The best advice I’ve gotten for assessing the debt-ceiling negotiations was to “watch for the day when the White House goes public.” As long as the Obama administration was refusing to attack Republicans publicly, my source said, they believed they could cut a deal. And that held true. They were quiet when the negotiations were going on. They were restrained after Eric Cantor and Jon Kyl walked out last week. Press Secretary Jay Carney simply said, “We are confident that we can continue to seek common ground and that we will achieve a balanced approach to deficit reduction.” But today they went public. The negotiations have failed.
Think I will buy me some of those Beck brand survival seeds.
cleek
save us Bully Pulpit, save us!
Tulip
not good news
damn.
Dean
I’m not convinced that that’s really the case but if it is, Obama has the trump card in all of this.
He should just declare all of this unconstitutional and strongly assert for everyone that America cannot default on its debt.
Time to move on.
Bob
Maybe now they will simply:
A: shut down the federal fgovernment and direct spending to the debt. or
B: Ignore the damn debt ceiling law which may very well be unconstitutional and pay our bills
cleek
they have many weeks to get some kind of deal together. no need for smelling salts yet.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
The mashup of the previous article title and this one explains it all.
I would feel sorry for the Republicans if they weren’t Republican.
Dean
He should also strongly declare that he does not negotiate with terrorists.
ppcli
Bob at 4
It could be that forcing the Administration into B is part of their plan. That way they don’t have to commit to anything but they can demagogue on “Obama spends so much he can’t be restrained even by the laws.”
Dexter
Or may be Joke Line is just pulling stuff out his a@@.
trollhattan
Is this our Sully-approved Adult Conversation(tm)?
That said, I thought the preznit’s remarks today were letter-perfect.
mike in dc
It’s Ezra, not Joe, Dex.
Jay B.
The Republicans won’t deal and aren’t honest partners in governance? What?!?! Since when?
Wake me when President Charlie understands what Lucy is really going to do with the football.
BGinCHI
Obama is doubtless picking up his red phone and telling Wall St and the financials:
“those crazy reps that you bought are about to drain your bank accounts….I’d have a talk with them if I was you.”
He then hangs up and waits for the Overlords to yank the GOP chain, whereupon the latter reps come begging for a deal.
cjdavis
I think that if it comes down to the wire, Obama will call it a national security issue and go right on paying debts.
The Dangerman
@Dean
I’ve come around to the fact that not raising the debt ceiling won’t cause a default immediately; the interest will get paid. Of course, expenditures towards things like Medicare, Social Security, and Pensions will cease. In other words, a Reichtards wet dream; yeah, we’re going there and how it plays out is anyone’s guess.
cleek
with what money ?
JMG
Ezra, an excellent writer and reporter, has become victim to the Washington reportorial disease of Source Capture. He can’t believe half his sources are evil. He still believes the Republicans, while their ideas are wrong, want American government to work, so he has a sad the negotiations have failed.
A realistic outlook would be based on the truth that Republicans want American government to fail so that when elected to power, they can officially change it so as to retain power forever. Then he could say “good, the negotiations have failed. Time for Obama to act unilaterally and defy the Republicans to try and remove him from office.”
boss bitch
I thought the consensus around the liberal blogosphere is that there should be no deal? Weren’t people afraid that Dems and Obama would “cave” and “give away the store”?
Huckster
Look, if the showdown on the shutdown a few months back has taught me anything, it’s that Obama is a hell of a lot better at this negotiatin’ thing than the Repukes. They got hosed then, and they will again.
In the meantime we’ll just have to put up with firebaggers and media-types proclaiming that the sky is falling.
Jay B.
@13
I think that might be a decent enough step. Cuomo did it over gay marriage, after all.
But if I’ve learned anything reading Balloon Juice it’s that the President is powerless when it comes to dealing with Congress. It’s strictly up to them , lest he start dictating terms like a totalitarian — they HATE that. No, he’s a constitutional scholar completely committed to the separation of powers and…zzzzzzzzzzz
BGinCHI
@Dangerman: maybe this is the shock Independents need to stop voting for GOP whackjobs. Look at all the terrible state legislation going through right now. People voted these morans in and they are going to have to get wise to what they are all about. Maybe the shock over a default will cause this.
Gosh, maybe even a few journos might get scared enough to practice some journalism.
