The President referenced a poll sponsored by MoveOn.org and that only sampled 4 blue states. I'd say I'm shocked, but the way the media covers for this assclown, soon enough the 80% will become the truth, and those questioning it are "extremists". Look for CBS or CNN to put out a poll soon showing something close to the 80% number.
And you don't think the world has changed since Obama passed the biggest spending bill in the history of the country, putting us deeper in debt than all previous administrations combined???
After editing your Obama narrative for accuracy, it sounds pretty much like standard operating procedure for all first-term Presidents.
Does it? I disagree, but since I'm perusing the latest photo from Queen Victoria's kids frolicking around naked, I'm a bit distracted. Of course, slavery was legal in England and the USA at the same time too, and that might have made me head explode!! /dumb analogy
People ate bread & pooped during that time period too, must mean everything from that time period was bad. I am glad you've abstained from pooping for so long, it actually explains a lot. We don't have to worry so much about your head exploding, as your ass, but given that one is usually firmly located in the other, perhaps we have to worry about both.
If you're having trouble understanding Obama's position on the national debt, think of it this way . . . You have a credit card. You have been spending like crazy, and maxed out your $10,000 credit limit. You have no idea how you'll ever pay your bill, but then you get a great idea. You'll just increase your credit limit to $20,000!! Problem solved. Now you can go on spending like you want to, without having to worry. Yeah!!!
I don't think that's quite right. Same situation, but you have a bunch of recurring obligations (comcast bill, phone bill, rent, etc.) or other new payments that you've signed your name to pay (tuition, season tickets, whatever smart or stupid things you can think of) and the only way you can pay for those things you've already committed to pay is to raise the credit limit. In other words, do you pay the people you owe or do you flake? The choices of what to fund largely have been made and approved. The debt issue really needs to be attacked during the budget approval process, not the debt ceiling.
You could cancel the season tickets, or more realistically, get a Cadillac instead of a Rolls Royce since the payments would be cheaper. Better yet, buy a Yugo for cash and you have no payments at all.
Sure thing -- it's all good if the commitments are cancellable. The point I was trying to make is that the bulk are not cancellable. The debt limit needs to be increased to cover items already approved and not, like the other poster said, increased so that Obama can start spending willy nilly. Again, the spending battle needs to fought on the front end when the budget is approved. Fighting that battle with the debt ceiling just puts us in a place where it'll be even more expensive to borrow and we'll be in an even deepr hole.
Fighting the battle when the budget is supposed to be approved leads to the same thing as the debt ceiling issue. Govt. gets shut down. Both sides have really good leverage and have no need to budge. But I ultimately think Obama is in the slightly weaker position, because he's the one who wants to spendspendspend.
Well, the GOP position of agreeing to raise the debt limit for a constitutional amendment is basically doing what you suggest. They are fighting for future balanced budgets... and we can pay off the current obligations.
Fighting over the budget does not have the impact of messing with the debt ceiling. While both result in gov't shut down, a failure to raise the debt ceiling would have a huge impact on our ability to issue debt going forward. If we can't be fully dependend on to pay for our commitments, debt buyers will walk away or demand higher rates. It's a fast and easy way to make it a lot more difficult to pay down our debt. Not to mention the short term impact on the economy.
I kind of hope a default happens just to see what the hell the real life results are. Would prices really change? Couldn't the Fed just buy US debt as part of it's monetary policy to stablize the economy?
The fed has been buying $trillions of the debt already. If they didn't, the supply of bonds would go way up, not enough demand for it all, so they'd have to increase the yields to attract more investors. In doing so, the dollar is devalued because they print money (big time!) to pay for the bonds they're buying. And the debt payments at near zero yield are about $200B but at 5% would be $1T.
Sticking to the analogy we've been using, it would be similar to purposely screwing up your credit rating just to see what would happen. Investors tends to have pretty long memories on that sort of thing. Investors would require higher interest rates to make up for the newly created risk in the debt they're buying from the United States. There would not be a quick fix to correct it -- it would take years (decades? longer?) to make investors comfortable that we pay our bills. Add in the short term stress it would put on the market and it's a no brainer that we should avoid it.
