Neither Congressional Republicans nor the administration publicly gave any ground in their confrontation over how to reduce the budget deficit. Each side has doubled down. President Obama played the shutdown card, saying that unless the Republicans ‘ate their peas’ then social security checks would not be mailed. Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell retorted by saying that while President was in office no compromise could ever be found to reduce the budget deficit. The problem was Obama; he was not part of the solution. Compromise, in the terms of each side, has become tantamount to surrender. The administration will agree to a “grand bargain” on the deficit, promising to cut it over ten years, only if Republicans agree to new tax measures. The Republicans, on the other hand, will stick to their campaign promise not to raise taxes and are offering smaller deficit reductions based on spending cuts only.
Both sides have “anchored” their positions by making public statements. They’ve drawn their respective lines in the sand in order to make it harder for them to chicken out. Within their respective parties the different points of view have also nailed their colors to the mast. Both sides are now on a collision course. It now looks like the first side to “eat their peas” will have big side dish of roasted crow because there will be no way to explain a swerving aside. A collision looks so imminent that while some liberal pundits are still confident that the Republicans will fold in order to find their way out a “political box”, they are now beginning to wonder if the formerly weak kneed Republicans may have found a spine somewhere.
The smash just might happen. Each side is of course crafting tactics so the blame for public inconvenience falls on the other. The Republicans have offered to give the President 3 debit limit raise checks for $700 billion, $900 billion and $900 billion. “McConnell’s plan would let the president raise the limit, while accompanying it with offsetting spending cuts, unless Congress struck down his plan with a two-thirds majority. The debt-ceiling increase could occur without the companion spending cuts. The President can also force his own plan through but politically own all of any subsequent deficit.
The first part of the plan would entail Obama submitting a request to Congress to raise the debt ceiling by $700 billion ahead of the Aug. 2 deadline. Then, Congress could pass a resolution of disapproval; the president could either sign it or veto it, McConnell said.
“Presumably, he would veto it,” McConnell continued. “If that were the case, that veto would be sustained by one-third-plus-one in either the House or the Senate.”
The second debt-limit request, for $900 billion, would then likely come in the fall of 2011 and would follow the same procedure, McConnell said. The third, another $900 billion increase, would come in the summer of 2012 and would lift the debt ceiling through the end of the year.
Along with each debt-limit increase, Obama would be required to submit a proposal for spending cuts greater than or equal to the figure by which the ceiling was raised – a move that would be in line with House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) position in the debt-limit talks.
The Republicans are offering the President a political cup of hemlock and daring him to drink it. That he won’t — unless he comes to a really desperate pass. But neither will the Republicans so easily surrender, now that they’ve taken the trouble to go so far out on a limb.
“The president could not accept that because he wanted to increase the ‘progressivity’ of the current system,” Boehner said. “This is where things began to break down.”
Boehner added: “Let me be crystal clear on this — at no time, ever, during this discussion did I agree to let taxes go up. I haven’t spent 20 years here fighting tax increases just to throw it all away in one moment. ” …
On the Democratic side, liberal groups and lawmakers are pressuring the president not to cede ground when it comes to entitlements. The rhetoric on both sides has the potential to complicate the latest marathon push to strike a deal and raise the debt ceiling.
After Obama privately offered to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, liberal Democrats and advocacy groups cried foul.
So each side is locked in to a large extent. One way to regard these developments is to conclude that the internal negotiating dynamics are now driven by larger political forces. Neither set of negotiators can easily back down without angering their political constituents so neither side may back down. The influence of Democratic activists has long been a factor in determining what a Democratic President could do, but historically the influence of the conservative grassroots has had a less marked effect on Republican politicians. What may have changed to throw the Administration’s strategy out of reckoning is that for the first time in decades, the conservative grassroots is as militant as its equivalent on the Left. The President had always assumed the Republicans would fold — as they always did and as they still might — but for the first time he may be having his doubts.
The debt crisis in the US and especially Europe has pulled the intellectual and political rug out from under the advocates of government spending as a solution to economic problems. Taxes, bailouts, subsidies and entitlements are suddenly bad words. Voters on every side are now more likely to grudgingly consider the possible truth of McConnell’s observation that the inability to draw a bright line has led the way to dusty, fiscal death. Getting along is no longer an absolute requirement. The time’s come to square off and if not now then when? If not now then why ever?
“They asked us to join them in another Washington effort to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people. They offered us the opportunity to participate in the kind of deliberate deception of the public that has given public service such a bad name in recent years.
“We all saw how it worked. The Administration carefully leaked to the media, without any details, the idea that it was willing to go along with trillions of dollars in spending cuts.
