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Originally Posted by smc
3. The debt ceiling has nothing to do with any spending that will happen in the minute after it is raised or in the next fifty years after it is raised. Every grownup politician knows this.
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Obviously. But the DECISION to raise the debt ceiling should have something to do with how we manage the budget afterwards. If you're having to continuously raise the debt ceiling something is wrong, and the country (well at least the grownups) is finally waking up to this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by smc
Like it or not, there has been a bipartisan consensus to keep the United States from defaulting on money it owes. The debt ceiling was raised 17 times during the Reagan presidency, and the amount of the ceiling tripled.
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The debt ceiling was raised 4 times during Clinton's presidency, mostly because the United States enjoyed a surplus during much of his two terms. Under George W. Bush, the debt ceiling was raised at least 7 times.
All these increases happened with bipartisan support. The standard practice is to posture and then make sure it is raised when the vote comes.
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And how has it been working out so far to just keep raising the debt limit? We've got a debt of over $14 trillion. So we've got the standard posturing this time. But I think it's a bit more than that. The House just had a vote to raise the debt ceiling. No strings attached - yes or no. It failed 318 to 97 with 82 of the democrats voting against it. Do 318 republicans and democrats really want the country to default on their debt? Of course not. But what they're saying is that they aren't going to raise the debt ceiling without at least a balanced budget amendment.
But this is merely a speed bump for a president who has a history of telling the other branches of government to fuck off. A proposal has been presented to Obama by Geithner and other democrats to have Obama raise the debt limit all by his dictator self. It sounds pretty stunning to me, but then I remember who Obama is.