COUNTDOWN: US HITS DEBT CEILING IN 84 DAYS

Twelve weeks from today, the US government will hit its borrowing limit. When Congress lifted the debt ceiling last month, for the first time ever, it pegged the increase to a specific date, rather than a dollar amount. The current borrowing authority expires in just 84 days, on February 7th. 

Three major policy challenges are converging in January. Government spending authority expires in the middle of the month, just three weeks ahead of the debt ceiling. There is also likely to be ongoing agonizing about the implementation of ObamaCare. 

January 1st is the deadline for individuals to have insurance. If the website isn't fixed or if young and healthy Americans haven't yet signed up for coverage, insurers will begin panicking and ObamaCare itself could start to unravel. Millions of healthy individuals are needed in the exchanges to subsidize the costs of treating sick and elderly patients. There could be additional measures in Congress to change or delay the law. 

Budget, ObamaCare and Debt. It's the ultimate three-ring DC circus. With his approval ratings exploring new lows, Obama has little political capital for leverage. He won't be able to run the tables on all three issues. He will have to give somewhere.

It may be the biggest decision of his Presidency.  

Via: Breitbart

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How to Prevent Another Debt Ceiling Crisis

Replacing a debt limit with a debt-burden limit makes both economic and political sense for the GOP. It would help keep spending in check and promote economic growth. A civil war is ravaging the GOP, and the root cause is the debt ceiling — an economic doomsday device mentioned nowhere in the Constitution, but nonetheless used periodically by one group of politicians or another to score political points. If Republicans were to think outside the debt-limit box, they could avoid this unnecessary civil war. The debt limit, as currently defined, sets up what would be an abrupt shock to the system, a granite wall that limits total federal debt to a fixed dollar number. When the debt reaches that number, government is prohibited by its own law from paying all of its own bills.  Presumably, the lower-priority bills would be the ones left unpaid, but that begs the question: which bills are "lower-priority"? (Government contractors? Housing subsidies? Military pensions? Social Security obligations? Congress hasn't debated and defined such priorities yet.) As wise as it might be to prioritize government spending programs, the proper time for Congress to do that is during budget deliberations — not during the short-run, smoking aftermath of an abrupt crash into the debt-limit wall. Besides, haven't we already experienced a sufficient number of abrupt financial crises for at least a generation or two? Via: The American Continue Reading.....

6 Questions About What’s Happening With the Debt Ceiling, Answered

Negotiations between the House and Senate over the government shutdown and debt ceiling are moving faster than a cocktail server at the Tortilla Coast. Here’s an up-to-date explainer on what’s happening, what it means, and whether you should cash out your 401K and hide it in your mattress.

Do We Have a Deal?

Sounds like it! After a House GOP proposal fell apart late last night, the only viable option left was a Senate plan from earlier Tuesday. According to congressional sources, House Speaker John Boehner is going to let the bill through with Democratic votes, which means the hard-right caucus that has been the primary wrench in the gears for the past three weeks won’t be able to stop it:

As Talking Points Memo’s Sahil Kapur put it, “Game over.”

Do We Really Have a Deal?

Not yet. Any number of things can still go wrong, chief among them being one Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), the commander of the defund strategy.

The Senate ordinarily requires thirty hours of post-cloture debate, which it can skip if it has the unanimous consent of the Senate. But unlike the House of Representatives, Senate rules allow proceedings to be halted by an individual member. Cruz alone could capsize that vote, causing thirty hours of debate on the vote for unanimous consent, and then another thirty after cloture. So all it would take is Cruz’s objection to add sixty hours to this process, pushing us over the October 17 debt ceiling deadline. (Business Insider’s Joshua Green has an excellent breakdown of all this here.)

Howevs! If the House votes on a deal first, this process is negated, and the bill needs only to pass a 60-vote threshold for cloture. At this point, I’m sure you don’t need to be told what can hold up a cloture motion, but it rhymes with illabuster. There are two types of filibusters. The silent one, which simply requires forty-one votes against cloture, has been the card up the Senate GOP’s sleeve for the past four years. But Senate Republicans are beyond disgusted with this entire debacle and want it over, now. It’s doubtful they’ll deny cloture; even this guy doesn’t want to:

Via: Mediaite.com

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Senate leaders scramble to craft budget deal, but will House GOP buy it?

Republican leaders in the House and Senate will face restless rank-and-file members Tuesday morning when they give updates on ongoing negotiations to cobble together a budget plan that would end a two-week-old partial government shutdown and increase the U.S. debt ceiling. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., scrambled late Monday to iron out the specifics of an emerging budget proposal after a string of prior plans fizzled.

Reid appeared on the chamber floor Monday night to announce, "We've made tremendous progress -- we are not there yet -- but tremendous progress, and everyone just needs to be patient."