“The lack of detail concealed the fact that the savings they were supposedly willing to support was at best smoke and mirrors. The hope here was that the budget gimmicks and deferred decision-making they actually supported would have the appearance of serious belt-tightening.
“But the practical effect would have been at most about a couple of billion dollars in cuts up front with empty promises of more to follow. We’ve seen this kind of thing before. It’s just this kind of sleight of hand governing that’s put our nation more than $14 trillion in debt. And I will not associate myself with it. I refuse to join in an effort to fool the American people.
In other words, the GOP is saying party’s over. Both the Republican and Democratic politicians have benefited greatly from the years of government largesse. Both have been party animals. Neither is markedly superior to the other in moral terms. Where they may differ today is the degree to which they realize that the old ways are dead. And in this — and mostly in this — the Republicans have the advantage. President Obama wants to play “Happy Days Are Here Again” and McConnell knows enough to understand that only “One More For the Road” will work. But there’s only one coin left, and one jukebox.
Shane: “I came to get your offer, Ryker.”
Ryker: “I’m not dealing with you. Where’s Starrett?”
Shane: “You’re dealing with me, Ryker.”
Ryker: “I got no quarrel with you, Shane. You can walk out now and no hard feeling. ”
Shane: “What’s your offer, Ryker?
Ryker: “To you, not a thing.”
Shane:”That’s too bad. You’ve lived too long. Your kind of days are over.”
Ryker: “My days? And yours, gunfighter?”
Shane: “The difference is I know it.”
And everyone knows the rest. It’s gotten so that there’s really no room left in the world for those who think the way forward is big government and those who disagree. There’ll be a showdown at some point and then one side will ride off into the sunset. That realization is probably where the GOP is getting its ideas. Even if the Party’s over there’s still survival. Just basic survival.
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It seems to me (although the analogy isn’t exact), that the whole issue distills down to a pretty simple level.
An individual gets a job. That job pays a certain amount. Now, that pay may be augmented by bonuses or raises over the years if the employer is doing well, or reduced if the employer has trouble paying the bills. Meanwhile, the individual spends money. If that spending is greater than the pay received, debt results. If the individual continues to spend beyond his/her means, eventually the service on the debt threatens his/her lifestyle.
What path is the most likely to lead to a solution of the problem. . .asking the employer for more money in bad economic times, or cutting back on the spending that got the individual into this unfortunate position in the first place?
It’s a mystery why it is so difficult for so many to understand that it really boils down to that simple question.
These guys are obviously readers of PJM. Folks comment here, and a few days or a week later, these guys are spouting what we write.
I notice that over the years, other than an occasional troll, the positions of folks here have become nearly unanimous… not in fundamental beliefs, mind you, but in priorities. As things have gotten worse, and as the complete lawlessness of our government becomes clear, things which heretofore had been an “extreme” position of Conservatives have become commonplace. In fact, many folks have swung past Conservative to Libertarian.
We still hold many differences on many things, like SoCon issues, but even the SoCons understand that other things are more urgent, at the moment, and they are things we can agree on. Mitch Daniels was right on a “social truce”, even if it was not put quite right. It is a matter of priorities. SoCon issues need to be moved down the list, but they still need to be on the list.
Rubin also wrote — “It is time to change the rules of the game, McConnell has decided. Let’s see what happens.”
Holy Cow. Mitch McConnell is the One? Who knew? Never mind. Let’s lock and load and go in with a roar for Mitch, maties. It’s now or never.
The republicans are about to put the country on a new budget. It is not one they would normally choose but it is there none the less. It comes about because incoming revenues are less than authorized expenditures. The president , who is the chief executive, would have to exercise a line item veto. He would have to decide what bills to pay. That would be his new job.
Which does he pay? That will be the question that will decide his future. As it should be. It will be interesting. The only bill he has no control over are the interest and principle payments on the national debt.
When you play chicken with with a telephone pole you should know that you have an executive function disorder.
Brilliant “Shane” analogy. We really are at the crossroads.
I have nothing but disdain for Bozama in this matter. He is showing us once again why he is the worst POTUS since Carter. In fact, he may end up below Carter.
Michelle Bachman is right: The Federal government needs to go on a diet.
Since a high percentage of Federal spending goes into salaries for Federal employees – time for layoffs and pay cuts. The private sector has paid their dues, time for the public piggies to pay theirs.
It’s a bluff.
the “checks” don’t stop. Most of them are fully automated EFTs. One someone is on the rolls, it’s all automatic. The gov cannot stop transfering the money without massively rewriting the code and reprogramming everything.
The checks will come anyway. Of course, due to these theatrics the purchasing power will be eroded, but that has been going on for a long time now.
