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Debt ceiling cost to taxpayers: $1.7 billion

pbrauer

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Conservatives don't care about the cost as long as it serves their political goals, in my opinion.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The debt ceiling debacle has just cost U.S. taxpayers more than $1.7 billion.
That's the amount of additional interest the government had to pay investors Monday to sell Treasury bills that finance its operations.

To be precise, the extra cost is $1,721,250,000 more in interest payments than the government would have needed to pay investors just two weeks ago, when they were willing to accept far lower rates before the debt ceiling became a crisis.
"That's real money," said IHS Chief Economist Nariman Behravesh. "Taxpayers need to wake up to the fact that these kind of shenanigans in the end cost."

...
Debt ceiling cost: $1.7 billion for Treasury bills - Aug. 1, 2011
 
How much more is it costing today while we wait on Harry Reid to get his **** together?
 
We have a group of people in elected positions of power in government who hate government and would like to see large parts of it destroyed or abolished.

What more needs to be explained to anyone?
 
Indeed. Goddamn you conservatives. We of course are part of a dictatorship where you all had complete control and chose to delay this out of singularly your own choice.

...wait a second...

No, sorry, I got that wrong. We are a dictatorship, but we're a dictatorship under the Democratic Party, so the Republicans should've just did exactly what the Democrats wanted and dealt with it because we're not a representitive republic where people are elected by their constituents to push for their desires but rather are a dictatorship under teh Democratic Party. Silly me. Damn you conservatives! Damn you to hell for not doing exactly what the Democrats wanted.

...wait, no wait another second...

Oh that's right, we are a represnetitive republic. Both sides have one of the chambers of congress and one side also has the Presidency. Despite that, NEITHER side was able to actually fashion a bill that was able to get support from the other side until the past days. Both sides choices are the reason it took until the 11th hour for this to be done, not just one. But far be it for me to expect hyper partisans to pass up a chance to bash bash bash one sidedly for the sake of political points.
 
Indeed. Goddamn you conservatives. We of course are part of a dictatorship where you all had complete control and chose to delay this out of singularly your own choice.

...wait a second...

No, sorry, I got that wrong. We are a dictatorship, but we're a dictatorship under the Democratic Party, so the Republicans should've just did exactly what the Democrats wanted and dealt with it because we're not a representitive republic where people are elected by their constituents to push for their desires but rather are a dictatorship under teh Democratic Party. Silly me. Damn you conservatives! Damn you to hell for not doing exactly what the Democrats wanted.

...wait, no wait another second...

Oh that's right, we are a represnetitive republic. Both sides have one of the chambers of congress and one side also has the Presidency. Despite that, NEITHER side was able to actually fashion a bill that was able to get support from the other side until the past days. Both sides choices are the reason it took until the 11th hour for this to be done, not just one. But far be it for me to expect hyper partisans to pass up a chance to bash bash bash one sidedly for the sake of political points.

You've got to be joking, right? The Republican position in this "democratic" process was that we, the minority, must get 100% of what we want and you, the majority, must get 0% of what YOU want or we are going to destroy the fu**ing economy!

Hey look, even more deficit reduction from those teabagger deficit hawks!

"WASHINGTON -- The congressional standoff that has partially shut down the Federal Aviation Administration has some curious math.

Lawmakers risk losing more than $1 billion in revenue from uncollected airline ticket taxes in a quarrel between Senate Democrats and House Republicans who are demanding a $16.5 million cut in rural air service subsidies.

The shutdown is less than two weeks old and already the government has lost more than $250 million in revenue because airlines' authority to collect ticket taxes has expired. The entire annual budget of the rural air services program is about $200 million."

Ah, but conservatives would tell us that those taxes are just passed on to consumers, so we're really benefitting from the non-collection of taxes ... right?

Err, wrong. With one or two exceptions, the airlines are simply pocketing the money they would have paid in taxes.
 
