It's the debt ceiling again!

The Freedom Caucus, you know, the far, far, far right within your own party, is pretty much demanding that. Otherwise, they won't vote for any of the funding bills. Get it now?

 

Stop lying about my party now, I'm am an independent. You know debating by merely mislabeling people and toss insults at entire states, even when you can't even get that right, is about as weak a debate as I've seen.

 

I am not lying here. The Freedom Caucus pretty much has demanded this now before they will vote for any budget bills. That along with their "conditions" on a debt ceiling is what is getting you into this mess that you are totally ignoring.

Right now, Rep. McCarthy has two options, neither are good for him

1. The first option is to come up with a deal with the Democrats on the Debt Ceiling that does not include all 10 demands or so of the budget cutting. A simple compromise of 2024 numbers, or 2022 numbers in exchange for a raise in the debt ceiling will get bipartisan approval, and even President Biden will sign that. The problem, however, is the freedom caucus who may then in turn call for a vote in no confidence in McCarthy and the House will have to go through that entire mess again to elect a new speaker.
2. The second option is not to compromise and create a resolution in which all 10 demands by the Freedom Caucus in the second link below for the debt ceiling to be increased are incorporated which there is no bipartisan support and may not even pass the house because 5 or more Republicans may not want that extreme. This will save McCarthy from having a vote of no confidence by the Freedom Caucus, but if no debt ceiling is passed, the public, mainly independents, will blame the GOP for all this, not the Democratic Party.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow...ns-open-defunding-fbi-keeps-growing-rcna73589

https://thehill.com/business/budget...lays-out-spending-cut-demands-for-debt-limit/

 

The details: In a statement released Friday, the caucus listed the conditions for its members to "consider voting to raise the debt ceiling."

• Ending the Biden administration's $400 billion student loan forgiveness program.
• Rescinding unspent COVID relief funds.
• Clawing back funding for the IRS and climate change prevention in the Inflation Reduction Act.
• Instituting greater work requirements on welfare programs.
• Requiring congressional sign-off on all major federal regulations before they can go into effect.
• Finding "every dollar spent by Democrats that can be reclaimed for the American taxpayer."

Which do you specifically object to and why if you are concerned with the budget and deficits and the debt?

 

'It's not zero.' Wall Street is pricing in a small but growing risk of a disastrous US default | CNN Business

Great!

I wonder if I should cash my treasury bond before July gets here and the government defaults...

 

You do know none of that is going to balance the budget in 10 years right.

Of all the options you have, the only one that has bipartisan support is the unspent Covid Funds. The rolling back of IRS and climate change prevention is not going to happen. The Student loan forgiveness issue is in the hands of the courts, not the legislature. The greater work requirements is also a no go. They already have work requirements and now the GOP is going to put seniors nto that category who are 55 and above but not age 65. The last one will hurt more GOP than it will Democrats, so that is a no go. Again, the :every dollar spent by Dems" is a nice campaign slogan to get reelected, but most of the money is alreeady approved and allocated. But none of this will balance the budget in 10 years, not even close. It is the classic "I go after you for this but leave my pet peeve projects and wasteful spending alone" argument.

 

At best it's 50/50; We should all wish it was only 2%

Even if it is averted - they will only push it back a few months for when the new budget year starts

 

That's all it's meant to do. Dems budget exceeded their borrowing authority, so they will have to rejigger a bit to get to the end of their fiscal year on 9/30/23.

McCarthy's debt ceiling proposals are perfectly reasonable ergo POTATUS won't even meet to discuss them

1. 'returning nondefense discretionary spending to pre-Covid levels,
2. returning unspent pandemic funds,
3. imposing modest work requirements for some benefits programs, and
4. enacting policies to lower energy costs and
5. enhance border security.'

That's it.

Biden lies some more, claims they have been meeting, when there have been no meetings.

“The president has misled America… He told them that we are meeting–We are not meeting. I don’t want to go down that route. I want to solve this problem.” - @SpeakerMcCarthy on debt ceiling negotiations.'

'House Republicans are finalizing a bill combining an increase in the US debt ceiling with spending cuts, energy deregulation and other GOP priorities, Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters Thursday.'

 

If you read the constitution dispassionately it will tell you that 70% of what federal government does doesn't belong in federal government. It needs to be moved to the states, the private sector or the trash can. Cutting is not rocket science. Just stop the vote buying, voters. It isn't actually in your best interest.

