pledge that should be of value is an oath of office. I don’t think you can have your cake and eat it, too.
Joining Cargo in comments on Defense Budget, two things:
1. There was lots of talk with this Super-Duper bunch about the “Peace Dividend” with no longer having to fund one of the two sandboxes. Used those “savings” in calculations, but gee, the sandbox was paid with money that did not exist – good going! Calculate savings based on Monkey Money!!!
And as for the so called “Peace Dividend”, those of us from the Vietnam Era can still remember oh so well the cuts slammed down in 1975 and later. Hollowed out force even to the point for a couple of years I could not go to the Rifle Range to maintain my Army Qualification with the M-16 since no money to buy me a lousy 120 rounds to shoot.
2. Yeah, let’s pull the trigger and make that $51billion cuts in Defense. Guess what? It is not only the Military, but also the Veterans Administration who will be gutted. The V.A. is tied in with DoD Budget, and when the cuts come, the V.A. already will be looking at reducing access to services for the areas of discreationary spending.
The V.A. has 8 Priorities for access to care. A Veterans access and which level of care is based on disability rating percentage. Priorities 1 to 3 are mandated and must be funded. Priorties 5 to 8 are discreationary meaning if there is money, those Veterans get access to the services. Lots of Veterans are in those last 5, and if the trigger is pulled, their access to services such as through that nice new clinic at Fort Belvior will be reduced or eliminated.
Oh yes, do thank me for service to my Country, but also hand me the vasoline as I bend over.
George, thanks for your comment. When I read the opening line of “No person committed to a pledge should have ever been chosen for a committee that by definition will require compromise”, the first thing I thought of was the Rural Cresent Pledge. You expressed my thoughts on the matter and I thank you.
George, Fuster cluck was NOT about pledges. You might want to re-read. It was about what people verbally said they were going to do.
Correction, the piece you wrote was not originally for this blog. The pledge incident you are speaking is not going to be refought on this blog. It is over. It has been beaten to death like a dead horse.
It doesn’t address the issue in this thread.
Ray, this thread is not about a commitment to the Rural Crescent. The RC ‘pledge’ was a commitment of intent on 2 issues: 1. Home lots have to have a minimum of 10 acres. 2. No municipal sewer in the rural crescent.
Do you have a problem with a supervisor candidate committing to land use issues verbally?
I don’t understand why this is coming up now with you. Should we not know how a candidate feels? No one here ever criticized Candland for not signing a ‘pledge. I get rather tired of repeating this. If I have said something to the contrary, please cut and paste it here.
Moving forward to the present, how can a person who has pledged to not increase taxes in any form sit on a committee that is going to require compromise? Taking a Norquist pledge is one thing. I just don’t see how a person can sit on any committee whose sole reason for existence is to hammer out plans when 6 of the people can never consider any tax increase.
Watched Grover Norquist on “60 minutes” last night.
Who does he think he is? And who do the pledge signers think he is? Almost made me sick. How on earth can so many Congress people fall for this “Little Ceasar”? His attitude about avenging ANYONE who doesn’t obey him re taxes, is scary.
He showed a wall in his office, I assume, covered with pictures of those whom he wants to try to keep from being elected. His grin at the end made me wonder abt his sanity. Yes, really!
@Moon-howler
I stand corrected.
There was a counter-proposal. But it was lost in the crowd as it is indistinguishable from standard Democrat talking points.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/282881/supercommittee-dems-make-counteroffer-gop-rejects-andrew-stiles
As Rich noted yesterday, Democrats on the supercommittee have rejected a $1.5 trillion Republican proposal that included nearly $500 billion in new revenue. As evidence by their most recent counter-proposal, Democrats are insisting on a much higher tax increase.
The $2.3 trillion package includes $1 trillion in tax increases, $1 trillion in spending cuts, with the remaining $300 billion saved from reduced interest payments on the federal debt. Republicans have rejected the offer.
