What a coincidence. If debt ceiling isn't raised and government isn't fully funded, President Obama looks around and decides the first obligation he must stop is..........social security benefits. This movie always has the same ending.

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After you discover you're riding a dead horse, your best strategy is to dismount.

What would YOU do?

It is telling when we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on war, not a peep about reckless spending and racking up huge amounts of debt. When it comes to funding the middle class and seniors, the GOP leadership has a hissy fit. We are just trying to pay down all of the debt that W ran up, when he did not put it in the budget.

Shows you where the GOP's leaders true allegiances lie (solely with their handlers, NOT their constituents). I wish more people saw what damage they are doing to America. They care far too much about playing politics rather than actually working to fix problems.

The country is not a better place with these crooks in power.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2011 06:39PM by john dough.

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john dough
It is telling when we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on war, not a peep about reckless spending and racking up huge amounts of debt. When it comes to funding the middle class and seniors, the GOP leadership has a hissy fit. We are just trying to pay down all of the debt that W ran up, when he did not put it in the budget.

Shows you where the GOP's leaders true allegiances lie (solely with their handlers, NOT their constituents). I wish more people saw what damage they are doing to America. They care far too much about playing politics rather than actually working to fix problems.

The country is not a better place with these crooks in power.

+1

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“Stay Hungry Stay Foolish"
Steve Jobs

"There are only two mantras yum and yuk mine is yum "
Bernard Mickey Wrangle<>Tom Robbins<> "Still Life With Woodpecker"

"There is a fine line between a rut and a groove"
G.D. Kittredge III

"

You know, if a man is holding the cards and doesn't play them, he's a fool. It's about time Obama got some gumption.

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I guess Republicans don't have the monopoly over starving children and killing the elderly. What he said is a lie. What he is saying is that he chooses to pay the Chinese first. I suppose seniors are the sacrificial lambs. Protecting little people, my foot.

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After you discover you're riding a dead horse, your best strategy is to dismount.

No, Rupublicans have the monopoly of playing for the rich and not for the majority of us.

If you are not rich (which I seriously doubt), you are coming across as a first class idiot. You are no better than these fools that are wrecking this country for glory and their own ego.

It is getting old hearing your bleating here, every damn day, and not once do you offer how your party can actually help this country. If you think that the GOP has better ideas than the Democrats, let's hear them.

List them out, as I really don't care where the ideas are coming from. Otherwise, you can pretty much @#$%& as no one like a constant complainer.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2011 09:02PM by john dough.

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john dough
If you are not rich (which I seriously doubt), you are coming across as a first class idiot. You are no better than these fools that are wrecking this country for glory and their own ego.

Fixed that, inasmuch as it could be fixed.

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john dough
It is getting old hearing your bleating here, every damn day, and not once do you offer how your party can actually help this country. If you think that the GOP has better ideas than the Democrats, let's hear them.

List them out, as I really don't care where the ideas are coming from. Otherwise, you can pretty much @#$%& as no one like a constant complainer.

They have no ideas; Dakota merely parrots the orders he receives from the barren wasteland.

And it's not much more than team sport to these feebs - at least not until it comes home to roost and bites them squarely on the backside.

At which point it all becomes a big, bad lib'rul conspiracy to deprive them of their freedoms.

Cretinous faecal encephalos, to a one.

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seeing.the.unseeable

Quote
john dough
If you are not rich (which I seriously doubt), you are coming across as a first class idiot. You are no better than these fools that are wrecking this country for glory and their own ego.

Fixed that, inasmuch as it could be fixed.

Quote
john dough
It is getting old hearing your bleating here, every damn day, and not once do you offer how your party can actually help this country. If you think that the GOP has better ideas than the Democrats, let's hear them.

List them out, as I really don't care where the ideas are coming from. Otherwise, you can pretty much @#$%& as no one like a constant complainer.

They have no ideas; Dakota merely parrots the orders he receives from the barren wasteland.

And it's not much more than team sport to these feebs - at least not until it comes home to roost and bites them squarely on the backside.

At which point it all becomes a big, bad lib'rul conspiracy to deprive them of their freedoms.

Cretinous faecal encephalos, to a one.