Part of what caused leg thrills and pant crease admiration was how urbane, worldly and sophisticated O was. I am continually amazed that he and those around him can be so apparently oblivious to big R reality. It also continues to make me wonder if it is incompetence or something darker. Three huzzahs for Mitch McConnell. Who would think those low sloping forehead conservatives would see more clearly into the future?
Gotta admit, this is terrific political theater. And only because the Repubs finally seem to have grown a pair. If they stand their ground … wow. Game over for the Obama presidency.
The Institutional Republicans Really, Really, Really want to cut the same kind of deal that they have done for decades. They want to get along with their friends across the aisle. The only thing that is stopping them, is that if they cave again, there WILL be a Third Party. And it will be them, because they will be the smallest and least consequential. Their normal response to the threat to leave, that it will mean that the Democrats will win, does not carry the same weight as it did before. If, with control of the House [where all budget bills must start], and what looks like control of the Senate assured if there are elections in 2012, and with the Democrat president presiding over the Second Great Depression [if we use the same measures now as we did then]; the Institutional Republicans will not stand up to the Left NOW, then there is no hope that they ever will and Conservatives and Patriots are well rid of them.
The only reason that the Republicans are in the position of power that they are in, is because of the efforts of Conservatives, the TEA Party, and outraged Independents; despite being stabbed in the back by them repeatedly. I’m pretty sure that most of us are tired of reaching around to pull the blades from between our shoulder blades.
We will be there to remind them:
1) Every time, EVERY time the Democrats have promised spending cuts in the future to get tax increases now; they have lied. No one with a “D” behind his name has any credibility.
2) Every time, EVERY time the Democrats project additional revenue from raising tax rates, they have been wrong because they suppress the economic activity they are penalizing.
3) There IS NO MORE MONEY. We are in a Depression, and increasing taxes will only make it worse. There is no more design margin in the system.
4) Despite Obama claiming that $2 Trillion in new taxes and no cuts to anything but the military is a “compromise”; it is the same as the budget he submitted that was defeated overwhelmingly by even the Democrat controlled Senate.
5) With today’s declaration that if the debt ceiling is not raised, that he will cut off retirement, disability, and military pay checks first, last, and always; while still funneling money to his cronies, there is no doubt where his loyalties lie.
Will the Republicans cave? Despite the “anchoring” Wretchard refers to, the odds are far better than 50% based on the performance with past “anchors”.
And if they do not, there is a distinct possibility that Obama will ignore the debt limit and sell bonds without Congressional authorization. Several Democrat members of both Houses, and the Secretary of the Treasury, have been claiming [and then half denying] that Section 4 of the XIV Amendment effectively transfers the Congress’ Constitutional Article I Section 8 Clause 2 power to borrow money from Congress to the President. Obedience to the Constitution, the Law, or the Courts are not the hallmarks of the Democrats.
Anyone dumb enough to buy US government securities that cannot even pretend to be backed by the “full faith and credit of the United States”, let alone anything real; deserves the lesson in financial Darwinism that they are going to receive.
And if the current administration does this, it might be well to review the English Petition of Right of 1628 [which was one of the basis' of our Constitution], the immediately following “Eleven Years Tyranny” when Charles I ruled by decree and governed by extorted “forced loans” without reference to Parliament. Because we may well be living our equivalent of the unpleasantness that followed the eleven years at a much faster, “kinetic” pace.
Subotai Bahadur
POTUS urges shared sacrifice. I havent had enough work in the past 3 years to comment on. Ive had it with sacrifice. When are we gonna see some sacrifice from the Fedl Gummint? Id like to see about a half million feds laid off.
2. Marc Malone
Anyone familiar with the OT knows that bad morals and bad boundaries are two sides of the same problem. I disagree with your idea that social issues need to be pushed down the agenda. the log cabin republicans or whatever name they go by –are rinos. sppm as roe v wade is repealed the gays will shrivel in influence.
Who is Jack Palance in the Shane analogy?
Discuss.
We need to mark for oblivion the first GOPer who blinks. [Excepting Stowe, McCain, Collins, etc., who've been batting eyelashes their entire political life].
Here is an example of an american company that combines self interest and the national interest
Chesapeake Energy $1B Plan to Break OPEC ‘Headlock’: CEO
http://www.cnbc.com/id/43725400?__source=yahoo|headline|quote|text|&par=yahoo
The economist is saying things as Belmont here about the budget game being played in washington–except less on the issues of taxes vs budget cuts. they just want to get it done. (nor do they discuss the dems smoke and mirrors.)
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/07/economic-policy-0
I don’t think either side with cave in. Default is likely; I would set the odds at 3:1 in favor of default and against any raise in the debt ceiling. I wish I were wrong, but that is how I see it.