The proposed spending reductions include:
* $350 billion in Medicare savings ($250 billion from providers, $100 billion from beneficiaries)
* $50 billion in Medicaid savings
* $200 billion in other mandatory savings
* $400 billion in discretionary savings ($200 billion from defense, $200 billion from non-defense)
On the tax side:
* $350 billion “down payment” consisting of “miscellaneous revenue provisions”
* $650 billion in new revenue resulting from future tax reform that must conform to certain requirements. If such legislation is not passed by Jan. 1, 2013, a tax “trigger” will go into effect, which would raise the same amount of revenue automatically.
* Additionally, the proposed entitlement cuts would only go into effect once the full $1 trillion tax increase has been enacted.
__________________________________________________________________
I believe that much of this proposal is merely a ploy to get that automatic tax trigger in place. That ..and do you notice that the “proposed cuts” only come after all the tax increases take effect. We KNOW how likely the cuts are….after the tax raise.
The Democrats are just playing politics again…trying to put into place a tax structure to support higher taxes. And since doctors NOW are refusing to take Medicare patients…how many are going to drop when Congress cuts payments even more. What’s need is reform, not cuts.
Why is it that the President rejected his own revenue reform committee – Simpson-Bowles? The GOP plan is very similar to that plan. If it was good enough then, why not now?
@Morris Davis
You’re right on the mark Moe. If people saw the interview with Norquist yesterday, it was easy to see that he revels in his ability to pull the strings on the Republican puppets he controls. Until such time as all Republicans are willing to repudiate those pledges, Norquist and his band of henchmen will continue to control the actions of the Republican party. I am amazed at how much power he has and how freely he demonstrates his willingness to use it against anyone who does not kowtow to him. He tries to say it is not him and his pledge that the Republicans are bowing to, it is to the American people. In the same breath, he will educate constituents of those who repudiate their pledge as to the “sins” the incumbent has committed. And he suggests those incumbents begin to look for new work like riding on a trash truck. He is an arrogant, egotistical maniac.
That goes back to my point about Fox News. It’s not wrong, it’s just the stuff the left doesn’t want to hear. It was well publicized that Republicans risked making their base mad by offering revenues (although it wouldn’t have made me mad), and the Democrats simply walked away, betting that their base would ignore the facts (almost ALWAYS a safe bet).
Hmm, so nobody saw the interviews where Norquist was upset that many of the “pledge-signing” Republicans were announcing publically that they thought the pledge was only for the last term, and didn’t apply to this term? You can almost see the lefties with their fingers in their ears yelling “NAHNAHNAHNAH” at the top of their lungs when those interviews happen. Otherwise, they’d have to face the truth….it was the Democrats who walked away and refused to negotiate.
A Red Monday in stocks prior to Black Friday
– not in a spending mood.
And here’s the booger…..Congress will override the automatic cuts! Throw every last one of them out.
@SlowpokeRodriguez
I frequently watch Fox News.
I also saw much of the Norquist interview.
Dream on, pokie. You are inventing stuff.
Meanwhile, leave medicare and social security alone. You have parents. Now why would you want some old rich bastard to get off at 15% wnen your parents might be paying taxes at 30%? Do you think that is right?
Can you see why people might get angry over that?
Dude – you guys already agreed to these automatic defense cuts that were to trigger automatically if the committee failed. Don’t yell at me.
And hey, if you think defense is that important, why aren’t you willing to pay for it, you know, with taxes? You guys decided to fight two wars on a credit card in order to keep tax cuts., costing taxpayers billions of dollars in interest, in addition to the operations themselves. We’d have been better off with a tax hike.