Dare to dream.
Han's Solo
The GOP keeps saying the August deadline isn’t real. That Obama can prioritize the debtors and not miss any payments to the bond holders. Even if he did that the market would still flip the fuck out and go down like a rock.
But okay, if that is really the way the GOP wants to play it this is what will have to happen. The Government will have to send out letters to Social Security and Medicare recipients saying that they aren’t getting shit. They’d best learn to love the taste of cat food, ’cause the GOP will NEVER raise taxes on Paris Hilton. She, and those like her, are just too important.
And if Social Security recipients and Medicare Recipients don’t like it? Will, tough, it’s their fault they aren’t rich. If they would have worked harder when they were younger, or been born into money, especially if they were born into money, they wouldn’t have a problem.
cleek
don’t know about “consensus”, but there are plenty of people who apparently think any deal, ever, on anything, is complete capitulation.
i’m not one of them.
FlipYrWhig
@ boss bitch: You misunderstand. Doing what the leading lights of the liberal blogosphere want, but doing it too soon, too late, too privately, too publicly, too loudly, or too softly… those are all disastrously bad results too. Whatever is, is bad.
Jeffro
Yup, unless the Overlords have a pretty good idea on how to make big bucks ‘shorting’ the entire US economy.
BGinCHI
Jeffro, yep, prolly right.
Someone’s gonna howl though, and putting the blame on the GOP is where the action is.
McConnell, Boehner, Cantor should be on a poster with a fat caption under it.
SiubhanDuinne
Chris Cillizza should have titled his article “Shrill President Is Shrill.” A sample:
I didn’t see/hear the presser, but this sounds like the Obama I voted for and worked for, the Obama who put the O in Obot. Or, what trollhattan said @ #10.
The Dangerman
Fix’d.
The Moar You Know
The GOP will not rest until that football has been rammed squarely up each and every American’s ass. And Goatse Guy notwithstanding, it isn’t going to fit easily.
cleek
if the US defaults, what happens? our credit rating drops.
which means what? it becomes harder for the govt to borrow money.
which makes it harder to do what? spend.
tell me why fundamentalist conservatives think that’s a bad result.
Valdivia
I agree with what Ezra said up to the point in which he seemed to advocate we all dump Treasuries and create a run on govt backed securities. If that was snark, my apologies, but a run on the dollar is no joking matter/rant over
Han's Solo
And that is the really scary thing. They (the Overlords) have been fucking with countries, states, counties and cities for awhile. Hell, a lot of Greece’s problems can be traced back to Goldman Sachs. Matt Taibi’s had some great pieces lately, and a book, on this subject.
Don’t think the Overlords would spare us out of patriotism. They don’t give a shit about the country, their sole concern is their personal wealth.
Corner Stone
Seriously people. Shouldn’t we for one freakin’ time just understand that we have no choice but to be the only adults in the room?
What do you negotiate with if one side will lovingly shoot the hostages?
Leave the tax loops alone, trim some Medicare and let’s get this damn thing done!
BGinCHI
@The Moar You Know, if internet pr0n is any indication, some will relish this development.
dr. bloor
Dunno about the US economy, but you can short Treasury Bonds. Cantor’s already dipping his finger in that pot.
BO_Bill
Perhaps Balloon Juice can start a petition and a fund drive for GBTV. IT could go something like this:
“Hi Glen, it’s the guys, gals, dogs, cats, and others over here at Balloon Juice. Sorry for doubting you these past couple of years. Best of luck with your new TV show.”
Just a thought.
freelancer
pick up some food insurance while you’re at it.
The Moar You Know
BGinCHI: You gave me a great book rec a couple of months ago, I’ll give you one if you haven’t read it already: Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine.
One of many things that you’ll take away from it is this: what you describe doesn’t happen. Forcing things to a crisis always benefits conservatives.
Dexter
I saw this nugget a few days ago on Yahoo! Finance page. The Chamber of Commerce pres. Donahue said a few business types that the debt ceiling will be raised. He also said that they did quite a lot to put these reps in the congress and if they don’t raise the debt ceiling CoC will make sure that they are voted out of power.
As Jeffro outlined above, Obama may already have that conversation. Also, if debt ceiling gets raised without what tea party wants, Boner is hosed.