Politically, I think the fallout against this default will be against both the Republicans and the Democrats; it may very well be the “bases” of each party that becomes discredited. In other words, it is quite possible that both Obama and the Tea Party might lose.
By resorting to dirty tricks, from Obama’s first election to his state senate seat to presenting himself as a messiah in 2008 to using “deem and pass” in the Senate to ram through “Obamacare”, Barack Obama has pushed his opponents into intransigence. His opponents simply do not trust him, and that means they will not cooperate with him in the “prisoner’s dilemma”.
The optimal strategy in the “prisoner’s dilemma” against someone who consistently cheats is to refuse to cooperate with him, if only to show him that one is willing to do something completely self-defeating in order to punish betrayal.
Cheaters such as Barack Obama often presume they are smarter than people who do not cheat. What compulsive cheaters do not understand is that their reputation for cheating makes cooperation on crucial matters difficult if not impossible. When distrust is rampant, getting people to cooperate on even the most basic matters breaks down. America’s default on its debt could have been predicted in 2010 when “deem and pass” was used to ram through “health care reform” in the Senate; that one event meant that Republicans would no longer have incentive to cooperate with Barack Obama on anything.
In pinball, there comes a time when a nudge becomes a TILT. That happens in politics too.
Does the debt limit ever go down? Why not raise it, let it stay there for two years, and then come down by 5 percent a year for 10 years. Then make the 2012 election about “the fiscal fix” and how to fix it.
I told my Democrat friends back in January 2009 that the deficits would run over a trillion dollars a year forever with what Obama was doing. The economy won’t grow, the tax increases won’t bring in near the revenue projected, and spending “binge” will not be controlled and the programs cost way, way more than advertised.
My “stimulus” idea (which I mentioned in the “comments” here at the time) was to use the trillion to eliminate payroll taxes and the corporate income tax. That would give everyone a raise, improve cash flow for businesses and improve the “pay-off” to investors and retirement funds. These taxes are contained in the price of goods produced in the U.S, so the revenue can be replaced by a sales tax — phased in over a year or so. Sales taxes are charged on imports so Social Security and medicare will be supported by foreign exporters to the U.S. market. U.S. goods and services will become more competitive — both domestically and internationally — as will US labor. The income tax should “flattened” and deductions mostly eliminated. The Earned Income Tax credit is actually a rebate of the Payroll tax to the working poor (which the Democrats want to rebate again). It could be merged into a “sales tax rebate” for the poor.
Obama doesn’t know how to negotiate, all he knows is mau-mau, he doesn’t know how to *give*. I think this explains his behavior. Even if he’s trying to find compromise, he doesn’t really understand the concept. He has no respect for his opposition. He’s always all-in. And that’s gotten him where he is. He may say anything, but his word isn’t good, heck, not that he’s not reliable, it’s just that he doesn’t *give* his word.
As for the budget – let’s see what happens, focus everyone’s attention. It would probably take months for real financial turmoil to result. I think the parties couldn’t stand the emotional strain and would find a reasonable solution, after hanging over the abyss for about 90 days. Friggin’ democrats haven’t even passed a budget in two years, what are they worth anyway, and note that’s mostly the congressional rats, not so much Obambus.
The only way the United States defaults is for it to not pay the interest on it’s debt. That would have to be by choice of Obama. That can’t be blamed on the Republicans. All the choices of the bills he chooses not to pay fall on Obama. They will be his choice and his blame. All we need to do is to remind the country that on Obama’s watch, spending has risen astronomically over and above that directly tied to the depression relief.
The contagion spreading to Italy couldn’t have happened at a better time for this budget battle, ( that’s not to say it’s a good thing for the Italians, et al ) but the entire world will see what happens when major industrial countries can’t pay their bills. Europe’s calamity will put tremendous pressure on the Democrats to come to the table. It will be ugly, but it’s much better now than later. And it will be much better for America if the pubs don’t cave; investors will finally see some fiscal discipline out the US so we might even stave off disaster.
Part of the problem is that the public is so susceptible to being fooled. The debt limit stands above 14 trillion. The left offers cuts in spending in the billions. I would guess that not one in twenty voters could tell you what fraction of a trillion is a billion. They both sound like big numbers, that is all. They’re both more than the number of a leftist’s fingers and toes.
A billion is one tenth of one percent of a trillion; a fortieth of one percent of four trillion. Even if it weren’t smoke and mirrors, or a vague promise about a future cut, it is an unmeasurably small fraction of the needful thing. Socrates remarked long ago, many of our problems arise from a simple failure to understand geometry: i.e., the proportions among things.
“The only way the United States defaults is for it to not pay the interest on its debt.”