I don’t follow Grover Norquist and his dealings very closely, but I did watch the “60 Minutes” report last night. There’s a big difference between his pledge and the Rural Crescent pledge. The Norquist pledge does seem to have a large element of a guy who has found a way to gain a lot of power without actually being elected to anything. The Rural Crescent pledge, however, has no power-hungry lobbyist or politician behind it. In fact, as was pointed out during the recent campaign, Advocates for the Rural Crescent is pretty much just Elena at this point, although Prince William Citizens for Balanced Growth, which is just one or two people at present, joined her for the pledge signing ceremony at the McCoart Building this summer. Hardly a secret conspiracy or behind-the-scenes power grab going on there. Her only goal was to compel candidates to go on record regarding a few very specific points about land use policy in Prince William County, namely maintaining the 10-acre zoning and opposing sewer in the area designated as the Rural Crescent in the Comprehensive Plan. Given how often candidates have lied to voters about this, starting with Sean Connaughton, and more recently and blatantly, Corey Stewart, I think it’s a good idea to force them go on record.
I regard supervisors such as Marty or in the past Ed Wilbourn as developer stooges, but stooges with some integrity. Marty and Ed have been clear publicly that they don’t support the Rural Crescent. I don’t have any problem with a politician saying honestly what they believe, even if it differs from my own view. That’s a lot better than Sean and Corey who say one thing to get votes and then do another to get developer campaign money. The Rural Crescent pledge helps us separate the wheat from the chaff among politicians regarding their integrity.
I didn’t agree. Remember…I’m the unrepentant Tea Partier that thinks this whole committee thing is bogus and we should have forced the Democrats to actually do their jobs. We should have shut the government down. I’m the one that thinks that EVERYTHING, including defense should be on the table and that Congress needs to do their job, prioritize, and justify every cent.
I’m willing to cut things that are not in the Constitutional bounds of the government….like ObamaCare. Lets take that money and pay for the military……
But, as I said…its up to YOU to back up your statement. Let’s see those cuts. You think that the DoD is the most wasteful org…what’s to cut?
I’ve put my choices down in earlier thread. I back up my opinion with what I would do….so, now…put the money where your mouth is. You think we need steep cuts? Ok. What to cut? What security need to we NOT need to cover.
I’m not being sarcastic. I’m really interested. Let’s see what Starry has to contribute to this discussion other than press releases.
I even gave you an outline on what to consider. C’mon…let’s see YOUR ideas…not someone else’s.
The “automatic” cuts are really a bogus issue. Even if triggered they don’t come into effect until 2013. Even then, they aren’t real “cuts.” They will only reduce the increases in planned spending. Nothing will actually go down. People claiming the “cuts” will threaten our national security need to calm down. I admire Panetta for getting bin Laden but he needs to chill his shrill rhetoric on this matter.
Moreover, these “automatic cuts” that take place in 2013 will not reduce the defense spending that fuels the jobs in DC, Fairfax and elsewhere in Northern Virginia that Prince William County residents commute to every day. Nor will they slow down the boom in creation of low-wage, unskilled jobs that Corey crowed about so much in the campaign, and many voters failed to look under the rug to see just what his job boom rally was.
@Cargosquid
Cargo, I’m with you part of the way. What happened earlier this year was a threat to default – actually not pay the debt service on U.S. Treasury obligations coming due. Failing to do that would be catastrophic, as the markets clearly indicated at the time that fight was taking place. Never again should politicians even debate not paying our bills. That’s the same thing as you or I charging a lot of crap on our Visa card, then deciding we don’t want it and refusing to pay the bill when it comes due. Watch your credit score tank and your financial strength evaporate.
Shutting down the government over a budget debate is a different matter altogether. If they want to play chicken with that it’s not as big a deal. It’s stupid and shows we’ve elected toddlers who fight rather than play well together, but would not have the same catastrophic impact missing debt service payments would have.
There was no danger of default. All payments would have been made.
Some other payments would be delayed. The President is the one that makes that decision.
Now…..I’ve just listened to something from (gasp) Rush Limbaugh.
He reminded us….there are no real cuts in the super committee. In each future year…military spending is going up 16%. These are cuts to the base line. The apparent choice being given by the Democrats on the board are: Accept tax raises or deep cuts in the military. Newt Gingrich predicted this brinkmanship months ago.
So…are there cuts? Are they lying? Again, the gov’t is lying to us.
