CheapyD on U.S.' debt ceiling

Well that's certainly an interesting start to a vs. thread.

I think they intend to raise the debt ceiling in any case, they just can score political points by first opposing it and they probably also hope to get spending cuts to the programs that they don't like (well, and I think some of the new tea party republicans are genuinely stupid).

I think it would play out in a similar way if they had the presidency, they just might not have the same political targets.
 
He left out the part where the democrats would be opposing raising the debt ceiling given his hypothetical...
 
His statement is probably true (and I only say probably because I left my alternate-universe viewing globe in my other pants today... I'm sure if I looked, I'd see this to be 100% true).
 
[quote name='RedvsBlue']He left out the part where the democrats would be opposing raising the debt ceiling given his hypothetical...[/QUOTE]

Name one other time where there wasn't a clean debt ceiling vote.

I'll wait.
 
Republicans voted 19 times to increase the debt ceiling under the previous administration without nary a peep. There was some noise from the Democrats, including some from President Obama, during the votes that took place during election seasons.
 
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...nn-said-obama-voted-against-debt-limit-when-/

[quote name='Guess Who?']The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills[/quote]

"The Senate narrowly approved raising the limit along partisan lines, 52-48, with all Democrats opposed.

Typically, the party that controls the White House has had to take the difficult vote to raise the limit, while the other party was free to criticize. An analysis of the past 10 years of votes on the debt limit from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center shows the vote usually splits along partisan lines, with the president's party voting in support."
 
It's politics. They're almost always going to oppose the other side on any hot button issues of the time. The economy and debt is a hot issue now, so they'll fight tooth or nail over it. If there was a republican president, then democrats would be fighting them tooth and nail on it due to the current political climate.

Anyway, expanding the discussion a bit, the one thing in the republican's argument that keeps annoying me is the repeated statements by Boehner and other leaders that the public won't support any tax increases.

That's just complete BS. Polls I've seen show the public is supportive of the things Obama wants like ending oil subsidies, ethanol subidies, tax loopholes for the wealthy etc.

The only people who don't support such things are the wealthy who are lining republican's coffers with donations. That's who objects to those kind of tax increases. Not the American public. Those fat cats, and the anti-government tea partiers are about it. The majority of everyone else is in favor of ending tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy.
 
[quote name='Msut77']Name one other time where there wasn't a clean debt ceiling vote.

I'll wait.[/QUOTE]
I don't need to because dmaul already answered along the lines of what my reply would have been.
[quote name='dmaul1114']It's politics. They're almost always going to oppose the other side on any hot button issues of the time. The economy and debt is a hot issue now, so they'll fight tooth or nail over it. If there was a republican president, then democrats would be fighting them tooth and nail on it due to the current political climate.

Anyway, expanding the discussion a bit, the one thing in the republican's argument that keeps annoying me is the repeated statements by Boehner and other leaders that the public won't support any tax increases.

That's just complete BS. Polls I've seen show the public is supportive of the things Obama wants like ending oil subsidies, ethanol subidies, tax loopholes for the wealthy etc.

The only people who don't support such things are the wealthy who are lining republican's coffers with donations. That's who objects to those kind of tax increases. Not the American public. Those fat cats, and the anti-government tea partiers are about it. The majority of everyone else is in favor of ending tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy.[/QUOTE]
 
[quote name='Msut77']Name one other time where there wasn't a clean debt ceiling vote.[/QUOTE]

I'd actually be interested to hear this too, if anyone finds it. I don't trust Bing or Google because they might be in bed with Obama.

[quote name='Cheese']Republicans voted 19 times to increase the debt ceiling under the previous administration without nary a peep. There was some noise from the Democrats, including some from President Obama, during the votes that took place during election seasons.[/QUOTE]Some of the members of the new Congress genuinely believe that the debt was caused by Obama & the Democrats and they should fix the problem themselves. Kind of awesome:
"It's their debt," Mulvaney said, referring to Democrats. "Make them do it. That's my attitude."
That attitude is surprisingly common.
Leaders in both parties view this as must-pass legislation. The White House is urging passage of a debt limit increase with no amendments, but officials acknowledge privately that they may need to make concessions, perhaps in the form of substantial spending cuts, to win support from House Republicans.
"We're here mopping up their spilled milk, to be honest," freshman Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) said.
​
Click to expand...
 
The only reason there is any fight right now (as oppesed to the dozen or so other times that it has been increased over the last ten years) is because you have Tea Party lunatics thinking that spending = bad no matter what. Also, Pres Obama's "Failure in leadership" comment about the raise the he voted no on whilst still a senator is biting him in the ass.
 
