As things stand now, House Republicans will cause the United States to default on its debts

Some Republicans just don't get it. House Republicans are holding the debt ceiling issue hostage. If they don't back down, and we have an economic collapse, the Republican will be seriously hurt.

This Republican keeps repeating himself. He is heading for a cliff and doesn't know it.

Borrowing more money is not the issue. The White House is not asking for more money. It is asking to be allowed to pay its bills.

Like most Republicans, this one doesn't even know what the problem is.

 

They enjoy trying to perpetuate the myth they are the party of fiscal responsibility.......once in a while......when the WH isn't occupied by a Repub.

 

Despite the efforts of House Republicans, the Fed, banking CEO's, and experts to cause a recession, the Biden economy is on fire. Americans are spending money and there is strong job growth.

Despite the naysayers, the stock market advanced sharply, and investors were happy, including mom-and-pop investors.

The Biden economy provides good news all around.

ABC reports, "America’s employers added a healthy 253,000 jobs in April, evidence of a labor market that still shows surprising resilience despite rising interest rates, chronically high inflation and a banking crisis that could weaken the economy.

"April’s hiring gain compares with 165,000 in March and 248,000 in February and is still at a level considered vigorous by historical standards. The job market has remained durable despite the Fed’s aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes over the past year to fight inflation. Layoffs are still relatively low, job openings are comparatively high.

"In one sign of the benefits of a consistently tight job market, Black unemployment dipped in April to 4.7% — the lowest such level in government records dating to 1972."

Yahoo Finance reports, "U.S. stocks closed Friday's trading session sharply higher as investors digested the Labor Department's closely watched April jobs report, which showed the U.S. labor market remains strong but that growth is moderating. That gave investors hope that the Fed may pause its interest rate hikes at its meeting next month.

"The S&P 500 (^GSPC) climbed 1.85%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) added 546 points, or 1.65%. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) closed up 2.25%."

 

A review of the issues.

House Republicans simply are not very bright.

"President Trump famously declared during his 2016 campaign that he loved the “poorly educated” because voters with lower levels of schooling delivered an overwhelming share of votes to him," the conservative Washington Times.

As things stand now, House Republicans are bent on causing the United States to default on its obligations to the American people.

Raising the debt limit will allow the U.S. to pay current debts such as Social Security and Medicare. Future spending is an entirely different ballgame. Each new spending proposal requires a separate bill, separate negotiations between lawmakers, and a separate vote, often requiring 60 votes to approve closure.

House Republicans want to include future spending in their legislative action to approve an increase in the debt limit.

They face a major problem. Any bill the House approves along these lines is dead on arrival in the Senate.

“Let me be clear. A no-strings-attached debt limit increase will not pass,” McCarthy said.

 

CNBC reports, "House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Wednesday released his plan to raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion for about a year while attempting to repeal major components of President Joe Biden’s agenda.

The plan guts our President's administration, and, if becoming law, hurts Republicans, Independents, and Democrats alike.

The cuts would be in exchange for a one-year debt ceiling increase. McCarthy called on Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to “sit down, negotiate and address this crisis."

Extraordinary measures to avoid the first-ever U.S. sovereign debt default are on track to run out on or about June 1.

 

The Treasury is in charge of paying bills. Your statement is ridiculous. How do you think the government is planning to pay its bills if it is not allowed to borrow more money?

You keep avoiding the issue of why the U.S. needs to raise the debt limit to pay its bills.

 

Pardon me. I was working too fast.

I should have said the White House is not asking for new spending. It needs to borrow more money to pay existing obligations which includes benefits to Americans like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

House Republicans are threatening default on those obligations with a bill that guts the Biden administration if passed. The bill is a mirage. It has no chance of becoming law. Republicans argue that our President should negotiate over a mirage.

That will never happen, not even with a Republican President. Unfortunately, the forum's Republicans can't understand that part.

Partly because the question is rather silly. The answer is obvious.

And partly because I have answered the question several times in this thread. The federal government spends more money than it takes in.

 

LOL, the only compromise that happened with the GOP bill was between Freedom Caucus, moderate Republicans from midwestern states, and the Speaker. No one from the Dems side, at least from the House of Representatives reneged. They were even allowed to be in the same room, to begin with.

Your fantasy world antics are not going to help and will fall flat on its face.