Rush’s idea: Scrap the committee. Go back to standard legislating. Task the sub-committees to actually budget and get the cuts needed. And do it all IN THE OPEN.
The first party to do this will win the election.
@Cargo,
If you don’t have the money to pay your bills then you default. Yes, there was a danger of defaulting. Are you just not counting it as a default if the person getting shafted is someone’s social security?
Your party of NO played Russian Roulette with our economy. I told you back when it happened I didn’t like it and it hurt my pocketbook.
The super committee was destined from the start not to work for a variety of reasons. I have stopped trying to be fair after the Russian Roulette of last summer. It was carefless and irresponsible.
No, I’m not inventing, I just had my ears open. See how this works? “Leave my entitlements alone?” Leave my Defense alone! How easy was that!? The hard left is unable to drop their partisanship long enough to realize that actually, they all should go.
Yep..that Democrat intransigence in refusing to back down when offered compromises was horrible. Their refusal to even look at real cuts resulted in the downgrade and WILL DO SO AGAIN. I told you back then when it happened that I didn’t like either. And you weren’t EVER fair about this. You automatically took the side of the liberals and refuse to consider any evidence that THEY TOO are at fault. And the Democrats spending is STILL hurting “my pocketbook.” That idiotic deal raised the debt limit, supposedly for two years. If Democrat spending had passed we would be having to raise again, NOW.
And yes….delaying payments ELSEWHERE while paying our creditors is not default. Its called not having the money to pay our bills. Now we have to create money out of thin air. Do you call THAT being solvent? You’re so worried about your programs. Where do you think they are going to be if we continue to print money to pay for spending.
We must be in default then…because we do not have the money to pay our bills nor can be borrow it. We are printing money to buy our own debt.
The people at the end of the ponzi schemes are always the victims. Let me keep my money and let me get back my money before it all goes to hell. In fact….just stop taking my money….the previous SS taxes have already been spent. Let my daughter keep HER money, but I guess her being 40000 bucks in debt already is ok.
NTK,
The other difference is that there is no crisis because of the Rural Crescent zoning. There are also ARE allowance to build in the RC NOW, some specific commercial is allowed and so is clustering of houses.
Taxes are a wholly different animal that flucuate due to specific economic needs. Land use is not the same.
Oh, just as a aside, the Rural Crescent has over 100 members although I am the only person in a spokesperson role.
I wonder how many times or in how many different ways I will have to explain the key differences. Furthermore, the rural crescent is a holistic land use policy, unlike tax policy that is VERY specific to each individual.
@Cargosquid
Not raising the debt ceiling would indeed have caused us not to be able to pay our debts. The Treasury would have scrounged around for a short while pulling funds from elsewhere, but that would not have lasted long. The Treasury would not have been able make debt service payments in an orderly, timely manner, and ultimately not at all. That’s why the markets crashed.
In addition, raising the debt ceiling did not raise spending one cent. It simply allowed us to pay the bills we had already incurred.
S&P said that the downgrade was not because of increased spending. The immediate cause of the downgrade was the failure of Congress to act. The whole episode was idiotic, resulted in a downgrade, hurt our credibility at home and abroad, cost people billions from their savings and retirements, produced no reductions in spending and was the result of a small group of fanatics who know nothing about government finance, capital markets or economics, and who care more about scoring political points than acting in the best interests of Americans.
“The immediate cause of the downgrade was the failure of Congress to act.”
to reduce spending. THEIR words. And today…its the same story. Out of control spending.
And we would have been able to pay the debts. Some programs would have to have been canceled. The Debt limit allows us to borrow MORE money. So where does it stop?
If the Congress had made REAL cuts in spending.. or just frozen spending…it would not have been necessary to raise the debt limit. Why are we spending money that we don’t have and borrowing AFTER the fact? Or borrowing more than we need to pay said bills?
So, since raising the Debt limit allows us to borrow MORE money…it does raise the spending…indirectly. Now Congress can print more money or borrow money to spend on things like that stupid “jobs” bill.