I believe that is correct. Failure to raise the debt ceiling is NOT tantamount to default.
It may, however, be tantamount to an involuntary cap on Federal spending. And in the present environment, that is probably all to the good.
hdgreene@18:
“My “stimulus” idea (which I mentioned in the “comments” here at the time) was to use the trillion to eliminate payroll taxes and the corporate income tax. That would give everyone a raise, improve cash flow for businesses and improve the “pay-off” to investors and retirement funds”
Ridiculous! The basis of Fairness is the progressiveness of our tax system. Giving tax breaks only to those who pay taxes is the ultimate in regressive tax policy. A Truly Fair stimulus would give a trillion dollars only to those who can prove they paid no taxes! Our Betters have been instructing us in the Virtues of Progressiveness for some time now. Since you have obviously not caught on, perhaps some Re-education is in your future!
As Salt Lick pointed out about Mitch Mc Connell: “who knew”
Truly great speech by McConnell today with multiple great sound bites:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rAau8Jq4weQ
Watch the whole thing. It makes ya feel we actually might turn this thing around.
Charles Dickens expressed the central principle: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.” Obama is promising the latter in perpetuity. The worst part is that we have nothing whatever to show for it.
Let’s not forget that, at about this point in his presidency and decline, Clinton did what a normal politician does. He went with what would be best for him and for the country. Were Obama not a pathological narcissist, this would not be happening. This is not about the people being fooled, like they so often are. We all know what it means to be out of money and out of gas at the same time. All of the leftist doublethink and newspeak in the universe is not going to overcome that reality.
And Charles is absolutely right, the fact that we are off the rails morally is integral to what’s gone wrong and, again, this is inescapable for anyone grounded in reality.
Obama is planning on winning and on doing so by being the most audacious and ruthless bad ass in the town. That is ALL that matters to him, and he has the help of thousands of unhinged groups that have sprung up over the last half century with one goal in mind: to attack and destroy Americanism and its host and to replace it with the mechanisms of tyranny that have so often held sway in the history of mankind.
We here at BC have been smelling a duel to the death for the past few years. Lucky for the Republicans and for America that Obama is as self-destructive and riddled with hubris as he is, because we just might pull this one off.
Come to think of it, this brings another western to mind. It was Liberty Valance’s pathological narcissism that did him in when all was said and done. And the bumbling Jimmy Stewart was not such a bad fit for the modern-day pubs, all gussied up and well-spoken but just barely aware of what he did and did not bring to the table.
That would raise another rhetorical question: who might play John Wayne’s part this time around?
Thomas Drew 21: “Socrates remarked long ago, many of our problems arise from a simple failure to understand geometry: i.e., the proportions among things.”
Excellent. I completely agree. It is far too easy to throw a few mill and bill into the air and pretty soon the dust is so thick the public –never comfortable with figures– shrugs and turns to the dancing girls. Of whom the Left has an infinite supply.
This innumeracy (John Allen Paulos has written well on this) is not limited to the low-sloping foreheads. Corporate chieftains round their M&A deals to the nearest hundred million or, often, billion. Because, ya know, that’s an exact expression of the value.
Big numbers make us even dumber than usual. And these are very very big numbers. A fact on which Obama is counting.
“…who might play John Wayne’s part this time around?”
Well, Sarah Palin has already shown she knows how to shoot.
As the old saying goes, when life serves you up lemons make the best of it by making lemonade. The Republicans need to be creative and start playing hardball with an edge. We need new taxes? Yes–lets start by taxing unions, private or public sector. Every dollar that comes in as union dues should be taxed at the same rate that corporations pay as income tax. Non-profits–do the same for that proportion of their income that goes to the salaries of their employees. Tax the wealth–yeah–hit the trust fund babies hard, especially those who are the third generation or more recipients (can you say Kennedy?). And how about putting a 50% tax on all income that is derived from government pensions and benefits (federal, state, or local) that is above the amount of $100,000 a year? Put that up and see how it flies, and see how the Dems respond when the tax increases are targeted at their supporters.
Lets see how they defend the arguments against taxes. It will be a novel thing to see Democrats arguing against raising taxes on the wealthy.
Mc Connell said a lot of great things in his speech today, but one point I missed: Did he give away the debt ceiling struggle? Zerohedge has a different take:http://www.zerohedge.com/article/senate-republican-leader-mcconnell-folds-debt-ceiling
This was supposed to a no deal is better than a bad deal speech. Did he come up instead with a new bad deal?
After a great speech on how the Pubs are not going to fall for smoke and mirrors again, how they ‘re not going to allow Buraq make Big governement permanent, how he won’t be able to negotiate with Buraq, yada, yada, yada, Mc Connell tells Buraq he won’t even need the smoke and mirrors to raise the debt ceiling. WTF?