Another failure of congress making much less news: About $200 million/week is being lost in uncollected taxes from airline ticket sales because congress failed to reauthorize the FAA last Friday. If this isn't solved by the end of the current session this week, more than a billion dollars in revenue will be lost because they couldn't get their **** together, not to mention the economic impacts of delaying much-needed improvements to our nation's aviation infrastructure.

They waste so much time with their grandstanding, floating bills they know will not pass and storming out of the room proclaiming the other side to be unreasonable. Maybe we need fewer representatives. After all, a committee's efficiency is inversely proportional to its size.

edit: beaten as I type :p
 
How much more is it costing today while we wait on Harry Reid to get his **** together?

In all likelihood, the Senate will pass the bill. Only the most hardcore ideologues will want to be known as "the Senator who voted to collapse the American economy." So, in essence, the damage has already been done beforehand, and what Harry does or doesn't do at this point likely doesn't make much of a difference.
 
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$1.7 billion sounds like nothing compared to the $900 billion in new IOUs the government will be able to write by October of this year, or the $2.4 trillion they'll have to debt-spend overall. These burdens are also the taxpayers' to bear.
 
Why don't you guys consider blaming the senate, who voted down or refused to vote for...what was the final total? Four bills?
 
Why don't you guys consider blaming the senate, who voted down or refused to vote for...what was the final total? Four bills?

Or do we blame the House for wasting their time passing bills they knew the Senate wouldn't? Goes both ways, IMO.
 
Or do we blame the House for wasting their time passing bills they knew the Senate wouldn't? Goes both ways, IMO.

The way I see it, the House continued to put together bills that the House could agree upon. The senate provided no time for debate, no cross-chamber discussion, and no willingness to meet and hash out a plan. In that sense, the House didn't have much incentive or support for creating a bicameral bill. Hearing, "we won't vote for that..that either...nope, not that one, either...not gonna happen...we want tax increases and no spending cuts", etc doesn't really give the house anything to work with that could pass either House, let alone appease the do-nothing senate. They spent much of the last few months sitting with their arms crossed, telling Obama to do their dirty work because they weren't going to compromise (on what, they were never clear because they never created a plan until Reid's plan came out...which, surprise surprise, had no tax increases). When they finally DID stand up and propose something it was still not voted upon (or was it? Last blurb I saw said Reid shelved the vote...).
 
Indeed. Goddamn you conservatives. We of course are part of a dictatorship where you all had complete control and chose to delay this out of singularly your own choice.

...wait a second...

No, sorry, I got that wrong. We are a dictatorship, but we're a dictatorship under the Democratic Party, so the Republicans should've just did exactly what the Democrats wanted and dealt with it because we're not a representitive republic where people are elected by their constituents to push for their desires but rather are a dictatorship under teh Democratic Party. Silly me. Damn you conservatives! Damn you to hell for not doing exactly what the Democrats wanted.

...wait, no wait another second...

Oh that's right, we are a represnetitive republic. Both sides have one of the chambers of congress and one side also has the Presidency. Despite that, NEITHER side was able to actually fashion a bill that was able to get support from the other side until the past days. Both sides choices are the reason it took until the 11th hour for this to be done, not just one. But far be it for me to expect hyper partisans to pass up a chance to bash bash bash one sidedly for the sake of political points.
Budget debates happen every year, there is no reason in my opinion, to hold the country hostage. I have no problem with these debates, the problem as I see it is the debt ceiling which is an arbitrary figure that has been routinely raised until this year.

Our Congress and President authorize budgets spending which I hope are based upon some need. To say we can't borrow money to satisfy those budgets is stupid.
 
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Budget debates happen every year, there is no reason in my opinion, to hold the country hostage. I have no problem with these debates, the problem as I see it is the debt ceiling which is an arbitrary figure that has been routinely raised until this year.

Our Congress and President authorize budgets spending which I hope are based upon some need. To say we can't borrow money to satisfy those budgets is stupid.