[quote name='usickenme']kinda douchey to make someone's tweet into a vs. thread[/QUOTE]

Nah, if people put stuff out on twitter it's fair game to discuss, criticize etc.

Otherwise they shouldn't publicly broadcast it.
 
[quote name='Feeding the Abscess']Not really a noteworthy observation for those who are familiar with Republican M.O. over the last thirty years, but it's correct nonetheless.[/QUOTE]

Being obstinate and obstructionary is not the exclusive domain of the republicans or democrats. They both do it, frequently.
 
[quote name='RedvsBlue']Being obstinate and obstructionary is not the exclusive domain of the republicans or democrats. They both do it, frequently.[/QUOTE]

I'm aware. I just like to point out that Republicans like to use libertarian rhetoric whenever they're out of power, and when push comes to shove, their money is never where their mouth is. Happened in the 80s, 90s, 00s, and is happening now. There hasn't been some seismic shift in ideology, there has been no conversion to small government principles or whatever has been attributed to Republicans by news media. It's a fraud.

Prime example is Michele Bachmann. She votes with the Republican party 94% of the time - compare that to Boehner and Cantor, who vote with the party 95% of the time - who has somehow been branded as some sort of small government true believer. She's the very embodiment of the establishment, with a lovely sprinkling of Zionistic religious fervor. Zionism is nothing new for establishment circles, but she takes the religious stuff to a whole new level. We would be so lucky if she actually were Pat Buchanan 2.0.
 
[quote name='Feeding the Abscess']I'm aware. I just like to point out that Republicans like to use libertarian rhetoric whenever they're out of power, and when push comes to shove, their money is never where their mouth is. Happened in the 80s, 90s, 00s, and is happening now. There hasn't been some seismic shift in ideology, there has been no conversion to small government principles or whatever has been attributed to Republicans by news media. It's a fraud.[/QUOTE]

Once again, its not just the Republicans that compromise their ideals when they gain power. The Democrats oppose big business and fight for the middle class but yet they supported the wall street bailouts right alongside the Republicans. There's plenty of examples of both sides of the aisle being hypocrites.
 
[quote name='RedvsBlue']Once again, its not just the Republicans that compromise their ideals when they gain power. The Democrats oppose big business and fight for the middle class but yet they supported the wall street bailouts right alongside the Republicans. There's plenty of examples of both sides of the aisle being hypocrites.[/QUOTE]

Because they were foolish enough to believe that propping up the banks would have allowed the little guy to catch a break. Instead they big guys took it all and offered next to no relief whatsoever. I believe it's called being had.

Wow, that sounds alarmingly like I'm a (D) apologist but it seems more likely that they got conned than they were in on it entirely.
 
Someone post a chart showing the amount of times the filibuster has been used. I am not asking rvb to respond as he has sourced all critical thinking to dmaul.
 
Seems like it's time to blow up the system then. We'll never get what's best for the people if we allow the parties to hijack the process.
 
[quote name='RedvsBlue'] The Democrats oppose big business and fight for the middle class but yet they supported the wall street bailouts right alongside the Republicans. [/QUOTE]

Bullshit!
The Democrats may *say* that they oppose big business and fight for the middle class, but when they've been in power, they didnt actually *do* it. While they still had a majority and a Democratic president, they could have passed a massive Progressive infrastructure bill instead of that piddly-shit 'stimulus' that that was nearly 40% tax cuts. If they really cared about the middle class, they would have pushed for a Public Option (or just straight single payer) in the ACA. And I didnt see them do anything about rolling back the oppressively restrictive personal bankruptcy rules that were signed into law by Pres. GW Bush.

And for what it's worth, it wasnt that "they supported the wall street bailout right alongside the Republicans", let's look at the real history; the (rank and file) House Republicans (65yea - 133nay) were the only ones to stand up and say no! The House Democrats (140yay-95nay) were leading the charge. It's the one time in the last 15 years I can say the Republicans chose the people over the corporations...of course they soon caved and ended up spending *more* money, but I'll give them they very limited credit for the initial vote.

OPINON: *When* the Democrats fold on the tax revenues in this 'debt showdown' it'll be just par for the course of them *not* standing up for the "middle class".
 
So in other words, democrats have no spine when it comes to standing up against the republicans.

In other news, the sky is blue.
 
[quote name='Msut77']Someone post a chart showing the amount of times the filibuster has been used. I am not asking rvb to respond as he has sourced all critical thinking to dmaul.[/QUOTE]

Right, so quoting someone once equates to sourcing all critical thinking. Guess you missed my other posts in this thread.