Congress wants a tax? OK. Since everyone else is hurting…and THEY are in the 1%….lets cut their salaries in half. Put that money to debt relief. Kill their pensions. Put that money to debt relief. Now that they’ve gone first….lets put a tax out. Let’s make it Moon’s 1%. Put it on EVERYONE. And dedicate to debt relief. Nothing else can come from that fund. 1 penny from every dollar goes to pay down the debt.
Oh..wait…that won’t work…Congress is still basing everything on fantasy baseline spending. Their “cuts” are actually smaller increases.
So first we FREEZE spending. THEN we tax everybody.
Here’s another idea. When you become a Congressman…you put your net worth into the budget. You live on your salary. When you return to private life….you get back your net worth…….that is…if we’re not in a deficit. Oops, apparently there’s no more money in the budget….
Yeah, I know…but I can dream.
I bet we’d have a balanced budget if they were using THEIR money.
Of course, the media isn’t helping things out. All they’re talking about today is “who is to blame”. That line of thought right there is proof we’re screwed.
@Cargosquid
I don’t think bringing things to the point of crisis by continual NO is fair. So I will probably never be ‘fair’ about it in your eyes. I really thought it was outrageous and irrespeonsible. Never before has any congress refused to raise the debt ceiling.
If the govt owes me money and does NOT pay me…well….if my definition default means :
then what do we call it? Republicans are always right not pay?
The media’s function is to sell news. I am listening to faux news, Megyn Kelly to be exact, muddle up Penn State. I caught her on 5 basic inaccuracies. As much as Penn State has been in the news, how does someone still get it that wrong. I am not talking opinion stuff but the basics.
Need to Know is the man of the hour. 1000% agreement.
@Cargosquid
Let me try this one more time. The debt ceiling has no impact on the amount budgeted (expenditures) up or down. We’re dealing with two completely different issues and a big part of the problem is that the buffoons who started this mess don’t understand the difference. Spending is authorized as part of the budget process. That’s were Congress and the President decide how much to spend – deficit, balanced, or surplus. That’s the process you need to focus on to cut spending and the deficit.
The debt ceiling has ABSOLUTELY NO IMPACT on the amounts the Federal government spends. Raising the debt ceiling is an administrative action to allow the Federal government to pay the bills for the spending it approved as part of the budget process. Threats not to raise the debt ceiling are tantamount to threatening not to pay the bills we have already incurred and to become deadbeat debtors. That creates chaos in the capital markets.
“George, Fuster cluck was NOT about pledges. You might want to re-read. It was about what people verbally said they were going to do.” I say, what is the difference between a signed paper pledge and a verbal pledge? Not much except that we a paper pledge, you have a great Grover Norquist type tool. And if the oral pledge was recorded or reported in print, your pretty much have the same thing.
Wanna bet that “Fuster Cluck” wasn’t about pledges. Here are some of the comments made by Moon and Elena that I gleaned from that thread:
A. Is there not a pledge signed agreeing to 10 acre lots and no sewer hook up?
B. We have a signed statement by Corey stating his position which supports the comprehensive plan.
C. Unless Candland supports paving it over, I plan on holding him to his word or calling him a liar publically.
D. Peter Candland spent the last week of his campaign telling the Gainesville District voters that he fully supported the comp plan and had no intention of altering the rural crescent.
D. Peter invested a lot of time telling us all how much he believed in the Rural Crescent so we have plenty of print and video to share at the drop of a hat. (DOESN’T THIS SOUND A LOT LIKE GROVER?)
E. Now I remember he did say NO changes to the comp plan because several people here commented on that remark.
F. Well, we have the inside nova written statements, robo calls, and debate video that tell us otherwise. (AND THE SAME HERE)
G. Corey, the biggest two faced self serving politican I have ever had the displeasure of once calling friend, has a written statement and pledge affirming his complete and total support of the RC.
H. Candland gave varying excuses of why he refused to sign the pledge, from his dislike of me and my values, to not signing any pledge.
