Tag Archives: debt ceiling

Defining What the Something Is

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Passing a debt limit extension is hard.

The Democrats like to talk about how the Republicans should pass a clean debt extension. And then they like to run campaign ads against Republicans who vote for a clean debt extension.

Denny Rehberg, the Republican Congressman who ran for the Senate seat in Montana, found that out the hard way. So did George Allen, who ran against Tim Kaine.

Democrats ran ads hitting both Allen and Rehberg for voting to extend the debt limit, just as their President was beating up Republicans for not voting to extend the debt limit.

Hypocrisy runs so deep with the Democrats in Washington that they aren’t even self-conscious about it. Continue reading →

Deficit Reduction, President Gets His Way

BY DOUG BADGER
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Congress and the President are on holiday, resting up for the next round of budget wars that will resume after Labor Day. The issues they will face when they return are familiar: the federal government is about to lose authority to do what it does best (or, at least, most naturally) – borrow and spend.

Absent a fresh appropriation of funds, government agencies will close October 1; and unless Congress agrees to raise the government’s credit card limit, Treasury will default on its debt at a yet-to-be-determined date in October or November.

The positions taken by the two parties also are familiar. The President wants a straight increase in the debt ceiling, while Republicans insist on pairing new borrowing with spending reductions. The President says that he will not negotiate with Republicans on this point. On appropriations, House Republicans favor steep cuts in domestic spending Continue reading →

When is ‘Compromising’ not ‘Compromising?

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com

We have a serious problem in America today.

Many Americans on both ends of the political spectrum think ‘compromise’ is a 4-letter word. It is clearly not. There were 10 letters in it last time we counted.

Beyond that mere formality, the whole concept of ‘compromising’ is met with disdain and scorn by activists at both extreme ends of the political spectrum.

The rest of the nation? They think our elected leaders in Washington are flat-out ‘crazy’ for not cutting deals and fixing what ails us as a nation. 32% of them in North Carolina alone are now officially registering as ‘Not Democratic’ and ‘Not Republican’ as they sign up as Unaffiliated/Independent voters and that number is rising by 8% per year. What does that tell ya? Continue reading →

A Trillion-Dollar Coin? Seriously?

BY FRANK HILL
Reprinted from Telemachus.com

Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama and others on the national scene and in Washington are giving serious consideration to issuing a $1 trillion coin in the event that the debt ceiling becomes a major point of contention in the next several weeks with House Republicans.

Which it will. You can count on that.

Seriously. A group of 4 US Senators in the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body sent a letter to President Obama today basically saying they have ‘got your back, Mr. President!’ to do ‘anything possible’ to avoid any discussion on spending cuts in advance of the next debt ceiling debacle. Continue reading →

Get Off PA System, Just Fly the Plane

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

You want a plan to create jobs? Here’s a good one:

1.    Simplify the tax code, reduce capital gains, corporate and dividend taxes, and improve the climate for American businesses overseas.
2.    Open up domestic exploration of oil, encourage use of natural gas and clean coal technology, increase use of biofuels, and increase supplies from our friends, like Canada.
3.    Repeal burdensome regulations spawned by Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley laws, repeal and replace Obamacare, and repeal regulations that inhibit economic growth, particularly those recently promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency and the National labor Relations Board.
4.    Improve our relations with Asian economies and finally ratify pending agreements with South Korea, Panama and Columbia.
5.    Enact patent reform, reform the Federal Drug Administration and privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Continue reading →

Random Thoughts

By MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

 Item One:  Unsavory Nature of Political Campaigns

 What I saw of the Iowa Republican Presidential primary debate, and it wasn’t much, brought to mind two unsavory aspects of American political campaigns that politicians, the press and the public ought to try to temper before we go full throttle into the 2012 races.

The first was incivility. The media carnival barkers and fire-breathing partisans were anxious for the candidates to brutalize one another, particularly fellow Minnesotans Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty.  From news reports of the debate—again, I missed some of the exchanges, they got some of what they wanted, but not much.  I am told the two Minnesotans went at it, dropping the Minnesota nice persona—isn’t that special—but they really did not beat the bejesus out of each other.

