What's The Latest With The Debt Ceiling?
One of the things I've found difficult about following these debt ceiling talks is how much happens behind closed doors. Jennifer Rubin over at the Washington Post has good relations with House leadership and reports that John Boehner explained what's going on in a conference call to House Republicans yesterday:
The White House has never gotten serious about tackling the serious issues our nation faces — not without tax hikes — and I don’t think they ever will. The path forward, I believe, is that we pull together as a team behind a new measure that has a shot at getting to the president’s desk. It’s won’t be Cut, Cap & Balance as we passed it, but it should be a package that reflects the principles of Cut, Cap & Balance. We’re committed to working with you — and with our Republican colleagues in the Senate — to get it done. No one is willing to default on the full faith and credit of the United States.
And I think the leaders in both parties and both houses of Congress already agree that we need significant reductions. But if we stick together, I think we can win this for the American people . . . because I do think there is a path. But it’s gonna require us to stand together as a team. It’s gonna require some of you to make some sacrifices. If we stand together as a team, our leverage is maximized, and they have to deal with us. If we’re divided, our leverage gets minimized.
Before I close, let me thank all of you for your patience, and for your confidence, and for your commitment to our country. We’re doing the right thing, and you all know that the right thing isn’t always the easiest thing to do.
Eric Cantor weighed in by noting that everyone needs to remain united and insist -- contrary to what President Obama wants -- that every dollar the debt limit is increased is matched by equal or more dollars in spending cuts without any tax hikes. The Republican leaders warned that this was an issue President Obama is hanging his re-election on and will fight tooth and nail.
How are you feeling as we head into a new week of negotiations?
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Dec '10
Re: What's The Latest With The Debt Ceiling?
I am more concerned with the trajectory of our debt than with the debt limit, as are the rating agencies. Government could lift the arbitrary debt limit and the nation could still be downgraded because nothing structural is being done to even delay the next instance of hitting the limit. The R's seem to get this, the D's do not.
May '10
Re: What's The Latest With The Debt Ceiling?
The President is hanging his re-election on obtaining tax increases?! Why? Because he thinks that makes him look like a moderate consensus builder? Is there time for Jennifer Rubin to write a book about what really went down here before the election?
Sep '10
Re: What's The Latest With The Debt Ceiling?
The GOP leadership is presently committed to cutting the rate at which government is growing, nothing more. Granted this is an improvement over Bush and Obama years, but hardly a change in direction. Please note that the call to roll back spending to 2008 levels we heard during the CR drama, which ended with almost no cuts, has not been heard from since. This call is simply a call by Boehner to house freshman to begin acting like the go along to get along, big government, GOP establishment. This is almost a meaningless exercise. How many GOP establishment pols are primaried and defeated will determine if the direction of the country is going to be changed.
Apr '11
Re: What's The Latest With The Debt Ceiling?
I'm struck by how when someone in the MSM talks about the republicans unwillingness to compromise that the point isn't defended that there are fundamental differences keeping us from compromise. The defenders speaking for Republicans talk of differences but fail to express that Democrats have moved the line of normalcy so far left that we appear extreme. We need to explain where the new line of so called compromise is so people can truly grasp the issue.
Jan '11
Re: What's The Latest With The Debt Ceiling?
I'm concerned about the plan Reid is supposedly working on, which is being described as a 2.7T raise in the debt ceiling balanced by 2.7T in spending cuts. Seems likely that the debt ceiling hike will occur immediately while the spending "cuts" are scheduled for way down the road under a different Congress and do nothing to address the structural problems of entitlement programs. Even without tax hikes this would be nothing but a shell game - yet the media will trumpet it as a "balanced" proposal.
Jan '11
Re: What's The Latest With The Debt Ceiling?
Three words:
Oct '10
Re: What's The Latest With The Debt Ceiling?
People keep talking about the "full faith and credit of the United States" as if that meant something.
Our currency is a fiat currency. We've gone from being the largest creditor nation in the world to the largest debtor nation in some 70 years. We think that having the world's reserve currency—for now—somehow makes us immune to the laws of economics.
liberal jim gets it exactly right: what's under discussion, again, is how to slow the rate of growth of government spending. There's no actual cut, let alone one that would begin to solve the structural issues, on the table from either party. The United States will experience economic collapse. The only question left is how long we can stave it off.
Apr '11
Re: What's The Latest With The Debt Ceiling?
“The Speaker, Sen. Reid and Sen. McConnell all agreed on the general framework of a two-part plan. A short-term increase (with cuts greater than the increase), combined with a committee to find long-term savings before the rest of the increase would be considered. Sen. Reid took the bipartisan plan to the White House and the President said no.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/white-house-stokes-debt-ceiling-crisis/2011/03/29/gIQAvx8DYI_blog.html
Apr '11
Re: What's The Latest With The Debt Ceiling?
Is Obama a pathological liar?
Now, Mr. Boehner and the real leaders in Congress have taken back the process. He’ll write the bill and pass it along to the president, with this directive, which he reportedly said to Mr. Obama’s face in a short White House meeting Saturday: “Congress writes the laws and you get to decide what you want to sign.”
Watching the one-third-of-a-term-senator-turned-president negotiate brings to mind a child spinning yarns about just how the living room lamp got broken. Now, though, the grown-ups are in charge; the kids have been put to bed. Ten days ago, the president warned the speaker: “Dont call my bluff.”
Well, Mr. Boehner has. He’s holding all the cards — and he’s not bluffing.
Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/24/curl-is-obama-a-pathological-liar/print/