Just when I thought he had finally seen the light, Mc Connell capitulates again.
Tcobb @ 29: “The Republicans need to be creative and start playing hardball with an edge.”
Perhaps the Repubs ought to start laying some concrete markers down: eliminate the BATF (a second gunrunning scandal is breaking; they’re too corrupt to reform); eliminate/scale back the Department of Energy (established after the ’70s oil embargoes to make the US energy-independent — how’s that worked out?); scale back the Department of Education (they don’t need their own SWAT teams). There are probably many more ideas. Make up some whiz-bang charts outlining the dollars saved.
If nothing else, they’ll get the Dems on record for defending these bloated bureaucracies — and can use it to hammer them in 2012.
Salt Lick @3,
You don’t go the war with the commander you wish you had but with the commander you have. I call for standing firm. if we are to be undone and destroyed, it might as well be now. If we are to win, it should have been two and a half years ago.
Those feckless gov’t critters shall do what they always do. They will lie, cheat and steal until there is no way out but down, call it victory and continue screwing the rest of us.
The problem is defined by the wants and needs and desires of 545 people. We are at the debt ceiling because this wish it so. There is a deficit because they wish it so. We are broke and fighting amongst ourselves because they wish it so. It is all smoke and mirrors and cheap parlour tricks to gull the gullible.
435 Reps
100 Senators
9 Supremes
1 pResident
= 545
Rope. Tree. Tyrant.
Some assembly required.
While the average Republican may be nearly as immoral in his private life as the average Democrat, although I think that Rs really reflect the natural distribution of vice in humanity and the Ds are order of magnitude outliers, that does not mean that in a policy debate they are moral equals. The fact is that the Democrats are trying to overturn the constitutional order of the United States. They may feel that they are doing so in the name of some greater good. They may feel no loyalty to the Constitution because it was written by slave owners. That does not change the fact that under the Constitution the House must pass the budget and no monies can be spent except as authorized by law. That is more basic even than arguments about spending monies on anything not granted to the Congress among the enumerated powers. The Democrats are not only spending money on things that Congress should not authorize they are claiming that they can spend money that has not been authorized at all.
The debt ceiling will not be raised (and I agree, this is not tantamount to default), taxes will not be raised, and neither Barry Soetoro nor democrats in congress will propose any form of legitimate spending reduction. So, for change, nothing will happen. Given the mandate/message of last novembers election results, this is a very good thing, the first good thing, from which many more good things will arise. Every representative in congress from democrat party is mum, silent, of either partisan side of this. The net effect of this is that democrat election/re-election strategy to paint themselves as centrist/budget hawks falls flat on it’s cynical, perfidious face. Then there is the prospect of the howling and caterwauling democrat party representatives are already hearing and facing from their “base”. And that leaves them with a rather conspicuous need of more Depends. So they, democrat party representatives, pass the buck right straight to Barry Soetoro, who is woefully unprepared for this. His mendacious attempts to portray himself as a centrist find himself flailing away in a more accurate rendention of himself and the chicago style radical corrupt politics he cannot possibly pull off anymore as he no longer has one party rule. The gig is up, petulant one, issue your threats, and resentments, your pathetic reprisals, try and pass that buck that keeps bouncing back, you’re finished.
The Government is SOS,Stuck on Stupid and you cant fix stupid. We need wholesale replacement of DCrats and get this great Nation back minus the PC crap we have been force fed by the shovel full.If this wont be stopped now we are all truly Fu**ed !
I just want to see one thing. I want to see Obomber not send out social security checks on Aug 3 and then fire up Air Force 1 and fly off to vacation in Hyannisport. Noenher could go longer without a cigarette than Barry could go without a round of golf and if Michelle Antoinette is stuck in Washington in August he ain’t going to be getting none of that neither.
Barry has got a bad hand and the Republicans could always just pass a 12 month extension and say we will wait for your budget and your cuts and see how you plan to solve this fiscal crisis and address it during the elections at which point we will say can’T extend it any further because because Obomber made no cuts. if he vetoes a year extension or the Senate Dems do not pass it he owns everything. e owned the deficit, the bad economy, the unemployment, the five wars, the flip flops, GItmo, Gun Walker and the death panels. by that time too we wil have a collapsed Euro as a fitting example of what happens with Euro Socialism.
“Compromise, in the terms of each side, has become tantamount to surrender.”
Reality sets in. Compromise means BOTH sides lose. Better to duke it out, have a winner and loser then swap spit with your sister.
I suspect the voters are at a “pox on both their houses” point. Put it to the test.
“A man either fears his fate too much
or desires his rewards to small,
if he won’t put it to the test
to win or lose it all.”