RAM
Dean @ 3
I agree. I don’t believe that, Constitutionally, there is any such thing as a debt limit that has to be raised. Congress raises it every time they vote to spend money. At least that’s what the 14th Amendment says in plain language that even Clarence Thomas ought to understand:
I say just keep on paying the bills and to hell with this debt limit nonsense. Congress voted to raise the debt limit when they authorized, by law, expenditures that created debt. So just tell the wingnuts to Suck. On. This.
Martin
Debt payment isn’t part of this at all. It’s entirely about debt issuance.
The Treasury is under Obama, so they can keep issuing bonds in defiance of Congress (unless that also falls under the slate of primary-able offenses to those around here, like Libya). That’s the sole issue here – though Boehner is trying to do other stuff in the same move. Tax collection doesn’t stop. We’ve got a budget. It’s entirely a question of whether Treasury is authorized to issue bonds or not, and if they aren’t authorized, will they do so anyway.
If they do stop issuing bonds, then the question is ‘who gets paid with the available revenue’. The federal government has no ‘hierarchy of the deserving’, but I imagine they’d pay bondholders first – otherwise the longterm cost of running the country explodes out of control. My guess is they’d stop paying DOD other than Iraq/Afghanistan, stop paying contractors, they’d stop oil/farm subsidies. They’d stop payments to the states. They’d stop paying all other federal workers that aren’t directly related to revenue collection, safety, etc. It’d be a nearly complete government shutdown, but there’d still be revenue.
But I think Obama/Geithner have a fairly large degree of discretion with who to pay, as compared to how states run. CA for example has a pretty strict hierarchy of who gets paid first. The feds really don’t have that. I think Obama would have some ability to target those programs that most hurt red states, for example.
Montysano
The minute that the Greek austerity deal was announced, Goldman Sachs stock shot up 2.5%.
daveNYC
There’s not enough financial products around for the entire financial sector to be able to short the entire US economy. Not to mention that you then get into issues involving counterparty risk and the fact that a contagion like that will have impacts around the globe that cannot be predicted.
Basically, you can make money screwing over some people, but it’s just too risky to try and make money by screwing over everyone (at least at the scale a default is at).
The Dangerman
To get the point across, I’d go for theater and cancel things like, say, any government sponsored July 4th fireworks; people will be pissed when they don’t get to see shit blown up. Worse, they will be drunk and pissed.
August 2nd will pass without a deal; on August 3rd, Bachmann, et al, will say something like “see, no problem”. Then checks will stop flowing to folks like SS recipients, whereupon the question will be, does the potential shitstorm start with merely a drizzle or does the downpour hit from the start?
Martin
I suspect that’s what would actually happen. Obama and Geithner are not about to explode the cost of servicing the national debt simple because Boehner wants to boost his teatard cred.
Maxwel
Time for the CIA to start disappearing Republican congresscritters.
Martin
No it won’t. The bond market will explode well before then, and that’ll force their hand.
BGinCHI
@Moar, thanks, I’ve read it, and agree with the general thesis as it applies here.
Except, you can only stretch lies so far before they get thin. And once the GOP threatens what is most important to, say, senior citizens, those cranky fuckers will leave the GOP just like they did the Ryan Plan.
They may be gullible when it comes to a crisis, but if the GOP threaten their fixed income, it’s wrath of Bieber time.
boss bitch
gotcha.
General Stuck
I hadn’t quite thought of it that way. But Klein’s tea leaf reading makes sense to me. The Senate wingnuts have just taken their ball and went home, and to hell with America honoring it’s debt.
I expect, down on C Street, the jeebus plus nothing boys are gathered in a prayer circle, apologizing to God for the Marxist dems destroying commerce, and America deserving to be wrecked what the mighty wrath of of the Lard hath given the Libtards have given it away to the
poorlazy.Obama has no choice now. He has to drop the hammer of the debt ceiling law, after a few votes in congress, and if those votes fail.
The constitution is not a suicide pact, and I can’t think of another more relevant issue to that axiom, than the US defaulting on it’s debts.
boss bitch
I know so that’s why I thought failed negotiations would be good in their eyes.