 

Ever heard of sequestration? That occurred and as soon as the DoD budget was hurting the military-industrial complex, the GOP decided to forgo defense, which then became DHS, and so forth.

 

But they are two of the debt drivers, per former representative Paul Ryan. It was on the chopping block with Senator Scott from Florida until he finally took it off after pressure from McCarthy, McConnel, and others, but not Trump who pretty much said that is the way to go.

To give you a breakdown in simplistic terms, we have three basic categories of spending. Interest, nondiscretionary spending, and discretionary spending. Of the Nondiscretionary spending, it is mostly SS, Medicare, VA benefits, and previous spending that was passed in a prior congress and is still being paid for. For discretionary spending it is pretty much all the other federal agencies with the DoD amounting to 50% of the discretionary spending category that is not designated in the nondiscretionary spending category. If we get rid of all federal agencies with none having a budget other than the DoD, it is still not enough to cure the debt given the current revenue stream and spending going out.

 

Technically, Congress and the budgetary process, is who authorizes which bills are to be paid.

And you keep ignoring that spending has never been cut, even when the GOP was in charge of the House, Senate, and WH. This can't be solved with more tax cuts because that would even hurt the nondiscretionary spending, eventually. It is a combination of certain things which include a lack of revenue, excess spending, and no political will whatsoever.

 

CNN reports. "All but six Senate Republicans on Saturday vowed to oppose raising the debt ceiling “without substantive spending and budget reforms,” backing up House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s position.

The group of 43 Republican senators, led by Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, said they are “united behind the House Republican conference in support of spending cuts and structural budget reform as a starting point for negotiations on the debt ceiling” in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat.

 

The President of the United States of America can ask for a clean bill raising the debt ceiling and then just sit back and wait.

The Republicans can then either choose to blink or watch their party bear the ire of the American people. That backlash will not be pleasant. The President can hold a series of press conferences as he details how the Republicans have caused the various economic crises that will obtain.

People of character, where possible, pay their debts.

Regards, stay safe 'n well.

 

The President can hold a series of press conferences...seriously? Have you seen him speaking in public, he's a babbling idiot!

 

Hi, mswan.

I have, in the past, come into contact with those who can accurately and clinically be described as babbling idiots.

I can assure you that the President of the United States of America Joseph Biden is not a babbling idiot.

Regards, stay safe 'n well.

 

Yes, it’s all the Republicans’ fault. Spending has nothing to do with inflation or the deficit. The Federal Reserve is completely responsible for fixing inflation.

Have I laid out the Democrat plan properly? It’s totally slanted, but that is their belief.

 

As things stand now, House Republicans will cause the United States to default on its debts.

You got that backward. The house already passed a bill increasing the debt limit. It is on the Senate to pass it.

 

Only half of them don't understand it. The half on the right. Oddly enough the same half that can't understand asylum seeking isn't illegal immigration and that the first amendment only applies to government restriction on speech, among other things.

 

And they will cave to prevent that.
And this charade will continue over and over until we can not sell our debt overseas, and citizens here have to guarantee it.
As you can see from the debt clock, we have 31 trillion in debt, yet our GDP is 26 trillion. So like a mortgage on a house, governments have to make payments out of tax revenue instead - or - you have to print more money to make up the shortfall, thus deflating the value of each asset valued in dollars.
Part of the long term plan/prayer is:
Keep bailing until the boomers die off.
Hope the Mexicans keep working cheap.
Hope the law changes so the Mexicans can't take social security and medicare home with them after 40 quarters.
Hope we invent some high demand gizmo the world needs and can't be made in China and employs our "unemployable".
Or China jumps the shark and we stop buying from them which will be a crisis like no other.

 

The debt limit crisis is looming. The President wants Congress to allow him to pay the country's current bills such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veteran's benefits, and as well as other obligations to the American people.

Republicans are not allowing this. They want to address future spending with a Republican House bill that approves the debt limit increase but guts many of the President's programs and has no chance of becoming law.

Interestingly, when McCarthy is speaking to Americans, he never mentions what is in his failed bill. Republicans have this nasty habit of speaking in generalities because the particulars are disagreeable.

Reuters reports, "President Joe Biden and top lawmakers failed to break a deadlock on Tuesday in face-to-face talks over raising the $31.4 trillion U.S. debt limit but vowed to meet again with just three weeks before the country may be forced into an unprecedented default.