You know, I couldn't remember at first why you were on my ignore list. Now I remember why. You never have anything constructive to say but rather you just sit and make ad hom attacks at anyone disagreeing with you. Just go ahead and wrap yourself up in that warm blanket of intellectual superiority while the rest of us live in the real world and accept that both parties have their faults and hypocrisies.

If you have anything constructive to discuss with me, it'll have to be over PMs because I won't make the mistake of taking you off my ignore list again. If you feel like insulting me again, it'll have to be for your own entertainment because its on deaf ears now.
 
Shorter hostly:

"Money is corrosive to the governing process, imagine that".

Anyway I agree that both sides are definitely bought but the Republicans only voted against the bailout the first time because they thought it was going to pass. Once they found out that they weren't going to be able to have it both ways, many switched their vote.

Since hostly seems much more informed than people like the RvB I would point out that there is such a thing as degree or scale, as bad as the Democrats something resembling healthcare reform passed, something resembling a banking regulation bill was passed etc.

We need better Democrats, many are for big business and were the Republicans of 30 years ago.

If Republicans had everything their way on everything we would be living in a society from something out of Dickens.
 
You talk about degree, but I find it must more offensive to say you're going to do something and not do it than to just have bad ideas. At least you know where this new set of Republicans stand. You know exactly where and how they want to bend you over and can prepare yourself. With the Democrats, you never know when they are going to pull a Lucy and yank the football away. If they were upfront and say that they only marginally care then voters would at least have a chance to decide if they want milquetoast or firebrand progressives.

It's really the same thing that has happened on the right. This whole coalition of "Tea Party" and so-called "Evangelicals" has really done a great job of purging the GOP of (perceived) weakness. That every one pretty much has to sign off on the 'Paul Ryan Plan' keeps them on task and on message. Now, I think that is *terrible* for the country, but why does there never seem to be that type of movement on the left? Are they insincere or simply incompetent? I havent made up my mind on that yet.

BTW: it's hostyl1 (read hostile one)
 
This is just typical conservative politics. They're arsonists who whine that the fire department putting out their fire is wasting too much water.
 
Oh I think most everyone really knows that...hence why there hadn't been a thread here discussing it despite it being allover the news the past month or two.

Most everyone knows it's just political nonsense and that both sides know the ceiling must be raised.
 
While it will be, the D's have been foolish in caving into whatever demands the R's are pretending like they are holding the debt ceiling hostage for, before making up additional demands whenever the original ones are met.
 
[quote name='Dr Mario Kart']While it will be, the D's have been foolish in caving into whatever demands the R's are pretending like they are holding the debt ceiling hostage for, before making up additional demands whenever the original ones are met.[/QUOTE]
It's painfully obvious who the Democrats are working for: the same people as the Republicans. Thankfully, I live in a solidly blue state, so I can vote third party. The only question is do I vote for the socialists, the commies, or the greens...LOLZ.

And as a Mass-hole, I LOVE YOUR SIG!:lol:
 
I was just watching that How the States Got Their Shapes show yesterday and heard the term Masshole for the first time from some guy in Maine. Brilliant.

Some guy on National Socialist Public Radio was saying that if the ceiling wasn't raised the republicans would have the most to lose. Makes sense if you're the one holding it up I guess.
 
It depends how well they've planned. The investor class is going to get higher interest rates when buying treasury bonds post default, and people like Eric Cantor who have invested in funds that short treasury bonds are going to make a mint.
 
Well, I meant most to lose politically, personally, they may profit, no idea what they all have their money in.
 
I can't believe they haven't passed something yet. Not only that, they're constantly throwing up different ideas. It's pretty clear that they aren't actually working on a cohesive bill. I sure hope for our sake that they can pull this together.

I have to admit that I'm pretty worried we're watching a slow motion train wreck and when it's all over, the US will no longer be the world's super power. Even if the debt limit is raised in time, it's pretty clear that this sort of partisan fighting isn't the cause but is the result of the US's declining power.

I recall being asked back in high school by a teacher, "Would you rather be living in an empire that is on the rise or declining?" Well, I think it's pretty obvious we're on the decline and while it may be possible to pull ourselves back from the abyss, I just don't think we can come to any kind of agreement to do so.
 
Oh we're in a tail spin, at this point the most we can do is try and land gracefully without too many casualties. But as long as our government continues fighting amongst themselves we might as well just crash and burn.
 