The Dangerman
Perhaps, but the bond market should already be reacting to the writing on the wall; now, that isn’t something I watch all that closely, but it seems fairly calm. The creditors know they are getting paid after 8/2 and default would be the option of absolute last resort. It’s just a matter of how much harm will be done to the economy in the interim (read: bad economy good for GOP 2012).
cleek
nah. they’re just posturing. they thought they had guaranteed leverage with this debt thing, but the Dems have so far refused to give up the goods. so, the GOP kicked it up to the next level. and now so has Obama.
there will be a deal. eventually. and there will be much heartache from everyone not involved in putting that deal together.
Suffern ACE
I understand he can’t say anything out loud now as that would drive too many people nuts, but if he said “Everyone gets paid .75 on the dollar until the issue is resolved” would that move things along, for those who hate “uncertainty”?
retr2327
I’m with Dean and RAM: in the event of a conflict between the requirement to raise the debt ceiling (imposed by statute, not the Constitution) and the 14th Amendment, the debt ceiling is unconstitutional). And the Admin needs to start threatening to use this option, loudly and credibly. At that point, the Republicans can either settle for half (or most of) a loaf, or risk walking away empty-handed.
Suffern ACE
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-29/institutions-pull-out-of-prime-money-funds.html
As of last week though, it appeared that the institutional managers at least were thinking banks were less desireable than USG debt. I guess we could time it so that both those issues came to a head at the same time…
General Stuck
I hope you are right, and normally would agree with the posturing game and the brinkmanship being a part of the negotiations playing out. I just get really bad vibes off of Mcconnell and the other senate wingers. That this is one time opportunity and maybe a last chance for them to reassert their ideology, after it failing when they were in power. Hope I am wrong.
Jim C.
I disagree with Klein’s assessment. (Shocker!)
Realistically, from a negotiating standpoint this is almost textbook. You gradually turn up the heat by applying more and more pressure the longer it takes to get the other side to act reasonably. What Obama did today was essentially put Republican feet to the fire in the court of public opinion.
I know that not everyone here is a big Sully fan, but he’s right in recognizing that Obama tends to play a “long game”. Rather than coming out swinging, he often gives the other side a little rope and lets them hang themselves. I watched the media conference today when the question was asked about what made him think that Republicans would come tot he table.
He talked about all the things that everyone else had put on the table, and then pivoted to calmly saying, “And if Republicans don’t move then everyone will be eating rancid meat and our kids will get the same education that cavemen got and planes will crash and stuff.”
Basically he’s let Republicans paint themselves into the corner and give him all the ammunition he needs to shoot them and STILL appear as being above the fray and the adult in the room. It was masterful.
Tonal Crow
@retr2327:To reiterate from the Cole-caught-cat-cooperating-with-dog thread, I’m not so sure that Art.4 of the 14th Amendment supports the argument that the debt limit is unconstitutional. Art.4 was enacted to reassure those who had financed the Union during the Civil War that they would be repaid, and that those who had financed the Confederacy would *not* be repaid.
I think a somewhat better argument can be made that once Congress appropriates money pursuant to Art.I s.9 cl.7 that, if spent, would increase the deficit, it has implicitly authorized the executive to do what it takes -— sell assets, print money, etc. —- to “pay the Debts” (Art.I s.8 cl.1.) incurred by that expenditure.
I wonder if there are any precedents on this point?
JPL
So if the republicans default on the loan, who gets the blame when interest rates on the loan goes up? If they are worried about the debt now, just wait.
Martin
Not really. I don’t think anyone really believes that the government will default on debt payments, even if the ceiling isn’t raised. Instead it’ll mean there are no new government bonds to buy, and that problem doesn’t yet exist to react to.
In most months, the government pays out about $20B in debt service. The exception is December when they do the annual payments which come in around $100B. Geithner has said he has a way to pay everyone through about August 1. After that, someone won’t get paid – but I guarantee that someone won’t be the bondholders. He’ll come up with that $20B somehow, and the ~$100B in bonds that they would have issued will result in non-payment to other groups.
Linda Featheringill
Govt shutdown:
I’ve been told that Social Security is financed separately and a government shutdown should not affect SS payments. They are automated much of the time anyway. The people who work for the SS might have a holiday ahead of them and SS recipients in need of advice or assistance might be out of luck for a while.
The same might be true of Medicare.
I’ve also been told that VA benefits are funded separately but I really don’t know much about that.
And Medicaid funding is something I really don’t know about.