IIRC an SAS toast. If you don’t go for the win, you will always be the loser. If you go for it, you might fail, but if you don’t go for it, you will ALWAYS fail.
“The president , who is the chief executive, would have to exercise a line item veto.”
No such thing on a Federal level;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_Item_Veto_Act_of_1996
pinched
“Judge Thomas Hogan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia combined the cases and declared the law unconstitutional on February 12, 1998. This ruling was subsequently affirmed on June 25, 1998 by a 6-3 decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case Clinton v. City of New York. Justices Breyer, Scalia, and O’Connor dissented.”
Look who dissented. Line item veto is an assault on the separation of power enshrined in the Constitution. The line item veto allows POTUS to cherry pick the budget and makes Congress powerless.
#11 herb – In your position (which I’m not because I’m English) I would like to see half a million feds laid off too; but it’s not necessary. I’ll explain why using British figures. A few months ago Cameron came up with the idea of reducing government jobs by 270,000 over the next 5 years, and the next day all the papers (sadly, including the right-wing ones) were screaming that 270,000 people were going to lose their jobs. However, consider: Natural wastage rate (government employees dying, retiring, going into private sector jobs, leaving work to raise kids…) in the UK is about 5% per year – which means that during that 5 years about 800,000 government employees are going to leave without any effort at all.
Which of course means that nobody has to lose his job; it simply means recruiting less people. I suppose the figures for the USA are going to be slightly different in proportion, but if going by a proportion of population then the above figures mean about 4,000,000 US government employees are going to leave of their own accord in the next 5 years.
All you have to do is stop recruiting. And of course, those still there will have to actually do some work. Which may be the most difficult part.
Let’s see, this is a plan written by Republicans that will allow Obama to raise the debt ceiling without one single Republican having to vote in favor.
Talk about wiping your fingerprints before leaving the scene of the crime.
Once again, Republicans prove that they have neither the integrity nor the honesty to pursue real debt reduction… but they sure know how to CREATE debt! But, Of course, they’ll make it Obama’s fault!
The GOP… selling out America since 1972!
#33 Rurik — Agreed. When I posted at #3, I’d not heard McConnell’s other shoe drop. And this morning I read that Jim DeMint opposes McConnell’s plan. That settles it for me.
I’m still loaded, though, and waiting for that balloon to go up.
“[Repubs] …They want to get along with their friends across the aisle. The only thing that is stopping them, is that if they cave again, there WILL be a Third Party. And it will be them, because they will be the smallest and least consequential.”
If this is a game of chicken then the Dems may just be trying to make this happen.
Excuse my ignorance, but wasn’t Social Security “safe for years and years into the future” per Senator Reid? Wasn’t the money kept “in a lock box” per Vice President Gore? Why should there be a problem when the system will not go broke for tens of years? After all, this is not ‘income tax’ that is used for general revenue projects, is it? /sarc
This is a whiff of reality being exposed to the citizenry. Social Security benefits are not ‘guaranteed’. Congress can modify them at any time on their own schedule at their whim. There is no real promise of anything being repaid of any of the funds collected.
For the president of the United States to claim that he cannot give assurances that Social Security checks will be issued on time is the worst of demagoguery. From what I have determined, it is at the discretion of the president to determine which obligations are funded and which are denied.
The citizens should be made aware that Obama totally controls whether to issue the ‘checks’ or not.
tom
17. Alexis: “it may very well be the “bases” of each party that becomes discredited. In other words, it is quite possible that both Obama and the Tea Party might lose.”
I don’t see how you credit the Tea Party as the base of the GOP. I only wish the base of the GOP was half as truly conservative as the Tea Party. Perhaps this issue will be the last straw that breaks the Newt Gingrich-esque arm of the GOP, the true base of the Corporate entity known as the GOP. Do you remember the 2010 election and who Gingrich backed in NY23? Does Dede Scozzafava ring a bell? Remember how “base” Republicans treated Sarah Palin, especially blaming her for their Golden Boy, McCain’s loss? Which one was Tea Party and which GOP insider? Nope, I disagree, respectfully but vehemently, with your assessment in this regard.
More to your overall point, I hope both parties lose in this effort and the Tea Party becomes the base of the GOP, or eclipses it.
Denninger raises a VERY good point: Social Security is not paid out of the General Fund.
Meaning that to NOT pay Social Security on time IS default, pure and simple. The Treasury would be defaulting on the bonds issued to the Social Security Trust Fund!
These Treasury bonds are like all other CUSIPS: the Trust Fund buys them at auction right along with everyone else — and at the same price. Up until now the Trust Fund has ALWAYS been a net buyer of Treasury bonds. It gets its money via the separate payment deducted from payroll/ self-employment tax.
