SK790 wrote:

werthless wrote:Here's a fun one:

Rand Paul wrote: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. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but government spending is all proposed and approved by Congress before being signed off on by the President, no? Not sure what "leadership" he's blaming.

BTW, thanks for linking that article upthread. Really cleared a lot of things up about all of this.

Werthless wrote:

MoBettle wrote: And given the origionalist philosophy most Republicans have on the constitution, I doubt he will find much support in his party for such an interpretation, assuming they are being consistent (Which I admit might be a stretch of an assumption)

You're right. That's why I commented when pacino originally criticized it, since I would have thought that liberals would find favor with such a position (of course, if it wasn't stated by Rand Paul).

Here's a fun one:

Rand Paul wrote: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. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies.

To many Americans, the shutdown came out of nowhere. But interviews with a wide array of conservatives show that the confrontation that precipitated the crisis was the outgrowth of a long-running effort to undo the law since its passage in 2010 — waged by a galaxy of conservative groups with more money, organized tactics, and interconnections than is commonly known.

Although the law’s opponents say that shutting down the government was not their objective, the activists anticipated that a shutdown could occur — and worked with members of the Tea Party caucus in Congress who were excited about drawing a red line against a bill they despise.

A defunding “tool kit” created in early September included talking points that addressed the question, “What happens when you shut down the government and you are blamed for it?”

The tool kit answer is exactly what House Republicans say today: They do not want to shut down the government; they just want to stop Obamacare.

With polls showing Americans deeply divided over the law, conservatives believe the public is behind them. The current budget brinkmanship is just one aspect of a well-financed, broad-based assault on the health law, Obama’s signature legislative initiative. The law’s opponents have spread cash across an array of tax-exempt organizations, some of them with murky provenance.

The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been deeply involved with financing the overall effort.

A group linked to the Kochs, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, disbursed more than $200 million in 2012 to nonprofit organizations involved in the fight. Included was $5 million to a new group geared to young adults that ran an Internet advertisement showing a menacing Uncle Sam figure popping up between a woman’s legs during a gynecological exam.

In 2010, Republicans campaigned on a promise to bring debt and deficits down by cutting spending. When they won the election, they argued that it would be a betrayal of their mandate to permit the government to borrow more without first forcing the budget discipline they'd promised voters.

And so that's exactly what they did. They negotiated spending cuts before they would agree to a debt-ceiling increase. But then something terrible happened to the Republican Party: Success.

It wasn't all their success. Part of it is the economy improving. Part of it is new taxes passed into law by the Obama administration. Part of it is slower-than-expected health costs, and lower-than-expected interest rates. But the deficit has fallen dramatically. In fact, it's fallen at a faster rate than at any other time since World War II. And the Congressional Budget Office sees it stabilizing in the (totally manageable) two-to-three percent range through the next decade

pacino wrote:yes. so what? there have been two actual debt ceiling debates in recent history, and both times he has been the President trying to negotiate for paying our bills.

Kevin Hassett and Abby McCloskey of the American Enterprise Institute last week wrote in a column for the Wall Street Journal 60% of debt limit increases that included other legislative items came in Democratic Congresses while 15% came in Republican-led ones and the remaining 25% were in divided ones.

The most straightforward scenario is that the government's computer systems would keep making payments until its checks started bouncing. And its hard to predict in advance who would get stiffed.
Each and every day, computers at the Treasury Department receive more than 2 million invoices from various agencies. The Department of Labor might say, for example, that it owes a contractor $1 million to fix up a building in Denver. The Treasury computers make sure the figures are correct and then authorize the payment. This is all done automatically, dozens of times per second.
According to the Treasury Department's inspector general, the computers are designed to "make each payment in the order it comes due." So if the money isn't there, the defaults could be random. Maybe a payment to a defense contractor comes up short. Maybe a Social Security check bounces. Maybe an interest payment to bondholders fails. No one knows.

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:yes. so what? there have been two actual debt ceiling debates in recent history, and both times he has been the President trying to negotiate for paying our bills.

Indignant stance not supported by actual facts. Many debt ceiling debates, including things like a cigarette tax and step toward the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Kevin Hassett and Abby McCloskey of the American Enterprise Institute last week wrote in a column for the Wall Street Journal 60% of debt limit increases that included other legislative items came in Democratic Congresses while 15% came in Republican-led ones and the remaining 25% were in divided ones.

pacino wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:yes. so what? there have been two actual debt ceiling debates in recent history, and both times he has been the President trying to negotiate for paying our bills.

Indignant stance not supported by actual facts. Many debt ceiling debates, including things like a cigarette tax and step toward the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Kevin Hassett and Abby McCloskey of the American Enterprise Institute last week wrote in a column for the Wall Street Journal 60% of debt limit increases that included other legislative items came in Democratic Congresses while 15% came in Republican-led ones and the remaining 25% were in divided ones.

that you think these are the same is quite indignant itself. default or else

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:yes. so what? there have been two actual debt ceiling debates in recent history, and both times he has been the President trying to negotiate for paying our bills.

Indignant stance not supported by actual facts. Many debt ceiling debates, including things like a cigarette tax and step toward the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Kevin Hassett and Abby McCloskey of the American Enterprise Institute last week wrote in a column for the Wall Street Journal 60% of debt limit increases that included other legislative items came in Democratic Congresses while 15% came in Republican-led ones and the remaining 25% were in divided ones.

that you think these are the same is quite indignant itself. default or else

It's obviously a bit different as other presidents were willing to work with Congress to make sure something got passed rather than say they wouldn't negotiate under any circumstances

jerseyhoya wrote:Republicans have been unfocused moving from the Obamacare stuff into chat about entitlements, but they've thrown tons of suggestions out, many of which have gotten significant Democratic support in the past. Every answer is that Democrats aren't going to negotiate on it.

mozartpc27 wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Republicans have been unfocused moving from the Obamacare stuff into chat about entitlements, but they've thrown tons of suggestions out, many of which have gotten significant Democratic support in the past. Every answer is that Democrats aren't going to negotiate on it.

The next time the Republicans control the executive, should they be willing to "negotiate" settled law in order to avoid a federal shutdown and/or a default? Because I, for one, have some major changes to the Taft-Hartley Act I'd like to extort.

C'mon jerz, even the saner members of your own party know this whole strategy is the foolish act of the desperate...

The Republicans in the House of Representatives who declare that they may refuse to raise the debt limit threaten to do more than plunge the government into default. They are proposing a blatant violation of the 14th Amendment, which states that “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law” is sacrosanct and “shall not be questioned.”

As the wording of the amendment evolved during the Congressional debate, the principle of the debt’s inviolability became a general proposition, applicable not just to the Civil War debt but to all future accrued debts of the United States. The Republican Senate leader, Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio, declared that by placing the debt “under the guardianship of the Constitution,” investors would be spared from being “subject to the varying majorities which may arise in Congress.”

Two years later, on the verge of the amendment’s ratification, its champions inside the Republican Party made their intentions absolutely clear, proclaiming in their 1868 party platform that “national honor requires the payment of the public indebtedness in the utmost good faith to all creditors at home and abroad,” and pronouncing any repudiation of the debt “a national crime.”

Lincoln . . . had some choice words in 1860 for Southern fire-eaters who charged that he, and not they, would be to blame for secession if he refused to compromise over the extension of slavery: “A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, ‘Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!’ ”