Music to my ears...
Rudie *(:>*

---

“Stay Hungry Stay Foolish"
Steve Jobs

"There are only two mantras yum and yuk mine is yum "
Bernard Mickey Wrangle<>Tom Robbins<> "Still Life With Woodpecker"

"There is a fine line between a rut and a groove"
G.D. Kittredge III

"

There are probably multiple reasons Obama said that he couldn't guarantee that Soc. Sec. checks would go out (at least at full amount). One of the most important may be the 14th Amendment that we've talked about before. It clearly says that the national debt payments must be honored. There are, no doubt, many ways to interpret the language of the 14th Amendment (including the interpretation that the President can simply just keep paying the bills even without a deficit extension bill being passed by Congress), but at a minimum it sure seems that it makes clear that there is a Constitutional requirement that the debt of the U.S. be paid. If Congress does not pass a debt extension bill and Obama does not go along with the interpretation of the 14th Amendment where he can simply just keep writing checks to cover debt, then Obama would be obligated under the Constitution to pay debt payments (pay off T-bills, bonds, etc.) first from the insufficient revenues that are still coming in and then pay for other other government programs with whatever is left.

Another reason is that if he didn't pay off debt payment first, then interest rates on borrowing would go up. IOW, not paying would aggravate the long term debt problem quite a bit more.

And, of course, there is also a political reason to say that he cannot guarantee that Soc. Sec. checks will be mailed - doing so will probably put more pressure on the Republicans to drop there "no revenue increase period" stance. To the degree that Obama did so because of political tactics, it is a political hardball thing to do. But, really, compared to the hardball the Republicans have been playing all along, that tactic by Obama is hardly legitimate grounds for crying foul (though, of course, there is going to be the pro forma hypocritical whining about not playing fair that politicians - of all kinds - do when challenged by such hard ball tactics).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2011 08:37AM by Ted King.

Don't worry. If the past is any indication, Republicans usually lose these budget wars.

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After you discover you're riding a dead horse, your best strategy is to dismount.

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john dough
... If you think that the GOP has better ideas than the Democrats, let's hear them.

List them out, as I really don't care where the ideas are coming from. Otherwise, you can pretty much @#$%& as no one like a constant complainer.

Dakota is quite capable of defending himself but this statement requires a real simple answer.

The GOP (rightly or wrongly) is taking the stance that SPENDING needs to be cut RATHER than INCREASING revenues. That's the IDEA, the CONCEPT. It's that simple. Real, real simple.

DaveS...

Yes but... there are no 'one weird trick' solutions to this issue. We have to do both.. reduce spending AND increase taxes.

(Man.. I can't believe I wrote that. Ow.)

Gutting the federal budget would have a similar effect to allowing default. The federal budget 'employs' millions upon millions of Americans, either directly or indirectly.

Look at the situation many states are in... state and local employees unemployed, and this drives all the people that support THEM out of business as well.

(Man.. I can't believe I wrote that either. Ow.)

Encourage US job growth by business ? You betcha. And there's a budgetary COST to that... tax benefits, training programs, tuition assistance, etc..

We live in a complex economy where business and government are interdependent. We must hang together, or we will surely all hang separately.

Quote
cbelt3
DaveS...

Yes but... there are no 'one weird trick' solutions to this issue. We have to do both.. reduce spending AND increase taxes.

(Man.. I can't believe I wrote that. Ow.)

Looks like I spotted your transformation before you did. Instead of peaking your head out of the closet then going back in, just come out and stay out. You will be so liked here.

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After you discover you're riding a dead horse, your best strategy is to dismount.

Dakota-
If it's not obvious already, I'm not a closed-minded ideologue. The definition of insane is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Even a conservative recognizes that debts need to be paid.

NPR addressed this yesterday afternoon. We DO have enough to write the SS security checks...as long as we don't pay any military salaries.

SIEGEL: If, let's say, the Treasury has said, well, pay the seniors their Social Security, pay the creditors what they're owed on paper, pay Medicare, what wouldn't be paid in that case?

Mr. POWELL: Well, we did an example on our presentation, and in that example, we've made all the social safety net payments, so it's Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps and the like and interest, of course, which will be the first thing paid, and you can do all of that with the incoming cash flows in August.

What you didn't pay, which you weren't able to pay, is a single dollar for defense, including active-duty military, including the whole Pentagon and all payments to creditors in the defense area. You couldn't keep the Justice Department. We wouldn't have $1 for the FBI, for the courts, for the prisons. So - and it goes on and on. The Education Department would be closed, and many, many other Cabinet departments. So however you move the chess pieces around here, you lose.

[www.npr.org]

It's just another bold faced lie.