The Trust Fund is ALWAYS free to sell its holdings into the general market at any time. Current position is north of 4.6 Trillion USD.
It is legally IMPOSSIBLE for the President to block payment of Social Security. It’s source of funding is already in being. It’s NOT part of the general funding of the government — not withstanding endless calculations that fold it back in.
It has first call on the taxes collected by FICA. These, plus the 4.6 trillion, will keep the checks coming for quite a few years.
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Failure to pay Social Security — on its face — is a default upon the US Treasuries held in its name by the Treasury.
“My “stimulus” idea (which I mentioned in the “comments” here at the time) was to use the trillion to eliminate payroll taxes and the corporate income tax. That would give everyone a raise, improve cash flow for businesses and improve the “pay-off” to investors and retirement funds. These taxes are contained in the price of goods produced in the U.S, so the revenue can be replaced by a sales tax — phased in over a year or so. Sales taxes are charged on imports so Social Security and medicare will be supported by foreign exporters to the U.S. market. U.S. goods and services will become more competitive — both domestically and internationally — as will US labor. The income tax should “flattened” and deductions mostly eliminated. The Earned Income Tax credit is actually a rebate of the Payroll tax to the working poor (which the Democrats want to rebate again). It could be merged into a “sales tax rebate” for the poor.”
This plan already exists, it’s called the Hartman Plan, for the Austin economist David Hartman.
Under the plan, corporate income and the employer’s portion of the payroll tax would be abolished and replaced with a VAT credit for goods exported and a tax for goods imported. Voila, suddenly the U.S. is every bit as competitive in manufacturing as our top mid-to higher wage exporting trade partners (Germany, Japan, Korea). Of course, the Chinese wouldn’t like it at first, as their dirt cheap goods would be exposed as not so cheap once one accounts for the energy inputs of shipping a container from Shanghai to U.S. or Canadian/Mexican NAFTA West Coast ports. But Beijing might get over it fast as it would instantly make the U.S. dollar credible again as a reserve currency and prevent their $2 trillion in U.S. denominated holdings from being inflated away as the Bernanke surely aims to do in a case of economic devaluation warfare against them (with all U.S. savers and anyone who buys food, gasoline or other daily-use goods in dollars as the collateral damage). Thus China would buy a valuable cushion against social unrest by being able to buy people off with better pensions secured by those assets (a $200 a month pension will go much further in rural China than in the U.S. or even Russia, provided the rampant inflation tiger can be tamed).
Thus the ‘mystery’ of how Germany has been able to maintain itself as a world-class manufacturing power despite paying wages and benefits as good as what the UAW guys have been getting (though probably with better union discipline of members who are truly lazy), is easily explained. The Fed’s hundreds of billions sent to Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and BNP Paribas since 2008 also explain why the Euro hasn’t cratered despite those banks holding tens of billions of euros in bad Greek and other debt. Germany has essentially borrowed money from the Fed at near zero to lend to its biggest customers in EUrope. Obviously no matter how competitive German manufacturing would be (and some outsourcing to Poland, Czech Republic and increasingly, RUSSIA explains the streamlining) if its customer base collapses it will take a painful hit too. But the biggest U.S. customer base, India, China and other emergings aside, remains the U.S. (and perhaps Latin America too)
http://www.cptexas.us/riddle/riddle_472.html
It is very good to see that while many Belmont Clubbers are becoming more libertarian in foreign policy orientation, as is much of the Tea Party wing of the GOP, there’s also a refreshing willingness to re-examine ‘free trade’ to determine if what we have is free trade or massive rewards for offshoring and disicentives for keeping manufacturing, even highly automated manufacturing, here in the U.S. AND if certain industries (i.e. apparel, machinery, energy) are fiercely defended with the cry of ‘free trade’ while the Health-Care Industrial complex gets coddled and protected by the FDA from cheap Indian, Latin American, and even Russian/Ukrainian generic pharmaceuticals, and high-quality Cuban doctors (not just the sugar producers, who are a sideshow) are kept down by the ridiculously outdated Embargo.
Unfortunately, I’ve yet to see Marco Rubio asked by a Tea Party member if he would be willing to eliminate the Embargo to allow Floridians to go Galt against Obamacare and get treated 90 miles away. The doctors would go crazy on him, and perhaps deservedly since the Cuban docs don’t have to deal with Medicaid deadbeat patients.
Please don’t tar all fed employees with the same brush-while I will happily grant that there are many many Departments and Agencies that need to go away, here is an example of some fed employees that earn their pay, and who love their country to boot….
http://www.flickr.com:80/photos/65065550@N06/5925049160/in/photostream/