The Washington Debt Follies

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 7/30/11 at 11:57am

This came from a letter to the editor column from Ken Scott West
Babylon:

If the government were to quit spending money and just paid off the debt and if we spent $ 100 million a day on that, it would take 389 years (almost 4 centuries) to make up the $14.7 trillion we owe. Scary isn't it? Congress & the president are playing chicken with the budget"

They cannot cut a few trillion from this behemoth? This is really scary and a sobering thought. If defaulting stops us on this borrowing binge than maybe it isn't so bad. This makes Greece's problems look like nothing.

If China and other stop lending we are doubly screwed

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 7/30/11 at 2:39pm

And no one wants to deal with the really tough stuff: defence spending that not even the Pentagon wants, closing down the over 800 bases we have around the world, turning off the spigot we call foreign aid and everyone else knows is just bribes. There are all kinds of dents we could make in spending and God knows plenty of places where we could income streams adjusted. But to do that? My god, it's socialism!!

LOL

[romantico]

Posted: 7/30/11 at 8:42pm

Odd how this has never been an issue before. How many times has the debt ceiling been raised in the past? I guess that this congress and a Democratic president they would love to see fail has nothing to do with it.

I think this is the best description of the debt ceiling crisis yet. Rachel spells it all out here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp7ZAYZLug0

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 7/30/11 at 9:11pm

Thing is, we *do* have to deal with it, no matter where it came from or whose fault it might be. It's a lot of money, and just raising it doesnt address the problem, it just shoves it down the road a ways. So how far do we go before we get serious about it? Fifty trillion? A hundred?

And no, I dont think either party has been exactly stellar in its handling of this. It's like really bad DC theatre, without the music or costumes.

Updated On: 7/31/11 at 09:11 PM

[romantico]

Posted: 7/30/11 at 9:20pm

If this were a Republican President this Congress would not blink an eye and it would not be an issue. It does have to be dealt with and I think the only hope we have at this point is the 14th Amendment Option. Fareed Zakaria on Anderson Cooper's show last night really did say it best.

'The Tea Party has an agenda,' Zakaria told host Anderson Cooper, and argued 'it cannot get it thought the political democratic process.' As a result, Zakaria argues that they have said 'we'll blow up the country if you don't listen to us. We will hold hostage the credit of the United States, the good standing of the United States and we'll blow it up.' He noted Krauthammer had called the strategy 'counter constitutional' and agreed. 'If you control just one of the three branches of government, you can't hijack the entire system.' He went on to argue that 'they don't understand the workings of democracy' and 'they were not elected dictators of the United States.'

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fareed-zakaria-is-fed-up-with-anti-democratic-tea-party-they-were-not-elected-dictators/

Updated On: 7/30/11 at 09:20 PM

[madbrian]

Posted: 7/31/11 at 9:12am

What the media is totally ignoring is the fact that this 'crisis' is self-inflicted by the far right. Raising the debt limit has been done routinely for almost 100 years; NEVER has it been used a cudgel by either party. For some reason, the media has been acting like it's business as usual to tie conditions and cuts to this process.

Even given this unique scenario, as the deadline has approached and many have moved toward compromise, the extreme right fringe in this House is moving further right, and dragging Boehner along with them.

No one from either party has shown any real leadership here, and they have all acted in a manner that is detrimental to our country. I can't think of anyone who deserves to be re-elected after this.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 7/31/11 at 9:16am

The unfortunate thing is that it was the brand new, never-been-in-office bunch that caused the bulk of this.

I'm kinda thinking we need to go back to the Hellenic Greek model: a congress chosen completely by lot, with no return to a seat when your time is finished.

[JasonM12480]

Posted: 7/31/11 at 9:48am

You know what floors me? Here's the thing - there is no such thing as money. There is no such thing as finance. All we're doing is playing with/trading/putting value on imaginary numbers on a piece of paper that people make up. Nothing costs anything. It's all a big game of make believe. Humans have created the problems that we have for ourselves. And frankly, I personally have no ties to Washington, DC, and have never personally done business with China, Japan, Germany, or any other foreign country. If people in Washington who make these big business deals are the ones who have driven us into "debt" by borrowing money from other countries, then I think the people in Washington should personally be held responsible for paying back the other countries, not the taxpayers. It's not our fault for this mess.

Maybe it's time to look at another form of trade/business rather than the American dollar. And maybe it's time to look at another form of Government than the one we currently have, which is...apparently....not working very well.

[nygrl232]

Posted: 7/31/11 at 10:11am

Well, it's all exists, eventually, in the form of gains and losses. The stock market is about gambling. The "real" stuff--making things, creating new things, coming up with ideas for things, practicing certain other things--is being encouraged elsewhere.

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 7/31/11 at 11:19am

I am so tired of my posts disappearing.

I basically said in part what MB said.

Or, just read the Shock Doctrine.

[tommyboy]

Posted: 7/31/11 at 2:35pm

I had a post on this thread disappear too. And it wasn't even vulgar this time.