 

It's not 'games'. What Congress is demanding in terms of spending cuts, or should I say 'cuts', because while I haven't gone through everything in depth, I suspect it's just a decrease in the previously expected increase, which is what our esteemed government calls 'cuts'. It's just the beginning, if Joe can't even agree to that, then I'm like... Let it default. We need it, and we deserve it. We have run our printing press (virtually speaking) until it's run out of ink, and the continued deficit after deficit, a Trillion here, a Trillion there, it's the root cause of not only our inflation, but it's effecting the entire world.

To be perfectly clear, I do not want a default, but... If that is the only way to get our fiscal house in order, and to show the powers behind the powers that they mean it this time, well... Bring it on.

Your move, Joey.

 

Domestic terrorists???? Pot, meet kettle.

These are members of Congress you are talking about, duly elected by their home districts, and seated in the United States House of Representatives, where their job is to represent the interests of we the People! Our government has lost it's cottin pickin mind when it comes to these crazy out of control spending packages, and the emergency spending from 2020, which was a necessary evil, has now been baked in as simply the baseline... No, no, that is not in our interests to keep that up. We have to go back to the 2019 budget, index that for population growth and government revenue increases, and start THERE, not with the bloated dead body floaters we have going on now and for the past 3 years now.

It's abject insanity, and he, and you, just want more, more, more. Gotta feed that beast, gotta spread that money around, gotta punish those producers.

Not anymore, I damn sure hope.

 

Only if the maturity date is in July. Otherwise just ride it out. They'll fix it eventually.

 

The time to fix the spending problem is to address the issue BEFORE you get up to the can to kick it down the road again. Both parties are guilty. But we will go though this farce again.

 

So what??? I don't give a flying f who caused it, it has to come to a stop. Period. Someone said above that 70% of what the feds are doing is extra Constitutional, I'd take that a step further and call it outright UNConstitutional. Entire departments, cabinet level Secretaries, exist without Constitutional authority for the US Government to even do the function those departments do! That's one reason this Vivek guy who is running for the GOP nod is getting my attention, he's literally calling for not trimming, but outright eliminating many of those functions the Feds never should have been doing in the first place, at least not without an Amendment authorizing it!

Who caused it is only relevant for an interesting history book, and maybe to be used for future indictments (hey, we've got that precedent, so let's start indicting them by the dozens, eh?), but pointing fingers doesn't do squat to solve the fundamental issues.

My mantra is cut, cut, cut, cut and then when you are done some more, cut again! Dept of Ed, gone, Energy, gone, hell Vivek is even talking about getting rid of the FBI. That one I might need a little convincing on, but removing everyone from Director level up (Think LeeRoy Jethro Gibbs boss) might be a good thing, as well as cutting redundant and unnecessary functions.

But it has to be done.

 

of course the right doesn't care, it was Trump raising the debt, they only care if the debt goes up under a dem

 

Again, these budgets have already been signed into law and agreed to. If you want to make cuts then they need to be made prior to that agreement. Not after.

The deficit typically drops under a Democratic president and a Republican congress, can you identify the last time your team said enough when they had power?

 

Together with other measures it could and it is not necessary that they entirely solve the deficit on their own else we not do them, that's folly.

Not enough from the Dems and certainly not from the White House.

But it should happen don't you want to cut the deficits? It is unnecessary and unproven spending.

Congress could and should put a stop to it right now. If you are against further deficit increases surely you support doing so and especially because Biden does not have the constitutional authority to do so.

But surely you support it if you want to get the budget back on some reasonable path, why shouldn't it be passed?

Why shouldn't 55 year old able bodied people be working and paying taxes?

Spending can always be rescinded by the Congress where did you get the idea that once passed if can never be rescinded?

So what is the Biden/Dem counter offer?

 

@Bluesguy

Just to note about the work requirements...

I was under the impression that the Clinton-era work requirements on welfare benefits didn't work as planned and are generally not thought to improve outcomes and just worsened the situation of the poor and disabled.

Rather, work requirements are just there to make poverty difficult but don't actually lead to better outcomes. As any advocate for the poor and disabled will tell you.

 

The welfare reform of the Clinton era, in general, didn't work. There's a reason that those reforms were peeled back.

 

Not it can't. The CBO has made that abundantly clear. Notice the two operatives in the CBO analysis. First the elimination of the Trump tax cuts. And second, all noninterest government outlaws are 29% from 2024 baseline projections. This means all, both discretionary and nondiscretionary. And if you start taking certain programs off the table, it goes even higher. If you don't take the tax cuts away and you avoid SS, Medicare, Discretionary Defense, and VA, it is greater than 100%. THis includes GOP programs too.

There is nothing from the GOP side to curb the spending? Shall we start talking about farm subsidies and move on from there?