  Continue reading →

Budget By the Numbers: Facts Help

BY FRANK HILL

Reprinted from telemachus.com

You are going to be hearing an awful lot about ‘spending this’ and ‘not spending that’ over the next several months from President Obama, Congress and the ‘Super Commission’ charged with the responsibility to do what Congress should have done for the past decade, truth be told.

Achieving ‘World Peace’ might be an easier objective.
Continue reading →

End of World Is Not Nigh

BY TONY BLANKLEY-

REPRINTED FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Except according to the Lord’s plans – which are not known to man – the “end of the world” is not nigh, although to listen to politicians and pundits, we should be packed and ready to go by next Thursday.

The headlines recently have read like Woody Allen’s 1979 “My Speech to the Graduates”: “More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. I speak, by the way, not with any sense of futility, but with a panicky conviction.”

Continue reading →

AAA Arcane August Story

BY RICH GALEN

Reprinted from mullings.com

I woke up early yesterday morning to follow the story of the continuing drop in the markets following the S&P downgrade of U.S. sovereign debt from AAA to AA+. It occurred to me that, as we enter the second week of August, this may be the most arcane “August Story” in my experience.

Anthony Weiner is the typical August story: Public official, sex, denials, resignation. That it happened in June was just one more reason to not have any sympathy for Weiner.

Last year, every visit to that new office Keurig coffee machine included a discussion about the state of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, brought to you by BP. “Junk Shots” and “Top Kills” sustained us throughout the summer before a relief well was finally completed in September.

Continue reading →

Status Quo Triumphs Over Future

BY TONY BLANKLEY

 Reprinted from Washington Times and Townhall.com

The debt deal, if it sticks, is a triumph for the bipartisan, status quo-clinging Washington establishment. Here is a prediction: Between now and January 2013, total actual spending cuts will be minimal. That will result from the following: (1) The $900 billion deficit reduction is almost all back-loaded to the years beyond 2012. (2) The select committee created by the budget deal will fail to pass a “second tranche” deficit-cut package of an additional $1.5 trillion. (3) The “trigger” will be pulled that will identify an additional $1.2 trillion. (4) The pulled trigger won’t require any more deficit reductions to go into effect until 2013, when a new Congress and either a new president or a re-elected President Obama will be able to re-decide (or repeal) all these decisions.

Continue reading →

Following Advice of ‘Galactically Stupid’

 

BY FRANK HILL

Reprinted from Telemachus.com

Editor’s Note:  This was written prior to the new agreement.

Some people think it is Senator Harry Reid. Some think it is President Obama. Others think it is Speaker John Boehner. The Tea Party is getting its share of the blame as well.

We happen to think Speaker Boehner is emerging as a statesmanlike leader during this whole thing. He had been parodied as man who shed a tear much too quickly but he is looking more and more like the adult in the room as this thing drags on.
Continue reading →

Debt Ceiling Debacle Embarrassing

 

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

A friend who runs a small business told me recently he’s going to make some really tough decisions next week to cut expenses.  Those decisions are going to hurt good people.

I am familiar with people who have started new businesses that are now teetering on the brink of collapse. 

Businesses, big and small, in the housing industry are hurting because of consumer angst about buying or selling.

I know a couple afraid of losing so much of their retirement savings that they won’t be able to slow down when they’d planned.  I talk to young people every week who can’t find jobs and have nowhere to turn.

There are millions like them across America who don’t know where the next paycheck is coming from or how they will support their children or how they will avoid being dependent upon their children in old age.  They are feeling the anxiety of not knowing, the fear of failure, that agony of defeat.  They are real people with real families in real communities, struggling every day because of the uncertainty over the American economy.  They are consumers who won’t spend and manufacturers who won’t produce and bankers who won’t lend because of doubt.

Continue reading →

Pelosi-Bachmann Axis, Party of No

BY JOHN FEEHERY

Reprinted from thefeeherytheory.com

Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, must be very happy with her colleague Michele Bachmann.

Bachmann (R-Minn.) has stated repeatedly that she will never vote to increase the debt limit. And her position is winning converts among some House Republicans, especially those who are worried about a primary challenge from the right.

Continue reading →