Time to cancel Kevin McCarthy (1 Viewer)

[Pat Hartman]

How stupid do you have to be to negotiate against yourself? The ball was in the Senate's court. McCarthy took it back and negotiated against the deal his side already proposed.

1. Debt ceiling raised until 2025: The proposed agreement will increase the debt limit, which means that the government can borrow money with no risk of default until the end of 2024.
2. Two-year spending caps: The deal sets limits on how much money can be spent each year for the next two years. Spending on things other than defense will not increase next year, but will go up by 1% in 2025. However, the amount of money available for domestic programs, not including Social Security and Medicare, will not change next year.
3. Changes to work requirements for welfare programs: The agreement has added more work requirements for certain welfare programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. If able-bodied adults who are 54 years or younger and do not have dependent children don’t meet work requirements, they will be subject to time limits on receiving food stamps. The deal also increases food benefits for homeless individuals and veterans but does not affect Medicaid.
4. Partial reduction of IRS funding: To address the concerns raised by Republicans, the agreement reduces the IRS funding by $10 billion out of the total approved amount of $80 billion that aimed to tackle tax fraud committed by wealthy individuals and corporations.
5. Rescinding unspent COVID-19 relief funds: The agreement has clauses that allow for the recovery of unused COVID-19 relief funds that were approved during the Biden and Trump administrations. This would impact multiple programs, including a reduction of the CDC’s Global Health Fund by $400 million.
6. No changes to taxes on the wealthy or corporations: The recent deal does not make any changes to the tax system and leaves the tax cuts of the wealthy and corporate tax loopholes introduced during former President Donald Trump’s term intact. It is expected that President Biden’s efforts to increase taxes for the wealthiest individuals and corporations will be a key issue in his reelection campaign.
7. Inflation Reduction Act and student loan forgiveness maintained: The White House has managed to safeguard the Inflation Reduction Act, which concentrates on climate policies, prescription drugs and the president’s program for forgiving student loans, from being eliminated by the GOP-controlled House in its recent legislation. Nevertheless, individuals who paused their loan payments during the pandemic will have to start paying back their loans after the Supreme Court scrutinizes Biden’s program for forgiving student loans.

Question 2.
How stupid do you have to be to believe that default is the result of not raising the debt ceiling? Is the American public so stupid that they can't understand that you pay your obligations before you take the kids to Disney World or buy the latest iPhone? Apparently they are which is why they're all in credit card debt. McCarthy buys into this idiocy. He must not know that there is plenty of money collected by the IRS to pay our actual obligations such as loan interest, SS, Medicare/Medicaid, utilities to keep the power on in the Capitol building, etc. The only reason we need to increase the debt ceiling is so we can continue to spend more than we take in which is totally irresponsible. According to the Constitution, we are required to pay our obligations first just so we will never default. So, the lights might go off on Capitol hill, but the bond interest gets paid.

Cancel McCarthy!!!

PS, speaking of phones, if we didn't have to give away thousands each day to the criminals crossing into the country illegally, maybe we wouldn't need to raise the debt ceiling. Let's confine ourselves to supporting our citizens and not the freeloaders of the world. My patience is gone with them also.

 

[Steve R.]

At this time, I don't know enough. Nevertheless when I hear Democrats such as Hakeem Jeffries complain that Democrats didn't gain anything from the proposed legislation, I became immediately suspicious. I appears to me based on what I am hearing that the proposed legislation is only superficial, the Democrats basically get to keep everything with only some minor concessions to the Republicans. For example, I understand that W. VA is going to get it's pipeline but I have not heard anything about the Keystone pipeline.

The whole debacle over the debt ceiling is pure political theater. The most obvious point, why did the Democrats approve a budget that would bust the debt ceiling? That is a demonstration that the Democrats do simply not care about fiscal responsibility. So all their whining about the US having to pay its bills to avoid default is ludicrous.