You can run but you cannot hide.
Spending is authorized as part of the budget process.
There’s the problem right there. The Democrats while in office and the current Senate have not presented a budget since Obama took office and used the debt ceiling raise as a budgetary item by demanding spending and tax raises.
The debt deal allows the Senate to have “deemed” to have passed a budget for the next two years.
Not raising the debt ceiling states that we cannot borrow more money. Therefore, we must cut the spending elsewhere. Perhaps not fund ObamaCare…or defund Fast and Furious. Or fire some of the public servants. Get rid of a department or two.
Raising the debt ceiling states that we will be borrowing MORE money to pay our debt that we incurred the last time we raised the debt ceiling to borrow more money. It allows us to borrow more money so that we don’t have to make hard decisions.
The GOP was willing to raise it…IF there were spending cuts. The Dems said no. They wanted increased spending and taxes.
If the ceiling is only about tracking borrowed money and paying bills, why is there a “ceiling” at all? Ceilings are supposed to be a LIMIT. But Congress knows no limits. We had the cash flow to pay our creditors. SS was safe. As was military pay. Its up to the President to decide the priority in this case and he wasn’t willing to face it. And the press is always willing to blame the Republicans though the difficulty was on BOTH sides.
If there is no limit on debt, no ceiling…..why have it at all? Why even have Congress involved? Apparently they can call up money to spend out of thin air.
The debt ceiling has an impact on budgets. It allows for greater borrowing, therefore it feeds the beast of spending. Raise the ceiling, they borrow to pay for past bills and always a little extra.
Congress is playing us.
@George S. Harris
George, please, let’s not turn this into another Candland thread. I think we’ve exhausted that topic for now. For now, I’m ready to see what he actually does.
@Cargosquid
Cargo, do you enjoy Ayn Rand? I’m a big fan and suggest that everyone see the new movie on DVD or Blu-Ray if you haven’t seen it already. I actually prefer “The Fountainhead” but “Atlas Shrugged” is great too. I suggest you reread the John Galt speech. A is A. A is never non-A. The only way we make progress is through rational, objective thought. A will never be non-A regardless of how much we wish it to be so. No matter how much some politicians you might like tell you that not paying our bills is a smart thing to do and will help reduce spending, it will never be so.
I’m on your side. I want spending cut, the budget balanced, and to start paying off the debt as much as you do. However, following the bunch that created this mess will accomplish nothing. It has made the situation worse. If we have another debacle like the debt ceiling fight, you can kiss another big chunk of your retirement assets goodbye.
Actually, I’ve never read Ayn Rand.
And I didn’t say that we shouldn’t pay the bills. I said that, to pay current bills, ie our debt load, we should take money from elsewhere. We don’t need that cowboy poetry spending..or that Solyndra loan….or the dept of Education.
I’m saying that we have a debt limit. So we should either abide by it or reform how we do business because a debt “ceiling” that’s been raised this much is not a ceiling. All it shows is that Congress is addicted to spending.
That’s is what the fight was about. The bills were going to be paid.
I question your “inaccuracies”, but I’d prefer to drop it since we already have one completely unrelated mini-thread embedded here. What I do like is the even-more-increased division. People in the middle are going to have to get off the fence, and we will either reverse the damage of Obama-Reid-Pelosi or we will head down the toilet for good.
@George S. Harris
Think main idea. The main idea of the post is about corrupt politicians trying to play something both ways. They got caught by running their mouths to the press. The article was not about pledges. Now if you want to take issue with preserving the Rural Crescent, that is another matter and probably one that is a little late.
The die has pretty much been cast and the area is at the mercy of the local politians.
I am not running nor am I going to hide from anyone. As long as Elena and I own this blog we will continue to have discussions on things important to us both jointly and as individuals.
George, neither of us live in the Rural Crescent. There are plenty of people who want to preserve its integrity. The problem is, some politicians come right out and say they do not support the concept, like Marty and John Jenkins. Others equivocate and won’t tell us how they really feel. They take devloper money and tell them one thing (as shown in the thread) and then tell the voters something else.