Even if there's no deal, Obama will just say the debt ceiling is Unconstitutional and until somebody called him out on it in court (i.e. not going to happen) we're not going to default. Clinton did the same thing when he was President (although my wording may be off) but it was a much better economic climate back then.

Fact of the matter is that the people running Government are a bunch of whiny, spoiled children. They need to cut the budget where there's the most fat. And yeah, maybe tax increases would help, but what is proposed right now is increases that affect the middle class as well. So it's a situation of don't default or kill consumer spending for a good year or two or more. Take your pick.

But honestly, rolling back the Bush tax cuts would be preferable because it wouldn't be a situation where it's like:
A - Increases Taxes
B - Bush Tax Cuts rolled back, taxes increased again
 
That's the part of this thing I don't get, Broly. So let's say for the sake of argument that the Dems agree to a Republican plan that creates no new taxes and closes no loopholes. That seems to be about the breadth and depth of the Republican position (apparently Boehner said ok to $800 mil at one point, but let's ignore that).

What then would stop Obama from simply vetoing any bill that extends the Bush tax cuts when that time comes?

There's alot about the Republican position here that I find mystifying. The only thing clear to me is that the Republicans lose any and all bargaining power on the Bush tax cuts the minute a deal is made. And if Obama goes all constitutional on it, they lose all bargaining power. And when their clock runs out and a deal is forced by the markets, they lose significant bargaining power.

Am I crazy or are the Republicans letting their only bargaining chip get up and walk away?
 
But the Republicans aren't walking away from deals here, Obama is. You also have to realize that by and large, this is on Obama's shoulders. Come election time, if the economy is shit, regardless of the US defaulting or not, they'll see a D next to his name, and vote against him and a lot of other D's as well simply because he's the man in charge.. So even if the Republicans walked away, it would be a sign of a weak President, even if he used the 14th Amendment. Unlike Clinton, which everyone was hoping he'd be, he doesn't seem to want to compromise on anything.

Obama would've let the Bush tax cuts expire last year if he thought it'd help him. The same goes for the Democratically-controlled Congress last year that extended them as well. What I'm saying is that I'm afraid of a tax hike on top of another tax hike. If they raised taxes now, you better believe the Republicans will get out and campaign on 'Americans had their taxes raised last year, raising them again so soon will hurt the economy and consumer spending' and people will side with the Republicans on this, especially if there are little or no signs of improvement come election time.

Boehner's also talking about putting out a Balanced Budget Amendment, which I for one would love because we really need it, and it'd immediately become a political issue which the Republicans could heavily exploit in next year's election if it didn't get to the states (Which I don't think will happen because right now it would easily get 40 states given our economic turmoil). However, I think he lacks the stones to do something like that.

Now the truth of the matter is Congress doesn't like to deal in real terms. You know how you play real? You play some hard ball, and cut 10% across the board in the next budget. Why? Because that'd show somebody was taking this shit seriously instead of for personal gain, which everyone on the Hill is. I'd rather the country take a kick in the crotch now than an inflated bullet to the head later. But Congress always deals with the short term, not the long term. How do you deal with the long term? Be a bastard now, damnit!
 
[quote name='KingBroly']But the Republicans aren't walking away from deals here, Obama is.[/quote]
This is one of those lib vs. con disconnects. I see the exact opposite and would like to know what your timeline looks like.

In my mind, the Repubs have walked away from 3 offers that have pissed off Dems, offers that would have raised the age of SS and cut Medicare. At one point, the offer was allegedly 83/17 spending cuts/tax "hikes" and the Repubs said no. Repubs have said we need stability for the markets but have outright refused *any* long term offer and even offered multiple versions that would require multiple votes, which is in direct contrast to the rhetoric. They haven't come close to Obama's $4T debt reduction plan and have at most put forward $2.6T, meaning that debt reduction is far less important than not closing tax loopholes and handouts (and in direct contrast to the rhetoric).

Less debt reduction than Obama plan.
Less stability via multiple votes in their own plans.
An unwillingness to close pork loopholes (not even true tax increases!), even when Obama put SS and Medicare on the table.

As a "Dem"-ish voter, I have no idea what the Republicans actually want aside from wanting Obama to look bad.
 
[quote name='speedracer']This is one of those lib vs. con disconnects. I see the exact opposite and would like to know what your timeline looks like.