Valdivia
The least of the problems is what happens with the Gov. The real problem is when we go into default and our creditors around the world realize we are governed (thanks to the republicans in the House) by innumerate idiots. They dump all our money, dump our securities, the economy goes into a nosedive and the world economy goes with it. Fun eh?
Growing up in Lat Am I wen’t through this a few times I can tell you this is NOTHING like a govt shutdown. This is actual economic Armageddon if the default does happen. Do you guys remember Argentina 2001? Yeah, that’s exactly what it would look like only worse since we would take the world down with us.
Martin
Social Security and Medicare still pay out less than they collect, so yeah, these would be fine – plus these have a trust fund to fall back on even if revenues don’t come in. For Medicare, that trust fund won’t last very long. For Social Security, it’ll last several years.
VA benefits are not funded separately. They’re a line-item in the budget like any other and could be cut. That’d be one of the more politically dangerous things to do, though.
Medicaid is a tougher animal. It’s paid by the states, and the Feds pay the states. My guess is the feds would stop paying the states, tell the states they are still responsible for making payments, and that the feds will pay them back when the GOP stops making an ass out of themselves. That’s one of the more politically safe things to do, because it’s going to put Republican governors and legislators on Obama’s side adding pressure to Republicans in the House and Senate. Same deal with farm subsidies.
Roger Moore
@Valdivia:
Think of it as our secret plan to cause a revolution in China. We stop paying out debt and buying their stuff. Suddenly, they’re left with bunch of factories without customers, and the don’t have a lot of resources to deal with the legions of newly unemployed because a few trillion worth of dollar denominated assets are suddenly worthless. Next thing you know, the newly poor Chinese urbanites are leading a revolution against the government.
Actually, that sounds pretty fucking scary, and one more reason not to default.
Valdivia
@65 Roger Moore
Yes, I mean who wouldn’t want to go through the vertiginous days of Fall 2008 again, this time just because the fuckers in the Republican party refuse to raise taxes on corporate jets!
What I really just don’t get is how there are people serving in Govt who have NO idea what the effects of a default would be.
ETA–obviously it wouldn’t be exactly like those days but the effects on the economy at large would be very much like that, only worse.
Martin
Well, we probably wouldn’t actually. One of the benefits of being the US, is that all those people that want to dump our securities really have nowhere to go. We’re just too big. Who else is offering up $14T in bonds?
Ultimately, I expect lots of turmoil in the bond market, which is bad enough, but the real damage will come when we need to pay out 6% instead of 3% to get investors back and instead of paying out $400B per year in debt service, that number starts creeping up to $800B. Either we’re going to need to raise taxes for that $400B or we’re going to need to cut $400B from somewhere.
The GOP game is about the stupidest one you could play because if they win, they make the deficit worse and gain nothing other than political points with the teatards. In fact, if they do push us past August 1, I’d say the degree to which taxes will need to be increased (that even the GOP will acknowledge) will roughly double. And what’s more, the states that are the greatest beneficiaries of those government payments are their base. CA will scarcely notice the payment cuts compared to say, Alabama, who will be devastated.
PeakVT
Next thing you know, the newly poor Chinese urbanites are leading a revolution against the government.
And then the mainland government launches an invasion of Taiwan to distract the peasants.
Valdivia
@67 Martin
One assumes that the US is too big to fail so to speak, but why even fucking test this the way the Republicans are doing? Sincerely I do not want to be proven right or wrong on the whole the US will not suffer like Argentina if it defaults thesis. I rather we don’t come even close, not just for the reasons you say, but because we will lose ALL credibility (not just economic) with the rest of the world in the long term IMHO.
Corner Stone
Give me a break. Until oil reserves are no longer priced in USD then the rest of the world can suck it.
Corner Stone
@boss bitch
bitch, President Obama will never allow the US to default. He will never declare the debt ceiling limit unconstitutional.
Given those two *facts* what do you suppose will happen next?
Mnemosyne
You know that, and I know that, but do you really think that the same financial geniuses who thought you could infinitely re-sell the same mortgage for higher and higher prices know that?
That’s what I’m worried about — they’ve seen successes in podunk countries with marginal economies like Ireland and Greece and now they think they can tank the largest economy in the world the same way with no repercussions.
