Obama’s Beached Whale

ObamaCare, Debt Ceiling, Continuing resolution, Ted Cruz

ObamaCare—the Affordable Care Act—will not be defunded and the government will not be shut down.

ObamaCare is a putrefying beached whale, even if it is “the law of the land” as the Democrats keep telling us. Well, Prohibition was once the law of the land until it was repealed. Slavery, too, was the law of the land at one time. Even the Supreme Court said so.

The vast majority of Americans already hate ObamaCare and not a day goes by that it does not demonstrate that it is unaffordable, unworkable, and a cancerous law that kills jobs. Eventually it will kill people.

ObamaCare, passed without a single Republican vote, will become a Democratic Party poison pill. It was passed when the party controlled both houses of Congress and, by the following midterm election in 2010, the Democrats lost the House.

If the Republicans can manage to avoid doing something really stupid, the 2014 midterms will give them control of both houses. For now, though, the efforts of Sen. Ted Cruz and others are misguided and mistaken.

Via: Canada Free Press

Continue Reading....

Congress's Fiscal Fiasco Forces Americans to Wear Badge of Shame

As readers of my past columns know, I was not exactly optimistic as we approached crunch time over the debt limit in 2011. But I am far more pessimistic now. At a dinner I attended Monday night with a host of those individuals deeply involved in fiscal matters, it became clear that there are no talks going on now—neither formal nor back channel—to avoid a series of crises over spending and the debt ceiling. The House majority is in profound disarray, unable to muster majorities for anything on the spending front as the new fiscal year approaches.

In a misguided attempt to mollify his radicals and avoid a government shutdown over the demand to abort Obamacare, House Speaker John Boehner has instead turned the focus to the debt ceiling. His earlier assurance that he and his party would not play games with the nation's full faith and credit turned into a pledge weeks ago into to invoke the "Boehner Rule," insisting that the debt limit be raised only by an amount equal to additional new spending cuts—meaning trillions of additional dollars piled on to the $2.5 trillion in cuts already made (but of course with no specifics about what he would want to cut). And it is clear that a slew of Republicans inside Congress, bolstered by forces outside like Heritage Action, will push their crusade to crush Obamacare by holding the debt-ceiling hostage.

In 2011, when the intensive negotiations between Boehner and President Obama broke down, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stepped in at the eleventh hour to fill the vacuum and avert a default. When Boehner declared that he would not participate in any negotiations over the fiscal cliff, McConnell stepped in with Vice President Joe Biden to fill the vacuum. This time? There will be no McConnell; the minority leader is so cowed by the challenge to his renomination from the right that he will not be a party to any "compromise." And the informal negotiations between Obama, his Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, and a group of Republican senators led by Bob Corker have broken down, at least for now.

At this point, I will be surprised if we do not have at least one partial government shutdown within the next month or two, and I fear there is a high chance of a real breach in the debt ceiling, one that may not last for a long time, assuming that the markets react violently to something they still believe will not really happen, and that voters react to the notion that the U.S. will pay its creditors in China before it pays its troops in Afghanistan. But a default this time will have devastating consequences, meaning a downgrade in our credit by all ratings agencies and a spectacle to the world of spectacular, self-destructive dysfunction.

Via: National Journal

Continue Reading...

Obama: 'Raising the Debt Ceiling...Does Not Increase Our Debt,' Though It Has 'Over 100 Times'

DOES HE EVEN KNOW HOW GOVERNMENT WORKS??

Raising the debt ceiling doesn't increase the nation's debt, Pres. Obama declared in a speech today.

In a speech at the Business Roundtable headquarters in Washington, D.C., Obama dismissed concerns about raising the debt ceiling by noting that it'd been done so many times in the past:

"Now, this debt ceiling -- I just want to remind people in case you haven't been keeping up -- raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy.  All it does is it says you got to pay the bills that you've already racked up, Congress.  It's a basic function of making sure that the full faith and credit of the United States is preserved."

Obama went on to suggest that "the average person" mistakenly thinks that raising the debt ceiling means the U.S. is racking up more debt:

Via: CNS News

Continue Reading...

44 Percent Of Americans Don't Want To Raise Debt Ceiling, Poll Finds

As the U.S. draws closer to hitting its borrowing limit, polls released this week show that many Americans oppose raising the debt ceiling, despite worries about the consequences of failing to do so.

In an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Friday, 44 percent of respondents said they are against raising the debt ceiling, while 22 percent said it should be raised so the U.S. avoids "going into bankruptcy and defaulting on its obligations." The remaining third said they are unsure.

“People’s first instinct is how fed up they are with Washington and spending,” Republican pollster Bill McInturff told NBC. “This is a very difficult issue in terms of public opinion.”

A Reason-Rupe poll released Thursday by the libertarian Reason Foundation and Arthur N. Rupe Foundation found even wider opposition, with 70 percent against raising the debt ceiling and 24 percent in favor of it. The poll, unlike the one from NBC/WSJ, didn't explicitly give respondents the option to say they didn't know enough to form an opinion.