 

[Pat Hartman]

It is the negotiating against yourself which is downright idiotic. The ball was in the Senate's court. McCarthy just caved and negotiated against the bill that his party had already passed. And he did it all by himself. NO help from any other House member. It was a solo swan dive into the swamp. Keep in mind that it was the Republicans that passed a budget that REQUIRED raising the debt ceiling. They could have passed a budget that did not raise the debt ceiling. And then McCarthy went and undermined their already bad deal.

 

[Isaac]

How stupid do you have to be to believe that default is the result of not raising the debt ceiling? Is the American public so stupid that they can't understand that you pay your obligations before you take the kids to Disney World or buy the latest iPhone? Apparently they are which is why they're all in credit card debt

Exactly. Raised in the spoiled, world-owes-me, I do whatever I want parenting atmosphere that really took off during the 80's, YES: They actually ARE that stupid.

So if McCarthy goes too far in the "I don't care, go ahead and default if you must" attitude, would that be more toward the Right choice, or the Best choice, or would it be one more card stacked in the deck against Republicans winning next [whatever] ?

Please remember that when you are fighting a war, it's not the time to argue about the color to paint the town's gazebo. You must win first.

Priority 1: Win elections
Priority 2: Effect Change
Result 1: Lazy people hate you for a while
Result 2: Forced to grow up, most of them become successful
Result 3: Eventually they love you again, with a tiny minority who stay in the trouble they create
Result 4: Now it's not so hard to win, now work on the finer points.

Do not attempt Step 4 before its time!

 

[Pat Hartman]

So if McCarthy goes too far in the "I don't care, go ahead and default if you must" attitude

You are buying into the assumption that default is the only possible result of not raising the debt ceiling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please review Sections 4 and 5 of the 14th amendment. This amendment was added to clarify what debts the US would accept as valid. Congress can use Section 5 to write a law that clarifies the order in which debts would be satisfied. THAT would stop this annual nonsense about defaulting on our debt. This law should make it absolutely clear that the first people to be paid are the holders of our debt and the last people to get paid are members of Congress since if we do ever run out of money, it will be their fault.

 

[Steve R.]

We had to go shopping so I wasn't able to get this debt ceiling thought in with my original post.
Democrats are smart. The media is also on their side. They are masters of messaging. They know how to manipulate the public. Republicans tend to get (unfairly) blamed when the government is shut-down.

Based on those bullet points, I speculate that the Democrats created the debt ceiling crises on purpose. The obvious question being, why didn't the Democrats raise the debt ceiling when they had the chance? This was done on purpose to make the Republicans look bad. The Democrats probably had two scenarios fully planned out.

In the first scenario, if the Democrats retained control of the House they could have raised the debt ceiling without issue. Consider that the "red wave" fizzled and that the Republican barely have control of the House. So this scenario almost played-out.

In the second scenario, where the Democrats lost control of the House they would claim that the debt ceiling had to be raised to pay our bills. A very appealing message projected to the gullible public and supported by the left leaning media. As part of the game plan, Democrats never offered to reduce spending so that the debt ceiling would not be busted, which seems to be an obvious solution that has been overlook. They purposely and with malice left developing a solution up-to the Republicans to make them look bad. Historically this has worked for the Democrats to intimidate the Republicans into caving and giving the Democrats what they want. From what I can tell the Democrats, unfortunately, have basically gotten everything they wanted.

 

[Isaac]

and frankly, people may just need to accept the reality that the consequences of extreme over-spending actually ARE defaulting on some of your obligations.

don't we all learn that in our low 20's if not sooner ???

if you keep paying your adult childrens' credit cards so they never get a hit on their credit score, what do you think they'll keep doing?

 

[Isaac]

all I'm saying Pat is that whatever strategy gets Republicans re-elected simply MUST be #1. that's all.

the actual Doing of Good , if it off-puts voters, should not happen prior to election. Just enough to appeal to whatever sane voters are left.

 

[moke123]

The most obvious point, why did the Democrats approve a budget that would bust the debt ceiling?

Budget has nothing to do with debt ceiling.

 

[Steve R.]

Budget has nothing to do with debt ceiling.