Weirdly, I feel like I’m seeing the same behavior here that I see in anti-vaccination nuts: the benefits of vaccination/a stable world economy are essentially invisible, so anti-vaxers/banksters decide that those protections must not really exist and they can fuck around with them.
General Stuck
Corner Stone will look like an idiot, all over again?
Corner Stone
Poor President Stuck. Still crawfishing over the extension of all the Bush Tax Cuts.
“Bu-bu-buh-buh!!”
TenguPhule
Republican Season is now open.
No Bag Limit.
Remember to clean, then skin.
General Stuck
Not at all. It does not bother me to not suddenly raise taxes on the middle class in a econ recovery. Just ask Magic Progressive hero Krugman. I would have preferred separating out the rich cut and let them expire, but keep the low income cuts, for now. But that wasn’t possible. I was proud that Obama acted like he did, knowing full well that brain dead moron leftists would cry like a bunch of titty babies. Which they did, and are still doing, as to your comment.
You are an idiot CS, and always wrong, ON EVERYTHIHG which is damned hard to be, even for a sea slug – for a lack of anything else in your life, you should be proud of that accomplishment, that it makes your miserable existence at least tolerable.
You fuckers are becoming a parody of your selves, like a bunch of ghouls hovering around for Obama to screw up, to pick his bones.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
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@71 Corner Stone
You’re talking about President Obama as if he were the one actually making these decisions. We all here know that he is powerless in these matters.
.
.
Roger Moore
@Corner Stone:
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Cermet
Anyone who thinks the SS trust fund has real money in it to be drawn on does not understand the system – those are bonds (a promise to pay only) and to be paid with money from income/taxes whatever collected from a real cash stream – that trust fund is NOT cash on hand or liquid in any real sense of the word. Maybe payroll taxes will cover all but only after first line payments are feed and don’t eat all that/most up. Bond holders, three wars, most of DoD, FAA, Homeland etc get paid first. So it is likely that SS payments will take some to large hit – look out thugs.
boss bitch
“fact”
Wow, I’m stunned you know that word.
HyperIon
#27 Interesting. I have not seen the press conference yet…work, ya know. But Just Some Fuckhead wrote (on another thread):
I’m wondering what he saw that was different. Of course, he is just some fuckhead.
Corner Stone
Roger Moore@
Do you mean “happen”, or “next” ?
Because it’s pretty god damned simple that the word *fact* means what it’s supposed to mean.
Or do you intend to suggest the Republicans will back off their anti-tax status, or that President Obama will allow a default?
Which one seems more likely to you at this point?
Corner Stone
@boss bitch
bitch, I can understand your confusion as it’s obvious you’ve never been able to grasp one to this point.
Corner Stone
@Uncle Clarence Thomas
Uncle Clarence Thomas, of course, as usual, you are correct. It’s only when legislation is *passed* that President Obama has the power to display his fierceness.
When a situation occurs that a resolution is stalled it’s of course outside his realm as President.
Corner Stone
@President Stuck
Oh, President Stuck…you swore up and down this website that the Bush Tax Cuts would NOT be renewed for all sections.
Over and over again. Then when someone tried to pin you down to a resolution you would not accept from Obama, you crawfished and weaseled and politico-speaked your way through.
General Stuck
I think this is likely true, but guessing what the wingers will do, who knows?, I doubt they even know when the time comes what they will do.
But the implication in your response that Obama will not allow default, AND do it by caving on SS medicare etc… is your usual bullshit, or catfood, as it were. There has been a long controversy over the 14 th amendment and it’s constitutionality, and I have no doubt Obama will adopt the unconstitutional path, if he is backed into a corner with the wingnuts. And if they persist in their nihilistic seditious manner with economic matters and funding the US government, he will do what is necessary that the country won’t go up in flames, and it will not involve lowering SS or medicare bennies at all. Why don’t you just come out CS, and join the republicans, since you want Obama and dems so very much fail to prove whatever diseased notions your thoughts are giving you. Take fuckhead with you for company.
Roger Moore
@Corner Stone:
No. A fact means something that is known with certainty. Unless you have a friend in the future who is sending you back information not available to the rest of us, you do not have “facts” about events that haven’t already happened. You have beliefs and are making assertions. Those may be based on observed behavior and have more or less likelihood of being correct, but they are not facts. Until you are capable of making this level of distinction, you will remain a tiresome, screeching bore.