While Americans are eager to tell pollsters they support cuts, however, they often hold conflicting opinions on budget issues, and public opinion is far from set. In the summer of 2011, NBC/WSJ polling showed that support for raising the debt ceiling rose by 10 points between June and July as the issue received more attention.

Despite the lack of support for increasing the debt limit, a CNN/ORC poll released earlier this week found that 62 percent of Americans said failing to do so would cause a "crisis" or "major problems." A 54 percent majority said they would blame Republicans in Congress for such a failure, while 25 percent said they'd blame President Barack Obama. Both figures are roughly the same as they were in CNN/ORC's 2011 polling.

Via: Huffington Post

Continue Reading....

What happens if the debt ceiling isn't raised?

The Treasury has been up against the debt ceiling since May 19. But Secretary Jack Lew warned last week that his ability to create headroom under the $16.7 trillion limit will run out in mid-October. The threat facing the Treasury, and the nation, is what happens then if Congress doesn’t raise the limit.

In the worst-case scenario, the government fails to make payments on the interest on its debt, an outcome that could create a global financial crisis.

Yet Congress is not close to lifting the limit. With just a few weeks to go, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is demanding spending cuts in return for the House voting to raise the ceiling, while President Obama is saying he won’t negotiate over the government paying its debts.

What if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling in time? The following is a stage-by-stage guide to the consequences that would unfold if the cap isn't raised. It is based on the last brush with the debt ceiling in 2011 as well as earlier episodes — the debt ceiling has been raised 78 times since 1960.

Extraordinary measures

The Treasury currently is paying all of the government’s bills without issuing new debt by engaging in what it calls “extraordinary measures.” By manipulating accounts and postponing scheduled intra-government transfers, the Treasury can eliminate the need to issue bonds to finance those needs, and instead use newly issued bonds to pay obligations as they come due, without adding to the level of debt.

Via: Washington Examiner

Continue Reading....

Jack Lew: Obama will negotiate over government funding, not debt limit

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew reiterated Tuesday morning that the Obama administration will not negotiate with congressional Republicans over the debt ceiling, but will seek a fiscal bargain with Republicans in funding the government.

Lew appeared on CNBC’s "Squawk Box" the morning after sending House Speaker John Boehner a letter projecting that the Treasury would run out of headroom under the debt ceiling in mid-October. Lew explained that the letter was not a threat, but that “we’re sharing the information we have” and “it means Congress does need to act” to raise the limit.

Lew reasserted several times during his interview with CNBC’s John Harwood that the White House won’t engage in negotiations with Republicans seeking spending cuts or changes to Obamacare in raising the debt ceiling. But he also indicated that the administration remains willing to talk with the GOP about making other large-scale fiscal adjustments in the upcoming government funding showdown that will take place just shortly before Lew expects the debt ceiling to become binding in mid-October.

President Obama is “looking for the sensible common ground” in trying to make sure the government doesn’t shut down when funding runs out on Oct. 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year, Lew said. Lew made sure to distinguish between negotiations over the debt ceiling and over a new budget or continuing resolution, calling the latter “very different from something as fundamental as saying we’ll put the full faith and credit of the United States at risk.”

In negotiating over funding the government, Lew said, Obama is aiming to replace the sequestration cuts with other fiscal savings and “looking for the sensible common ground,” including entitlement reforms and changes to the corporate tax code. Lew said that Obama has “made clear he’s willing to do tough things on entitlements” but that any such changes would “require balance” in the form of tax hikes.

But even in the continuing resolution talks, Obamacare would remain off the table. In response to Harwood’s question whether the Obama administration would accept any defunding or delaying of Obamacare in a bill funding the government, Lew simply responded “no.”

Lew said he has exchanged calls with Boehner and other Republican leaders regarding the coming fiscal showdowns.

Via: Washington Examiner

Continue Reading....

GOP Demands Obama Plan on Debt Ceiling

A pair of Senate Republicans is pressing the Treasury Department for details on when the government will reach its $16.4 trillion debt ceiling — and how long it can avoid hitting the limit.

Sens. Orrin Hatch (Utah) and Jeff Sessions (Ala.) asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday to lay out a precise timeline for when the government expects to near the debt ceiling and what "extraordinary measures" can be taken to prolong the deadline.

The request comes while much of Washington is consumed with addressing the glut of Jan. 1 policy changes known as the "fiscal cliff," and serves as a reminder that the debt ceiling also looms as another high-stakes battle.

Hatch and Sessions are the ranking members of the Senate Finance and Budget committees, respectively.

According to the pair, the government is already drawing near the new limit.

Citing Treasury data, they said the government's debt load, as of Oct. 11, stood $275 billion below the new level, which was expanded by $2.1 trillion under the last-minute debt-limit deal reached in August 2011.

Via: The Hill

Continue Reading...