[madbrian]

Posted: 7/31/11 at 6:20pm

It's worth noting that John McCain has reverted back to being a grown up, pushing back against the far right wing of the GOP.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 7/31/11 at 6:59pm

Anyone who works in the theatre should be awestruck by what happened today. "We're close to a deal!" "I'm ready to sign off!" The lines are well-rehearsed, even if the plot's a bit shaky. But face it: everything that happened today was a stage play for an audience of Asian investors, whose markets opened at 4PM Eastern Time. If they didnt like what they saw, they would have been selling off dollars like crazy... so the pressure was on for DC to trot out *something* to keep the audience happy.

It wasnt a standing ovation performance, but I think it might have bought the US a little time to rewrite the script a bit.

[Kad]

Posted: 7/31/11 at 7:34pm

Here's a great op-ed piece about it.
"Congress is doing exactly what it was elected to do."

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 7/31/11 at 7:49pm

Indeed, a great piece. Thanks for the link.

[madbrian]

Posted: 7/31/11 at 11:41pm

At the end of the day, the cuts are going to hit the same people who've been the victims of the last decade of abusive policies - the lower and middle classes. These cuts will INCREASE unemployment, and increase the wealth gap even further. They should all be ashamed of themselves, and we should be ashamed for allowing this political environment to foment.

[madbrian]

Posted: 8/1/11 at 8:31am

The e-mail I just sent to the White House:

Once again, this administration caves, and knowingly does what is not in the best interest of the country. The Tea Party wins. The GOP wins. The upper class wins. Big business wins. Who loses? The middle class loses. The lower class loses. This president has once again put politics ahead of policy. It's tiresome to hear a man give speeches that are spot on, then be unable to back them up with good governing. It's sad to see an American president be bullied by his opposition. The president should have grown a pair, and invoked the 14th Amendment rather than totally capitulate to the Tea Party. I can respect compromise, but I can't respect capitulation.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 8/1/11 at 9:51am

I just finished reading the details over at Huffington. What a complete and utter joke. Right now, I am so glad I have dual citizenship so I can get out of the idiotic country at a moment's notice.

I'll be curious to see what the CBC and the Progressives say about this. It doesnt look like Pelosi is gonna work all that hard at securing votes for this mess, and despite Reid's pronouncements, it looks like the Senate may have pretty serious doubts about it as well.

The only bright spot for the moment is that the dollar seems to be holding value, but I suspect that may change if there's any recalcitrance in Congress and the deal falls through.

Interesting times, indeed.

[madbrian]

Posted: 8/1/11 at 10:06am

The worst that may come out of this is probably yet to be seen. Now that the president has capitulated on this, look for the Tea Party to press their advantage even further. Why wouldn't they, when he (and the rest of the Dems) have shown absolutely no backbone?

But we're at fault. All of us, me included. We allow it. We tolerate it. The Tea Party represents a tiny fraction of Americans, but they're able to impose their will. So, they win. And we lose. Because we allow it.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 8/1/11 at 11:56am

The mildly ironic thing about this is that the GOP allowed it. Here they thought they were getting a whole buncha new minions, and instead they're getting their national party @sses handed to them by this, yes, tiny minority that seems to have everyone else scared to death.

There's a few historical precedents for this. None of them are good.

[madbrian]

Posted: 8/1/11 at 12:29pm

If the Dems defy history and act smart, they could make lemonade out of this. This entire fiasco has been imposed upon us by the GOP. It should be made fodder in 2012. Combine that with the absurd GOP budget proposal to dismantle Medicare, which every (I think) GOP congressperson and senator voted 'Yes' on, and the 2012 ads should write themselves. About the only thing the Dems salvaged out of this agreement was to push back the next debt ceiling increase until after the 2012 election. Having another potential circus like this on the horizon should play to the Dems' favor.

[Kad]

Posted: 8/1/11 at 12:41pm

Hopefully, people are now gonna realize that the Tea Party isn't a party that everyone is invited to. They are, and always were, a construct by some of the wealthiest behind-the-scene people in the country.

[madbrian]

Posted: 8/1/11 at 12:54pm

To be fair, there are some true believers in the Tea Party, but they're being leveraged by big business and GOP power brokers. Unfortunately, they're being led around by the nose, buying into the false premise that cutting government waste can somehow balance the budget and recude the debt. Nothing of significance was accomplished in this debacle, other than eliminating some programs that helped the poor/middle class, nad nudging unemployment up a little. Nothing was done to change our fiscal trajectory; that can only be done with changes to Medicare/Social Security/Military, and no one from either party has the courage to go there.

Posted: 8/1/11 at 1:52pm

I, unlike the Tea Partiers who hate America and see nothing but dark days ahead, think that America can do anything it puts its mind to. Republicans DO NOT want budget surpluses- they want deficits so they can demand government be shrunk down so it can be drowned in a bathtub. When we DID have a surplus (only 10 years ago) they were so horrified they GAVE IT AWAY-- remember all those checks for $300 a person until it was all gone?

If you returned tax rates to what they were under Clinton, we could pay this debt down in a decade- not that we want to, but we could. Go back to the tax rates of the 50's and we'd have to build warehouses to store all the surplus.

[madbrian]

Posted: 8/1/11 at 2:00pm

I'm not usually a fan of Maureen Dowd, but her op-ed today seems to sum it up. It appears that those who supposedly hate government (ie Tea Partiers) are better at it than those who supposedly love government (Dems).