Corner Stone
President Obama will never challenge the debt ceiling limit as unconstitutional. Never. He will never, ever, ever put the US in a position of possible default.
Now what?
Corner Stone
@Roger Moore
If you believe for one beautiful, shining moment that President Obama will put the US in a position that could be rendered as “default”, please say so now.
4tehlulz
The Republican plan:
1. Recess without a debt limit increase.
2. Obama cites the 14th amendment to keep us out of default.
3. Impeachment when Congress comes back.
General Stuck
corner stone will never ever ever be right, about anything, and certainly not predicting what Obama will or won’t do. Now what?
for my own self in this blog dilemma, I plan to start laughing out loud.
Josie
#81 Hyperion: I watched the press conference and thought he was pretty confrontational for Obama. Of course, he was not rude, spoke in complete sentences and didn’t say fuck or shit or any manly stuff like that, but he did state his position and that of the Republicans rather clearly. He made it clear that they were not negotiating in good faith and would be responsible if things didn’t work out. He also pointed out that congressional leaders were not leading and that congress was not doing its job.
Leo
The only day I will be happy is when I learn that Corner Stone has died.
General Stuck
my reading of the elephant entrails is mostly this.
Corner Stone
@President Stuck
I was correct when I stated that ALL of the Bush Tax Cuts would be renewed. You were less than correct on that.
General Stuck
I thought it was made permanent you and others were arguing. But whatever, I did think that Pelosi and the House would not allow the rich cuts to get extended, and therefore they would all expire. I never thought Obama would not expect and sign whatever bill he was given, in order to keep his promise to not raise the middle class taxes right now.
They are none of them permanent – scheduled to expire again fairly soon, and Obama has brought the issue back up in the debt ceiling talks, and you are still wrong that Obama will sell out SS and medicare to not let us default on our loans. That remains a silly stupid posture for someone who just doesn’t have a clue what they are talking about.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
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@84 Corner Stone
Yes, indubitably. Of course you don’t need me to back you up on that fact, which is obvious to even the most casual observer, but I did read somewhere – perhaps the balloonbagger bathroom/lounge – that “the angle of the dangle is proportional to the velocity of the ferocity.” Or words to that effect.
.
.
Corner Stone
Does anyone here think the Bush Tax Cuts will be allowed to expire ahead of the 2012 elections? Anyone? With U3 somewhere north of 8.5% ?
Anyone?
General Stuck
lOL, I’ll take that bet genius, since the 2012 election will have been two months prior when the Bush tax cut extensions expire on Dec 31st 2012 or Jan 1 2013. DUH
boss bitch
LOL!!! Corner Stone is shrill in the true sense of the word. Chill out man. Papa’s gonna make it all better.
Rick Taylor
Plus tea party members riot on the street. The rancor and anger we’ve seem from them up until now will be nothing compared to what’s to come.
Bruce S
What about this Constitutional option – ignoring the debt ceiling because the obligations are already mandated:
http://titanicsailsatdawn.blogspot.com/2011/06/could-obama-just-ignore-debt-ceiling.html
Haven’t read through all of the comments yet and will skim over to see if this is discussed, but I’d be interested in what folks think.
Bruce S
“The Republican plan:
1. Recess without a debt limit increase.
2. Obama cites the 14th amendment to keep us out of default.
3. Impeachment when Congress comes back.”
But they don’t seem to have a leg to stand on. This could end up being their Waterloo if they pursue it (IMHO.)
Xenos
Given the mentality of the teapartisans, the ginned-up constitutional crisis to allow for impeachment proceedings strategy could be their plan B.
Given their hermetic ideological world, they think this could actually work out for them. But if they put Obama in a corner where he has to demagogue Medicare cuts to survive, what do they expect him to do? And in the mean-time, the house republicans are conducting hostage negotiations where their main negotiation position is to demand the right to kill the hostage.
These guys have a death wish and are marching lockstep into a wood chipper.
eyelessgame
I’m actually not willing to impart that much planning or inventiveness to the Republicans. They’re stuck. They all know they’ll lose their primaries if they vote for anything Grover Norquist doesn’t want – every single Republican district has enough teabaggers to make majority turnout in their Republican primary.