Social Security checks went out in 1995-96.

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billb
It's just another bold faced lie.

Social Security checks went out in 1995-96.

Politifact calls it "Barely True":

[www.politifact.com]

Quote

So, in 1995, the bottom line was that checks went out pretty much as they were supposed to. Does that mean they will if there’s a shutdown this year?

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney addressed the question during his Feb. 24, 2011, press briefing. Asked by a reporter why checks might not go out in 2011 like they did in 1995, Carney suggested that at least some beneficiaries may not be able to receive adequate customer services during a shutdown due to workers being furloughed.

"The president was pointing out some of the consequences, the potential consequences of failing to act, of failing to prevent a shutdown," Carney said. "And some recipients, new retirees, new applicants might not receive their checks. If retirees have questions about their checks, if they didn't get their check in the mail, if they had a change of address, all those things could prevent them from getting their checks. So there are, obviously, consequences that directly affect people who are recipients of Social Security benefits."

This statement -- which is noticeably more nuanced than Obama’s original comment -- comes close to the assessments of experts we spoke to. They told us it’s likely that payments will once again be made -- but there’s no guarantee. As CRS put it, while "past experience may inform future OMB and agency decisions," past precedents on activities and personnel "would not necessarily hold for any future shutdown."

Experts told us that there is enough of a gray area that it’s impossible to say with certainty that checks will go out during the next shutdown.

Barely True


I like that.
In the same vein - he can't guarantee the sun will rise on the 3rd, either.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2011 12:59PM by billb.

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cbelt3
Dakota-
If it's not obvious already, I'm not a closed-minded ideologue. The definition of insane is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Even a conservative recognizes that debts need to be paid.

You are hiding behind the open-minded label to explain your confusion. You only have an epiphany about conservatives. Your daily rants about Bachmann, Palin and it-is-not-Obama's-fault is proof enough. Show me, in your infinite open mindedness, your rants about Democrats that come in anyway close in number and intensity. You really don't know where you stand anymore. In a span of few posts you go from condemning wind energy to worshiping it.

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After you discover you're riding a dead horse, your best strategy is to dismount.

Quote
Acer
NPR addressed this yesterday afternoon. We DO have enough to write the SS security checks...as long as we don't pay any military salaries.

SIEGEL: If, let's say, the Treasury has said, well, pay the seniors their Social Security, pay the creditors what they're owed on paper, pay Medicare, what wouldn't be paid in that case?

Mr. POWELL: Well, we did an example on our presentation, and in that example, we've made all the social safety net payments, so it's Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps and the like and interest, of course, which will be the first thing paid, and you can do all of that with the incoming cash flows in August.

What you didn't pay, which you weren't able to pay, is a single dollar for defense, including active-duty military, including the whole Pentagon and all payments to creditors in the defense area. You couldn't keep the Justice Department. We wouldn't have $1 for the FBI, for the courts, for the prisons. So - and it goes on and on. The Education Department would be closed, and many, many other Cabinet departments. So however you move the chess pieces around here, you lose.

[www.npr.org]

If this is all true then why are we having a ceiling at all? We can't get out of this ever it seems.

---

After you discover you're riding a dead horse, your best strategy is to dismount.

Quote
cbelt3
DaveS...

Yes but... there are no 'one weird trick' solutions to this issue. We have to do both.. reduce spending AND increase taxes.

(Man.. I can't believe I wrote that. Ow.)

Gutting the federal budget would have a similar effect to allowing default. The federal budget 'employs' millions upon millions of Americans, either directly or indirectly.

Look at the situation many states are in... state and local employees unemployed, and this drives all the people that support THEM out of business as well.

(Man.. I can't believe I wrote that either. Ow.)

Encourage US job growth by business ? You betcha. And there's a budgetary COST to that... tax benefits, training programs, tuition assistance, etc..

We live in a complex economy where business and government are interdependent. We must hang together, or we will surely all hang separately.

Sorry cbelt3 for the delay in this response.

There is no doubt that your heart is grander than mine, something I admire about your posts. However while your statements above are all true there is no specific need to raise taxes. And note the word specific... one (regardless of political persuasion) can always find a RATIONAL reasons to increase spending. The real question is how to we do more with less? Businesses (and many families) answer that question daily in ways that are at times not nice and may even represent a step backwards.

Basically someone needs to answer the question as to why the Government NEEDS (not wants) more than 18-20% of GDP.