McConnell added, "We've had a good day...I think it's safe to say we've made substantial progress and we look forward to making more progress in the near future."

The House GOP Conference is scheduled to meet at 9 a.m. to discuss the tentative framework of the budget proposal with members, many of whom cast a skeptical eye toward the details of the negotiations that were dripping out Monday night. The Senate Republican Conference is scheduled to meet at 11 a.m. to receive an update on negotiations. 

Resistance in the House could scuttle, or at least stall, anything that emerges from the Senate. 

Via: Fox News

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[VIDEO] Obama: Not Allowing Gov't to Borrow More 'Would Amount to a New Tax'

(CNSNews.com) - President Barack Obama used his Saturday radio address to press for an end to "this Republican shutdown" and for an increase in the debt limit.

"It wouldn't be wise," he said, "to just kick the debt-ceiling can down the road for a couple months, and flirt with a first-ever intentional default right in the middle of the holiday shopping season. Because damage to America's sterling credit rating wouldn't just cause global markets to go haywire; it would become more expensive for everyone in America to borrow money. Students paying for college. Newlyweds buying a home. It would amount to a new tax -- a Republican default tax -- on every family and business in America."

Obama said once the debt ceiling is raised and the shutdown is over, "there's a lot we can accomplish together."

Via: CNS News

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STOP THE DEBT CEILING SCARE TACTICS

To quote the famous Yogi Berra, “it's like déjà vu all over again” with the battle over ceremonially raising the debt ceiling.

According to the elected officials of our great nation, we must saddle our children and grandchildren with another couple trillion dollars of debt in order to protect them. This logic seems flawed.  

In the coming week, we will see how the genius of Washington will save the American people from another crisis—a crisis that will bring Apocalypse 2.0, if the talking heads are to be believed. Markets will crash, 401(k) plans will be wiped out, a huge recession will ensue, and cats will be sleeping with dogs. It will be horrible!

But will it?

On Fox News last week, I discussed how we are being fed a line akin to being offered oceanfront property in Arizona. We have been fed this same line for years now. We got it in 2008 to approve the TARP and again in 2011 with the doom-filled sequester.  

Did we suffer greatly?

Fact is, the markets came through just fine after the sequester, hitting all-time highs. The TARP was fully paid back, allegedly, with profit from banks who never wanted the money in the first place. Those same banks are now booking record profits. Yes, growth is anemic and employment is weak, but we seem to get through these frightening scenarios each time.

Via: Breitbart

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THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CAN’T, AND WON’T, DEFAULT ON ITS DEBT OBLIGATIONS

One remarkable aspect of the shutdown/debt limit battle is the irresponsibility (on the part of the Obama administration) and incompetence (on the part of the news media) concerning the claim that the federal government will default on its debt obligations if Congress fails to raise the debt limit. President Obama and his minions have clearly suggested that default is a real possibility:

“As reckless as a government shutdown is … an economic shutdown that results from default would be dramatically worse,” Obama said on Thursday. Clearly targeting Republicans, he said a default would be “the height of irresponsibility.”

Then, on the same day, Obama’s Treasury Department released a brutal statement that said a default would prove catastrophic, causing credit markets to freeze and leading to “a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse.”

Within the last few hours, Obama repeated that Congress must “remove the threat of default and vote to raise the debt ceiling.”

But there is no threat of default. Constitutionally, the federal government must pay its debts. The Fourteenth Amendment, Section 4, states:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.

Via: Powerline

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RNC releases terrifc new Ad video exposing hypocrisy of Democrats on the debt ceiling and the debt…

A great video from the RNC that highlights past words from major players in the Democrat party preaching to America about how we cannot continue to raise the debt ceiling.

GOP Senators Shrug Off Debt-Limit Date

Republicans appear to be increasingly dismissive of the October 17 deadline the White House has set for when the federal debt limit must be raised to avoid an economic disaster. Even relative moderates such as Senators Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) and Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) are shrugging it off.

“I do think it is an important date, and I don’t want to minimize that,” Corker told reporters when asked about the October 17 deadline, before adding: “Is that the real date? No.” The government likely has until around November 1 before the situation becomes “problematic,” he said, based on his discussion with financial leaders across the country. 

Corker also shrugged off concerns about the volatility in financial markets due to uncertainty over the debt limit. ”That’s a part of what happens when you get close to a deadline,” he said. ”That’s not my concern. My concern is that we do something constructive that’s good for our nation.”

Hatch, who referred to Jack Lew as “one of the most partisan, political secretaries of the Treasury that I’ve seen,” slammed Democrats for their refusal to take up a House-passed bill to prioritize debt payment to avoid default. “The fact of the matter is, there are going to be some parts of the government that are going to be hurt if we don’t get this resolved,” he said. ”There are some that I think we could live without, too.”

Via: NRO
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