In my mind, the Repubs have walked away from 3 offers that have pissed off Dems, offers that would have raised the age of SS and cut Medicare. At one point, the offer was allegedly 83/17 spending cuts/tax "hikes" and the Repubs said no. Repubs have said we need stability for the markets but have outright refused *any* long term offer and even offered multiple versions that would require multiple votes, which is in direct contrast to the rhetoric. They haven't come close to Obama's $4T debt reduction plan and have at most put forward $2.6T, meaning that debt reduction is far less important than not closing tax loopholes and handouts (and in direct contrast to the rhetoric).

Less debt reduction than Obama plan.
Less stability via multiple votes in their own plans.
An unwillingness to close pork loopholes (not even true tax increases!), even when Obama put SS and Medicare on the table.

As a "Dem"-ish voter, I have no idea what the Republicans actually want aside from wanting Obama to look bad.[/QUOTE]

That's called politics, and both sides are trying to do it to each other, plain and simple. It's happening on both sides, but the media by and large would make you believe it's only going one way.

I've looked at like...5 timelines, 4 walkaways from Obama, 1 from Republicans. Republicans have said no to tax hikes, but that doesn't mean they're walking away from a deal. It means they're pushing the deal back across the table. It seems like now that Congress is doing it themselves, but who knows what that'll accomplish, probably very little.

The problem with all proposals, from what I've seen, do little to alleviate the problem that faces us now. They're all the same 'let's kick it down the road again' model of bill. Cutting 2.4 trillion dollars from the deficit over a decade does little to alleviate the problem since we're spend 1.5 trillion more than we take in A YEAR.

Also, I should say that I'm not one of those people who looks at the news, but instead data and proposals for what's been presented because I don't really trust the news to report anything correctly. And from what I've seen and from what I'm looking at, it'll roughly be January 2013 when this problem pops up again, even if they raise the debt ceiling 2.7 trillion dollars.

And Msut77, a clean vote, whether it be about the debt or anything else would never happen unless you evacuated Washington D.C. except for the politicians themselves before a vote. I honestly can't remember the last time a clean vote on anything happened that wasn't about a positional appointment. And quite frankly you can't do it here because it'd be a numbers game, requiring more debate about where to put it at, meaning it wouldn't be clean.
 
[quote name='Msut77']What have Republicans compromised on? What deal is Obama walking from? Y no clean debt vote?[/QUOTE]

Exactly.

The republicans haven't compromised on anything. Obama has been willing to make cuts to medicare and social security, one of the discussions would have also lowered tax brackets further and offset them by closing other loopholes and other reforms to the tax cuts etc.

But the republicans aren't willing to accept anything that has anytime of tax revenue increase as they're stuck on the teat of big business and the upper class who don't care about a fucking thing other than pocketing as much of their money as they can.

Quite frankly, I'm glad the deals aren't going through as I don't think the cuts to medicare, social security etc. are a good idea and that democrats have been willing to conceded to much with getting next to nothing in return from republicans for them since iditos like Cantor keep walking away from any kind of tax increase.

As for the election, polls already are showing that republicans are getting more blame for a deal not being reached. If the economy tanks democrats have a pretty strong campaign line to be able to say it tanked because republicans wouldn't do things like end tax exemptions on corporate jets and close loopholes for the flithy rich etc.
 
Broly,
Personally, I think a balanced budget amendment would be a terrible idea. How well would the US have done in World War 2 without the ability to borrow? I for one am not willing to bet the farm that another situation like that will never appear again (ever).

Now to talk about the current wars of choice, they have cost 2 trillion so far. Traditionally the US raises taxes to pay for wars and I really don't think the American people would have had a problem sacrificing to fund the wars if a tax increase had been framed in that context. Instead we decided that we could have our cake and eat it too.

Add to that, the Bush tax cuts that have accounted for 2.1 trillion + 400 billion added interest for a total cost (so far) of 2.5 trillion for the the tax cuts. The wars that were unfunded plus the tax cuts together account for over 1/3rd of our current 14 trillion dollar debt.

IMO we should cut spending AND roll back all the Bush tax cuts (not just the part on the rich). We not only have to balance the budget, we have to have huge surpluses if we hope to pay this thing down at all. If the US interest rates go up a few percent, the interest on the debt will kill us.
 
[quote name='KingBroly']Unlike Clinton, which everyone was hoping he'd be, he doesn't seem to want to compromise on anything.[/QUOTE]

Seriously? Republicans wanted to the amount in cuts to equal the increase in the debt ceiling, and no new revenues. Obama has supported that plan, it's Reid's new plan. How is that not compromising? Obama was adamant on revenue increases, and he's signing onto a plan that capitulates on exactly what Republicans wanted in order to even consider voting for a debt ceiling increase. That's not just compromise, that's capitulation.
 
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