Finally, as a voter, do you believe you have the right to know how a candidate stands on a particular issue?
“Supporting the Rural Crescent” means nothing to me or anyone else. You can support it totally paved over if the right person’s pockets have been properly lined by the right people. We are asking for honesty, not weasel words. You seem to want to beat a dead horse on this subject. If you don’t want to know how our politicians feel, fine, but the rest of us want to create an environment where they must take a position.
Everyone for a 40 mile radius knows you don’t like pledges. Had Elena’s group seen where the idea of ‘pledges’ was goingI am certain they would have thought of a more creative way to identify those who supported the comp plan of 10 acres and no sewer lines. But they didn’t.
Now you seem opposed to even asking any candidate how they feel about 10 acres and a septic tank. Is this to be PWC’s answer for the Sequicentennial? Instead of 40 acres and a mule we now have 10 acres and a septic tank?
@Cargosquid
“We don’t need that cowboy poetry spending..or that Solyndra loan….or the dept of Education.” I agree completely, including on the Department of Education. Education should be governed at the state and local level.
However, you accomplish that through the budget process, not the debt ceiling. To get rid of those things, Congress must enact legislation through appropriations. You can’t just say we’ve changed our minds about something that was already approved. That’s a legal obligation that creates contractual obligations to employees, contractors, etc., etc. Most Republicans I’ve known support strongly enforcing contracts and adhering to the rule of law. You get rid of those things in the budget and appropriations process, not by just saying we’ve changed our minds and won’t take the actions required to pay for our obligations.
The course that was attempted earlier this year to cut spending by not raising the debt ceiling was a disaster. It threw the markets into turmoil by creating doubt as whether holders of US debt would be paid, and showing Congress to be driven by buffoons who have no idea how the process works, or how to accomplish their goals in a meaningfull way.
We’re talking in circles now. I’ll just leave you with a reminder of how things worked out doing it the way you seem to advocate. Spending has not been reduced. Markets are down. Our credit rating has been lowered. People have lost hundreds of billions from their retirement savings. I say we attack spending and the deficit, but not repeat the idiotic mistakes of ideologues who were willing to drive our nation and economy off a cliff just to prove a political point.
@Cargosquid
You just admitted that you want to hold the economy hostage to caving in to Extreme right wing finances. NO. Listen to NTK. He is one of your own and he has solid economics training.
Raising the debt ceiling has gone on for a long time, over 200 times. Why all of a sudden is it an issue? Hmmm, could it have anything to do with dislike of Obama? make that intense dislike of Obama. The hypocrisy is, who allowed the past decade to use Chinese ATM card? Who allowed wars to be fought on a foreign credit card? At least WWII had American investment in the form of war bonds, etc.
Americans were so insulated from these past 2 wars we don’t even have insulting slang names for the enemy in our civilian population. It wouldn’t be PC.
I was watching American Experience on War Letters Home. There have been tons of national and ethnic slurs down through the history of the USA…until now. We were too sanitized to even insult our enemies. We got to call them ‘terrorists!” BFD
@SlowpokeRodriguez
The point was, Fox News doesn’t give much of a rat’s ass about accuracy as long as they can get their political opinion squeezed in there. I don’t care for that. It isn’t news. The also back up opinions with non-facts. I used Penn state because most of us know so much about the details (and we also don’t know a lot) However, she was giving false information to back up her position.
I catch them doing something like that every day.
The middle got off their behinds last election. That didn’t work out so well in many people’s eyes. If you want change, you all have to get out of the extremes corner and go to the middle. You won’t even listen to someone who is smart, knowledgeable about many topics and who doesn’t have more baggage than Dulles. What a shame. A candidate like Huntsman is electable using the middle. But oh no…..ewwwww ewwwwww he’s a RINO.
Instead you all want to put up right wing nut job and then sit around and bitch for the next 4 years because you hate Obama. Is compromise not part of your vocabulary?