"After about an hour of talks in the Oval Office, Biden, a Democrat, and House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, showed no signs of softening their positions as a default looms as early as June 1. But talks among aides may continue as soon as Tuesday night on the federal budget."

After the meeting, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the United States will not default on its debts.

 

As expected, no response from Republicans. They want to choose our next President just as they did in 2016 with disastrous results.

"President Trump famously declared during his 2016 campaign that he loved the “poorly educated” because voters with lower levels of schooling delivered an overwhelming share of votes to him," the conservative Washington Times.

 

ABC reports, "After dozens of standoffs with Congress over government spending in recent decades, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Thursday that in her opinion, the United States should adopt a different system for national finances.

"Emphasizing that it was her own opinion, not President Joe Biden's, Yellen said there are various alternatives for avoiding situations where the Treasury lacks the funds to pay its bills.

"In January, the U.S. government ran up against its legal borrowing limit of $31.381 trillion, and the Treasury Department began implementing “extraordinary measures” to avoid missing payments on its bills.

"It's a predicament that has occurred nearly 80 times since 1960, she said. The Treasury Department has warned the U.S. could default as soon as June 1 if there is no deal."

“Personally, I think we should find a different system for deciding on fiscal policy,” Yellen said when asked about the issue. Congress could repeal the debt ceiling or handle it differently. The president could decide to raise the debt ceiling and inform Congress, which could vote to override that decision, and the president could veto that, and it would take a supermajority of two-thirds of Congress to override the veto.

 

What exactly does McCarthy want? Is he interested in getting spending cuts, or does he want to lead this country over the cliff if he doesn't get his way?

NPR reports, "President Biden will not meet with congressional leaders Friday to discuss the debt ceiling as planned, according to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's office.

"Biden was set to meet McCarthy, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at the White House to continue talks on lifting the nation's debt limit, which expires as soon as early June. An meeting on Tuesday ended with no resolution.

"McCarthy's office said Friday that he, Biden and the other leaders agreed that their staffs should continue to meet.

"A source familiar with the meetings told NPR that Biden and the congressional leaders postponed their gathering because did not want interrupt the progress that was being made."

 

Sandy Shanks said:
"But a new survey released by The Conference Board on Thursday found that US employees’ job satisfaction overall is the highest it has ever been since the survey began in 1987.

"Two key reasons for the record satisfaction level, according to Conference Board researchers: A tighter labor market, which has meant employees can command better pay, benefits and working conditions; and greater flexibility in work arrangements.

Just over 62% of survey respondents indicated overall satisfaction with their jobs, a 2.1 percentage point increase over the prior year’s survey and a 5 percentage point jump over that recorded in 2020.
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If Republicans stay out of the way of our President's economy, it is unlikely we will have a recession any time soon.

CNN Business reports, "Economic experts are once again ringing the alarm bells over an imminent downturn. A US recession is coming, they say, in the second half of 2023. That time frame begins less than three weeks from now.

"JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned on Thursday of great economic danger lurking just over the horizon. Given the risks that lie ahead, he told Bloomberg news, “I would take a mild recession happily.”

"Billionaire investor Stan Druckenmiller didn’t mince his words this week at the Sohn Investment Conference. A hard landing is coming, he cautioned, and “it’s just naive not to be open-minded to something really, really bad happening.”

'For more than a year CEOs, economists, analysts and their kind have been warning of an imminent economic downturn, The economy, meanwhile, has remained relatively resilient through it all.

"Things weren’t great last year: Inflation hit a 40-year peak, gas prices were elevated, consumer sentiment plunged and markets fell by 20%. Still, the United States managed to avoid a recession.

“This has been the most predicted potential recession in memory,” said Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Tom Barkin way back in January."

 

Maybe there is progress in the talks over the debt ceiling crisis, while it is unclear what the President is negotiating over. Is it a recently passed bill in the House that has no chance of becoming law and guts his administration if it did?

Don't expect an answer from the forum's Republicans. They have gone silent.

CNN reports, "After a week of meetings on the debt ceiling, Congress, the White House and the country still do not have a clear path forward to avoid a cataclysmic default with just four days when both the House and Senate are scheduled to be in session before June 1, when the US could default on its obligations. On one hand, it looks like this could go to the brink. On the other, there have been pockets of progress over the intervening days and signs that some of the most stringent and hardened positions negotiators have been echoing over the last three months are slowly beginning to soften."