Money Matters
Posted by Michelle Moquin on September 10th, 2013
Good morning!
Fail Whale
BY CAP ACTION WAR ROOM ON AUGUST 27, 2013 AT 5:58 PM
GOP Threatens to Destroy the Economy (Again)
As they have at every possibility opportunity since 2011, Republicans are once again manufacturing a crisis in order to demand policies rejected by the American people. This time, however, they are innovating by trying to manufacture two crises at almost precisely the same time. Speaker Boehner (R-OH) has warned Democrats and President Obama to prepare for “a whale of a fight.”
First, the government runs out of the authority to spend money on September 30 and will shut down unless Congress acts. Dozens and dozens of Republicans are calling for just such a shutdown unless Obamacare is defunded and millions of Americans are denied the security of quality, affordable health care. They are also suggesting that Democrats must agree to lock-in painful and economically damaging sequester cuts.
(House Republicans have responded to the urgency of this situation by taking a five-week vacation and scheduling just nine days of work during the entire month of September.)
It gets worse.
The Treasury Department announced yesterday that the nation’s debt limit, the authority to borrow money to pay for spending Congress hasalready voted for, will be reached sometime in mid-October. This is weeks or even months sooner than some had anticipated.
Just for the record: Congress already racked up these bills and it needs to raise the debt limit in order to pay them. Period. End of story. No argument.
Nevertheless, Boehner promised Republican donors yesterday that he intends to repeat the disastrous debt limit crisis the GOP manufactured in 2011. That crisis brought us to the brink of an economy-destroying default on our obligations, actually increased the national debt, led to the first-ever downgrade of the nation’s credit rating, and dealt a severe blow to the economy.
Boehner reportedly even acknowledged how bad things were last time the GOP took the economy hostage:
Recalling the 2011 battle over raising the federal debt ceiling, Boehner recalled negotiations that spooked financial markets, prompted Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the U.S. credit rating and angered ordinary Americans. He warned the audience to expect more of the same.
“I wish I could tell you it was going to be pretty and polite, and it would all be finished a month before we’d ever get to the debt ceiling. Sorry, it just doesn’t work that way,” Boehner said
As MSNBC’s Steve Benen noted today, Republicans are the only thing standing in the way of it working that way:
Well, it could work that way, and it used to work that way. Between 1939 and 2010, Congress raised the debt limit 89 times. In recent years, many of those votes were cast by a guy named John Boehner. Neither party took Americans hostage; neither party demanded a ransom. That was before the radicalization of the Republican Party, at which point threatening to trash the full faith and credit of the United States on purpose became acceptable.
In the past even Boehner himself has repeatedly said that he would not use the debt ceiling for political leverage.
Republicans are again willing to risk tanking the the entire economy in order to force Democrats to accept deep and unpopular cuts to programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Obamacare. These cuts would come on top of the job-killing austerity cuts to other domestic programs that Republicans are also demanding Democrats agree to keep.
As he laid out his hostage-taking plan to donors, even Boehner admitted that this tactic was “unfair.” He’s right.
The American people overwhelmingly rejected these policies last year when they overwhelmingly rejected Mitt Romney and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI). Voters also expanded the Democratic majority in the Senate and even voted for a Democratic House of Representatives, which Republicans are only able to maintain control of thanks to the extensive gerrymandering they carried out after the 2010 census.
BOTTOM LINE: We can’t continue govern by crisis. Republicans should drop their irresponsible threats to shut down the government and Congress simply needs to raise the debt limit in order to pay the bills it already racked up.
*******
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September 12th, 2013 at 7:58 am
If America is so broke, why don’t conservatives stop the Corporate subsidies costing 92 Billion yearly, why not stop Farm Aide for farmers not growing costing Billions yearly, and we can stop Foreign Aide going to countries that hate America or don’t listen costing Billions yearly??? Because their the conservative donors !!!
Instead, Conservatives insist on taking away America’s ability to function, take away our American social programs, take away blacks rights, women’s rights and worker’s rights…because their liberal donors !!!
September 12th, 2013 at 7:59 am
Don’t be such a drama llama. Increasing the debt ceiling is the only opportunity Republicans have to try to cut spending. Democrats aren’t going to consider spending cuts unless the Republicans have some leverage. De-funding Obamacare is the Republican’s opening position but of course the Democrats will never agree to that. On the other side, Obama has stated he’s not willing to cut even one dime of spending from the budget (but of course it’s the Republicans who are portrayed as the one’s who never want to compromise).
We’ve seen this drama played out before and, if you’ve been paying attention, you even know how it ends. The Democrats will whine about holding the country hostage but in the end they’ll agree to some modest cuts, mostly in the future. Everyone goes away claiming victory.
September 12th, 2013 at 7:59 am
I disagree strongly. The Democratic majorities in Congress have caused these problems. They don’t even care about voting on a budget, because they have written budget increases into all their favorite programs. The spending increases are now written into the system.
The media backed Obama in misleading the American people prior to the last election, like the debate Candy Crowley moderated on CNN. I guess you are one of the many Americans who enjoy being lied to and you hate people who have different opinions.
You believe the Republicans do the gerrymandering? Only in a few places. Where I live the progressives do it through the city and county planning departments and right through the state government. Neighborhoods used to vote at local schools, since 1994, not anymore. We’re split into a patchwork to make sure property owners never have a majority in any precinct. Taxpayers don’t have a chance.
September 12th, 2013 at 8:04 am
hmmm…I can see there is little anyone can say that would get you to realize that the country is broke economically, in fact, way past broke. if this was an individual, you’d get it.
such an individual had a certain amount of income each year for year after year, and along the way kept spending more than he made. each year he decided to spend even more, increasing his lifestyle without paying for it but by using credit based on the income he expected in the years yet to be lived, from the income he wouldn’t have for years and years. but this is our country.
and the sad fact, the reality, is that debt is either repaid or you go bankrupt. we are, as a country, already living on money our great great grandchildren will be paying in taxes, and even beyond that. and the question is simple.
if our descendents of several generations will be paying off the debt this country has amassed already today, what will they be paying additionally to take care of their own needs and desires through the government? sooner or later, it has to end.
our creditors want their money repaid! and sadly, the vast amount of what this country owes isn’t to foreign countries, it is to us through savings bonds, T-bills, loan guarantees and all sorts of programs such as social security, medicare, etc. the point is, we are spending money that does not exist, by the hundreds of billions of dollars!! and yes, it will all collapse one way or another, and the country will be openly bankrupt, broke.
there is no way out of it. and I, for one, would rather take that ‘hit’ now than to pass it off to my kids and grandkids. i’d rather we go completely ‘dead’ fiscally and start the task of rebuilding our economy than to give in to some insane hope that somehow we can just keep everything rolling if we can just juggle our debt and keep everyone fooled about it. think about it.
you can only put so much air in a balloon, and then you can only put so many patches on the balloon as it deteriorates, an finally it just explodes.
September 12th, 2013 at 9:21 am
Albert that is just bullshit. Try some facts before you come here with your idiotic ravings. Deficit Surprise: US Pays Down National Debt http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2013/04/us-pays-down-national-debt/
And if that doesn’t do it for you, try this on for size, U.S. Budget Deficit Down 37.6 Percent Through July: CBO http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/12/us-budget-deficit_n_3745096.html
Oh, and by the way learn to write correctly. It is uneducated to not know how to capitalize and it makes for difficult reading. If you want to be taken seriously, you have to show you have the concern for the comfort of others to make the shit you post readable.
September 12th, 2013 at 9:28 am
I agree with you Daniel, if you want to be taken seriously. Write grammatically or at least capitalize your fucking sentences.