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.

Senator Obama in 2006 wrote:The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure,” he said. “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.
...
Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.

MoBettle wrote:

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.

Well no, just because you think certain parts of the constitution were written in such a way that the application of them CAN change over time, it doesn't mean that ALL parts of the constitution were written that way, or that any weird interpretation of it that someone comes up with is acceptable. Otherwise you get to the "Well if two guys can get married, why not a brother and sister" logic.

I do think it would find more traction among liberals in the abstract though.

JFLNYC wrote:

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!’ ”

Obama and the Debt

Werthless 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.

Senator Obama in 2006 wrote:The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure,” he said. “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.
...
Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.

For the record, I think we should be raising the debt ceiling. I pointed out his quotation not because I believe that Senator Obama was right and President Obama is wrong, but because the sanctimonious hero-worship and condescension of folks on here is grating. When Obama was in the position that the GOP was in, he was doing the exact same thing. And his grandstanding worked out fairly well for him.

Where you stand on the issue all depends on where you sit, apparently.

Werthless wrote:Yes, luckily for us, his coalition to block the legislation lost the Senate vote 52-48, and the debt ceiling was raised.

Edit: Yes, you are right, it's not really hero worship. It's more precisely a vilification of the other side, and the evil desires that necessarily inform their positions, than hero worship. That's why I delighted in presenting Obama holding the same position when he was Senator.

pacino wrote:Democrats did not filibuster, did not shut down the government. They put up a protest vote and did not demand that he get rid of something they previously lost on. There is a difference and you know that.

td11 wrote:i really enjoy reading all the equivalences werthless manages to find. there's one for everything, it's great. delightful, even.

if there is one thing the shutdown has learned me that i didn't know before it's how much Rs love our national parks and memorials. it's heartwarming

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

pacino wrote:Democrats did not filibuster, did not shut down the government. They put up a protest vote and did not demand that he get rid of something they previously lost on. There is a difference and you know that.

And that has been a fairly common opposition party tactic for decades. Same thing Tip O'Neill did with Reagan in the 80s. There's a world of difference between a protest vote to score political points against the other party and actually shutting down the government or actually defaulting on the debt.

House Republicans decided Monday that government shutdown or not, it was more important for them to keep trying to strike a blow against Obamacare. Having failed to convince Senate Democrats to go along, the Republicans resorted to seeking a "conference committee" to resolve the differences.
For Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chair of the Senate Budget Committee, the move is ironic. She has been trying for more than a half-year to go to a conference to work out dramatic differences between the Senate budget and the House version. Senate and House Republicans have objected, repeatedly.--

"We know going to a conference means that we have to compromise -- that's what a conference is," Murray said just before midnight. "But we're not going to do it with a gun to our head that says we're shutting government down and we're going to conference over a short little six-week C.R. We have to deal with the longer-term budget. We have asked many times to go to conference on that."

Indeed, Murray and her colleagues asked 18 times. They have been blocked by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and a group of tea party Republicans led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).