Please take Economics 101. The debt ceiling is simply is simply the equivalent of your credit card debt limit. When you continue to spend more than you earn you eventually hit that debt limit. The purpose of a budget is to plan your expenditures with anticipated revenue so that you don't bust your credit limit. The Democrats had the opportunity to create a budget that would not bust the debt limit. They chose not too. Democrats are playing the despicable game of creating liabilities that would bust the debt limit and then turning to Republicans saying not my (Democratic) problem. The Democrats created the problem!

 

[Isaac]

Budget has nothing to do with debt ceiling.

You mean, aside from the politics involved that does connect the two.

 

[Steve R.]

Mike Lee goes off on Biden-McCarthy debt ceiling deal: This was a 'capitulation' by Republicans

Republican Sen. Mike Lee joined "Fox & Friends" Thursday to explain his opposition to the debt bill, arguing senators need to improve the bill or go back to the drawing board.

www.foxnews.com

Sen. Rand Paul Proposes to Cap Spending in Debt Ceiling Bill

Sen. Rand Paul proposes adding spending caps to the debt ceiling bill crafted by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

www.dailysignal.com

Based on a cursory review of the headlines, this debt ceiling legislation is a win for the Democrats.

 

[Isaac]

I admit this issue is a head-scratcher for me. We all know the basic political dynamics (whichever side can successfully convince the public that their opponents stonewalled to great US detriment wins politically, sort of) ... but I'm very cautious against making any firm conclusions of my own.

Default definitely would be bad and serious. Yet, at some point there must be consequences for over spending, else we'll never stop over spending. What other consequences do we regularly face? Not much in the public's perception?

So when is the right time to actually default - or fully risk it - due to not getting enough concessions from the crazy, spendy side?

I'm not really sure any one can quantify that. Like only God knows the sumtotal pain due us if we default, politically or economically, and only God knows the sumtotal pain that overspending for 100 years will have on our children and their children........

 

[Pat Hartman]

and frankly, people may just need to accept the reality that the consequences of extreme over-spending actually ARE defaulting on some of your obligations.

No one is defaulting on ANYTHING!!!! That's not how this works. We have not reached the point where ALL expenditures are for obligations. Obligations are things like"
1. Interest on bonds --- not paying this is what the talk of "default" is always about.
2. SS -- "defaulting" on this is used to threaten retirees. No matter how many times SS is "fixed", there is always another "fix" required because there really isn't a segregated fund into which SS deductions go and which is used to buy interest bearing bonds which are then used to pay retiree benefits. Back in the 70's Congress got the SS "trust fund" commingled with the general fund so they could spend it NOW instead of saving it for later as was the intention.
3. Federal Salaries --- some of these are actually necessary like the armed forces. Most can be ignored. Sadly, some bozo decided that when the government "shuts down" because of a debt ceiling "crisis", the people laid off don't get paid then but as soon as the government goes back to work, they get back pay.
4. Utilities to keep offices open --- can't be helped.

I'm not sure what else "must" be paid but the turtle tunnel projects and BILLIONS to Ukraine could be said to be optional. According to the 14th amendment, certain obligations must be paid. beyond that, Congress gets to decide what bills to pay. You know that they would never cut the benefits for illegal aliens because those are the voters of tomorrow and you can't piss them off. They are entitled to free cell phones and medical care and housing and food and education. We must take care of the criminals. However veterans like my brother get screwed by the VA. Those obligations get cut because veterans don't have much of a voice and they lean right anyway so who cares what they have to go through to get an appointment. My brother has been suffering from Rheumatoid Arthritis for 10 years. The VA never diagnosed it. He is now almost crippled from it. It was diagnosed 3 months ago when he was finally able to see a local doctor. The damage is irreversible but they have been able to use a very cheap steroid to reduce the swelling and therefore the pain. So, he has been suffering with pain for 10 years when a prescription that would cost less than $20 per month would have done wonders.

Default definitely would be bad and serious.

