At least they are putting out ideas. And it seems a reasonable one to me. One that should pass. So why won't it pass? What is stopping it from passing?
Since when has American society become so acceptable of mediocrity? Personally, I would prefer politicians actually come up with good ideas rather than just coming up with crap like this and calling it a day.
The idea of capping and balancing the budget is bad for a multitude of reasons. Here is a short list I made off the top of my head:
-GDP for any given year can constantly be revised. What happens in a situation when the GDP is assumed to be X for the fiscal year, but it is actually less than what is predicted? How do you account for that overspending in future budgets?
-Add to that data for GDP lags by a year, so in order to enforce the spending cap Congress will most likely have to use the previous year's GDP. This will artificially lower the cap.
-There is no measure in this bill to override the balanced budget in times of recessions. When revenue will naturally fall, government spending will likewise have to fall. This has the potential to make the impact of future recessions much worse than they otherwise could be.
-Adding to my second point it takes away the government's ability to replace any declines in consumer demand during recessions.
-Sometimes running a deficit can be beneficial to long-term economic growth. The United States has practiced this since the days of Alexander Hamilton.
It will not pass because it is an ideologically driven bill. Maybe when Republicans figure out that they only control one half of one branch of government and write a bill that is capable of passing in the other chamber of Congress, then we can have a serious discussion about the worthiness of a given bill.
To clarify one of your earlier posts the passage of this bill does not mean that a rise in debt ceiling is a certainty. Under Title III of the bill the only condition under which the debt ceiling is raised is if both chambers of Congress pass a Balanced Budget Amendment. Anyone who follows politics knows full well there are not 290 votes in the House and there are definitely not 67 votes necessary in the Senate. So, technically, it is possible that a spending cap could be passed without a corresponding rise in the debt ceiling. That is yet another reason why this bill is a joke.
Wait...if this were true then how can you say that it's just "showmanship" or that they "know it won't pass"? Obviously them making a "plan B" shows that this is not true. Or am I again missing something?
I think everybody but the freshman Republicans understand that what they want to do will not pass. This is more or less an opportunity for Republicans leaders in the House to give the appearance that they are trying to appease the demands of the Tea Party, but were otherwise unsuccessful.
So far the only Republicans that have made anything that looks remotely like a Plan B are Senate Republicans with Mitch McConnell's plan. John Boehner and other House Republican leaders have stated that passage of that bill in the House would be almost impossible and that Boehner would need to rely heavily on Democrats to ensure that it would pass.
Right now, from my perspective, House Republicans have no backup plan if this bill fails in the Senate or the President vetoes it. I think they feel that they can win the PR battle against the President and avoid having the American people blame them for the potential economic disaster that could follow if the debt ceiling is not raised.
Are you sure? Have you read the bill?
Yes, I have read the bill. Indeed, StillBallin75 is right that the bill lacks details about specific cuts that have to be made. All this bill does is set spending limits for next year's budget, but in no way says what those cuts will be in order to meet the spending limits that the bill calls for.
Here is a link to the bill so you can examine it yourself:
Read The Bill: H.R. 2560 - GovTrack.us
So you don't want a debt ceiling at all? Why? Everyone else is subject to a debt ceiling via caps on credit cards, etc etc...why shouldn't the government be subject to the same thing? Otherwise what is to stop them from spending 100 trillion dollars on a toilet seat? (note that was an obvious exaggeration with the toilet seat bit but gets the point across I hope.)
I will come out and say that I would have no problem completely doing away with the debt ceiling. I find it senseless that Congress has the ability to pass spending bills and yet does not have to ensure that the Executive Branch has the means necessary to pay the bills that both branches agreed to.