Norquist came up with this strategy when he was fourteen. It has all the foresight that that implies – all the foresight that any plan made by an adolescent has.
And so: it’s all on automatic. They signed their pledges and now they’re stuck. And they know it. They see catastrophe coming – for their party or for the country, depending on which way it topples – and they can’t do a damned thing about it.
Couple that panic with the long-term demographic fail that is the future of a party comprised solely of straight old Christian white men, and – as hard as this seems to believe – they’re screwed. They’re screwed and they’re panicked, and they’re forced into this.
There isn’t a plan.
They’re not going to vote for a tax increase because, thanks to Norquist, it’s political suicide for them. Letting the debt default is suicide too, but it’s passive suicide; they simply can’t take action to prevent it.
I’m almost put in mind of Niven’s protectors: there is no free will here. The Republicans are completely constrained by the force of their positions to an untenable place. They’re going to fall.
I’m going to lose you all here with this prediction, but I’m making it anyway:
2011-2012 will be the last time for a generation that Republicans are in charge of any part of the executive or legislative branch… with the exception of the Senate in 2013-2014, just because it tilts so strongly toward them in this upcoming election. But otherwise, they’re done. The South-and-grumpy-old-uncle rump party we thought they were in 2009 is what they’ll be in 2013, for real this time.
bob h
The only thing I am sure of, as a Social Security recipient, is that any delays in Social Security payments will cause an explosive reaction, and that most Social Security recipients are perceptive enough to know that it was the election of a Republican House in 2010 that caused it.
daveNYC
The only thing they need are the votes. Legs, legal standing, all that crap doesn’t matter.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
Klein’s quote is just stupid.
If you’re negotiating, and one side starts walking out with the money and says they’re gonna shoot the hostages on the way out, you don’t stand by and watch them walk out.
When republicans start saying that no tax increases no mattah what, you push back, strongly and loudly. You lay out exactly what this means for revenue, and what gets cut instead. This is exactly what Obama did, and should have done.
Of course the negotiations had failed when obama jumped in, one side was refusing, you know, to negotiate.
jinxtigr
I think eyelessgame is right- they’ll just do quite a bit of damage on their way out. What we’re going to need is a more parliamentary setup where third parties can have some effectiveness- both for the crunchy-granola progressive types, and for the conservatives, many of whom really should be heard in their own voices (and not just dragging centrist Democrats into right-wing positions).
The teabaggers and the established conservative ideology and especially racism is their Nader. The electoral damage is incalculable- they HAVE to split into multiple parties if they’re ever going to get a working base again.
Hell, if nothing else, the policies they’re clinging to will get a lot of the old white hoverround crowd killed off sooner rather than later. It’s like Jonestown. Hooray for ideology, but when that ideology only survives due to the vestiges of a liberal, Social Security state maintaining the ideological, it’s just not stable.
Combine that with demographic changes (get used to us being a North American EU with all their growing pains!) and the grown-ups in the room will very quickly outnumber the loonies. We need to establish voting systems that will handle disparate opinions among those grown-ups rather than lumping everybody into some Cult Of Obama that’s expected all to sing the same tune. Ain’t happening.
Bruce S
“The only thing they need are the votes.”
But the “constitutional option” doesn’t require votes from anyone. The only question is political fallout. I don’t have the answer to that one – but if it’s a matter of Obama saving the country from default because the Rs have left the room, I doubt that impeachment will be either successful or popular. There could be other consequences and it’s not at all certain what the outcome would be to a fight that entails the Dems telling the GOPers to go suck on the 14th Amendment, but it’s an option that negates the GOP congressional majority, insofar as the debt ceiling impasse is concerned. Ballsy – which is why I doubt our current configuration of Democrats are likely to do it.
Tonal Crow
There’s another reason that the debt limit is probably unconstitutional, which is that the debt limit is a means of rescinding existing appropriations without enacting a law to do so. That is, Congress appropriated sum S in various programs, which money, as it’s spent, increases the public debt D. Now Republicans want to prevent all of S from being spent, despite the fact that they (and previous Congresses) appropriated it. And they want to do so by withholding authorization for D to rise. But that would be rescinding some of the appropriations in S without enacting a law to do so. That would violate the Constitutional requirement that Congress govern appropriations by enacting a law (as opposed to governing them by *not* enacting a law).