You keep talking like default is even a possibility. You are buying the lie. DEFAULT is a BOGUS threat. We collect more than enough in tax revenue every year to pay ALL our actual obligations AND a lot of stupid stuff that we shouldn't be paying for. We simply need to stop taking on NEW "obligations" like buying millions of cell phones every year to give to the criminals crossing our southern border. We won't even talk about renting them 3 star hotel rooms in Manhattan for $500 EACH per night - which they then proceed to trash. The citizen homeless get to sleep on subway grates. The criminal illegal aliens get fancy hotel rooms in the theater district.

How much money did Biden waste when he shut down the border wall and left all the material to rot rather than let Texas finish it? How about the 8 Billion dollars worth of military equipment we left for the Taliban to sell when we abandoned it in Afghanistan. We waste unimaginable amounts of money every year and no one is ever held accountable.

 

[AngelSpeaks]

Pat, I'm sorry about what your brother is going through. A few weeks ago, our dear friends son, who served in the Marines, killed himself in the VA parking lot because they couldn't help him. He had three young daughters. Our veterans are treated like shit.

 

[Isaac]

DEFAULT is a BOGUS threat. We collect more than enough in tax revenue every year to pay ALL our actual obligations

Right, but there is such a thing as legally allocated funds. Funds are already allocated through the legal and legislative process and cannot simply be retrieved for whatever we want, willy-nilly. You talk as though the Treasurer could wake up one day and say Hmm, we're going to default on our debt in 15 minutes, I think I'll take the money for xyz to pay it". It doesn't work like that.

Default IS a real possibility because money is earmarked for certain things long before.

If you don't think default is real, ask the ratings agencies why they downgraded us.

 

[Steve R.]

@Isaac, you are both right and wrong concerning that legally allocated funds cannot be simply re-designated for other purposes. This is a complex issue. Lots of politics involved too. There have been some U.S. Supreme Court decisions concerning this. A recent case along these lines: Supreme Court sides with Trump on building border wall with diverted military funds. The Los Angels Times wrote: "The Supreme Court has allowed President Trump to defy Congress and continue to spend more than $6 billion diverted from military funds to pay for the construction of a border wall in parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California." The immediate take-away, is that that the ability of the president to reallocated funds without the approval of Congress for other purposes is "ambiguous".

Biden has also been proposing deferring and cancelling student debts. The president should have no authority to forgive the payment of money by people who borrowed that money from the US. government. (these are guaranteed student loans back by the government, not the institution loaning the money.) Senate passes bill to block Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. The U.S. Supreme Court will soon be issuing its own decision on the student loan debacle. Supreme Court must stop Biden snatching this power from the people on student debt handouts. Fox News wrote: "Biden's student loan handout plan is a brazen breach of constitutional constraints".

As a superficial summary, what we have been seeing over the years is that presidents are becoming increasingly autocratic and want to by-pass Congress. Congress on the other-hand has willingly differed some of their power for how funds are spent to the president.

 

[Pat Hartman]

I think the two instances mentioned by Steve are quite different even though they involve the President using funds allocated for something for a different purpose.

In the case of the wall, the wall is technically a self defense measure so it is military in nature so moving funds allocated to military projects to construction of a defensive wall isn't a big stretch. It also benefits the country, NOT specific individuals.

In the case of forgiving student debt, that is quite different. To begin with, it isn't a transfer of spending from one government agency to another. it is taking INCOME in the form of debt repayments and forgiving it. So, if you made a poor choice to borrow more than you could afford from your fellow citizens, you now become the beneficiary of government largess. If you made a good choice to obtain an education within your means so you didn't have to go into debt, you have no debt to be forgiven so you lose. This is referred to as a moral hazard. People who make good choices are penalized and people who make bad choices are rewarded and citizens who eschewed college altogether have to pay for the college educations of ner-do-wells. This is such a bad decision, I can't even discuss it without sputtering. It is simply the Democrats attempting to buy votes ahead of the 2020 election and to be perfectly honest, they didn't actually care if they got away with it. The votes would have been counted by the time the court ever made a ruling on whether taking from Sally and giving the money to Paul is even legal.

 

[Isaac]

legally allocated funds cannot be simply re-designated for other purposes. This is a complex issue. Lots of politics involved too. There have been some U.S. Supreme Court decisions concerning this

Exactly.