I deal in reality Blues. We have had deficits since before this country was founded. It always was the case. The problem with these arguments is not about balancing the budget, it is about not funding Democratic programs while funding GOp programs of equal measure. Again, shall we start with farm subsidies? Let's eliminate thoe. Let's eliminate accrual based accounting for tax purposes. And let's eliminate IRC 969 as well.

A stop to what Blues? The GOP is just as guilty as the Democratic Party is.

i do, but you won't like my solution. First step, eliminate the JCTA. Second, eliminate all subsidies other than safety net issues. Third, allow the individual to import foreign medficaitons but not allowed to sue the drug maker if they have adverse reactions to it, and a few other things.

How do you define able-body blues? If a person is 100% VA disabled and they are able-bodied, should they be required to work too? The thing you don't understand Blues about welfare programs is if one qualifies, that money does not pay for rent, utilities, or food of any given month. It pays most of it, but not all of it. Those who are 55 are going to have somewhat different requirements than someone who is 30 for instance. There are people who are physically able-bodied but have mental issues such as schizophrenia, bipolar, addiction, and so forth. And so we do not force anyone into those programs since the Ronald Reagan era. But if you really want to play this game, here are the rules. Every year, you must run a mile in less than 4 minutes unassisted, unencumbered in order to keep everything you have directly or indirectly. Are you game?

That is easier said than done. ANd it shows you do not have any experience whatsoever how governmental accounting works. No one is going to rescind any prior spending package. Not eve Texas AG paxton is going to win his case at all. That is why compromise is the key from step forward. If you are always looking back at past, even recent, spending bills, you will always be two steps behind.

 

Yes it could as it has in the past and CBO is notoriously wrong on predictions of the economy and effects of government policy. Eliminate those tax cuts and raise taxes as Biden and the Dems want and crash the economy and growth and jobs and the tax base and there goes the deficits just as the Dems did 2008-2015.

There is certainly more for the Reps as the Dems fight tooth and nail for their huge increases, which do you support?

OK in reality do you want to cut the deficits and then work on the debt? It is reality we cannot sustain the spending path Biden and the Dems want to set us on. It's not putting ever more burden on business and the highest earners that is going to get our budgets under control and maximize revenues. Pro-growth, lower tax rates, less regulation is how we balanced budgets and had paltry deficits and even surpluses.


You

Me>> Congress could and should put a stop to it right now.

What you were talking about the student loan program which you said was in court and that is where it would be decided. The courts have ruled and are ruling but Congress could end it now. If you are against further deficit increases surely you support doing so and especially because Biden does not have the constitutional authority to do so.

OH well THAT will balance the budget.................geeezzzz. And what subsidies are you talking about you seem to have a burr under your saddle about farm subsidies what about for green energy?

Able to work what the heck do you think it means. People over 55 have worked since we have had work. And no you silly rule is not necessary.



That is easier said than done. ANd it shows you do not have any experience whatsoever how governmental accounting works. No one is going to rescind any prior spending package. Not eve Texas AG paxton is going to win his case at all. That is why compromise is the key from step forward. If you are always looking back at past, even recent, spending bills, you will always be two steps behind.[/QUOTE]

 

It was the Gingrich/Kasich work requires and yes it did work, welfare roles fell and the LFPR went up and people who were a government expenses became taxpayers and revenues poured in and with their spending restraint we had balance budgets and even surpluses. We almost did it again after the 2001 recession using the same policies getting back down to a paltry $161B deficit. Yes I am sure advocates for welfare will tell you that it's a better outcome if the person is on welfare rather than working and providing for themselves. I would beg to differ.

 

I don't have a damn team. And I don't care about pointing fingers, or arguing about who did what. That's what campaigns are for, and I'm not running for anything, though maybe I should. I'm explaining what we need, no... what we must do, now, not tomorrow, not next week, or after the next election, or whatever. NOW we need to start hacking and slashing the government's budget like we were the bad guy in a horror movie, and the budget is the stupid kids who don't even think to get in the car and run.

Hack and slash, hack and slash, cut, cut, cut, and when you're done... Cut some more. Go check out Vivek's campaign website and some of his videos with what he's proposing. Some of the most common sense stuff I've ever heard come out the mouth of a politician, or a wanna be.

 

It did so under Bush and a Rep Congress so which is the constant? A Rep Congress.

 

The issue is no one can agree what needs to be hacked or if we should make these cuts by implementing new programs.

It is pretty much commonly agreed that if we could implement meaningful healthcare reform we could lower the deficit (significantly by some margins), others argue that the very wealthy just need one more tax cut, slashing some programs would have serious long term ramifications.