Arbitrary? Continually increasing the debt ceiling without serious consideration to our financial policy has led to us borrowing almost half of every single dollar we spend, but you're calling it arbitrary? Simply passing a new increase (especially a $2.4 trillion increase) would have left those interested in trying to recreate some semblance of fiscal responsibility with absolutely no leverage to get anything accomplished. You know damned well if we had just voted to raise the debt ceiling and said, "Oh, we'll cover our financial disaster later" that we never would have addressed spending.
 
The way I see it, the House continued to put together bills that the House could agree upon.

Which really means nothing, considering the House is Republican-heavy enough to pretty much overcome any Democratic opposition on pretty much anything, and coming up with partisan bills is a total waste of time.

The senate provided no time for debate, no cross-chamber discussion, and no willingness to meet and hash out a plan. In that sense, the House didn't have much incentive or support for creating a bicameral bill.

I don't see that the second sentence necessarily follows the first. Everything the House passed (including Cut Cap and Balance, which was actually a Senate GOP creation, and the Boehner bill), contained at least a few unreasonable provisions that THEY KNEW would cause it to fail in the Senate. Just because the other side is sitting on their thumbs doesn't mean it's a good idea to waste your damn time passing partisan bills instead of bipartisan ones.

Hearing, "we won't vote for that..that either...nope, not that one, either...not gonna happen...we want tax increases and no spending cuts", etc doesn't really give the house anything to work with that could pass either House, let alone appease the do-nothing senate. They spent much of the last few months sitting with their arms crossed, telling Obama to do their dirty work because they weren't going to compromise (on what, they were never clear because they never created a plan until Reid's plan came out...which, surprise surprise, had no tax increases). When they finally DID stand up and propose something it was still not voted upon (or was it? Last blurb I saw said Reid shelved the vote...).

Reid didn't really shelve the vote. He simply didn't have enough votes to end the filibuster of his bill, and so the bill died right then and there.

Bottom line: BOTH sides are to blame in this. Both the Tea Party Grover Norquist Republicans who absolutely wouldn't compromise on anything whatsoever (no tax increases, period! Even though Obama is putting 4 trillion worth of cuts on the table, something we NEVER would have gotten a few months ago!) and the Democrats who didn't want to face reality and realize that if we are to fix our deficit problem, we MUST reform the entitlements.

And yes, while I do agree that the Senate for the most part let Obama do their dirty work, the House, as I just explained above, wasted their mother****ing time passing bills they knew nobody else would agree to. Cut Cap and Balance would have garnered a hell of a lot more support, even from Dems, if it were simply just "Cut and Balance," for instance.
 
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Arbitrary? Continually increasing the debt ceiling without serious consideration to our financial policy has led to us borrowing almost half of every single dollar we spend, but you're calling it arbitrary? Simply passing a new increase (especially a $2.4 trillion increase) would have left those interested in trying to recreate some semblance of fiscal responsibility with absolutely no leverage to get anything accomplished. You know damned well if we had just voted to raise the debt ceiling and said, "Oh, we'll cover our financial disaster later" that we never would have addressed spending.

When they chose to draw the line is the sand could be considered arbitrary. It wasn't, but it could be. The real reason why republicans chose now to draw their line in the sand, finally, is they thought they could win political points, especially with 2012 coming up, and if they should win in 2012, this opens up a little more spending room for them. You cannot go around spending nonstop, and then when the other guy spends throw a fit and hope to be seen as fiscally conservative.
 
Which really means nothing, considering the House is Republican-heavy enough to pretty much overcome any Democratic opposition on pretty much anything, and coming up with partisan bills is a total waste of time.



I don't see that the second sentence necessarily follows the first. Everything the House passed (including Cut Cap and Balance, which was actually a Senate GOP creation, and the Boehner bill), contained at least a few unreasonable provisions that THEY KNEW would cause it to fail in the Senate. Just because the other side is sitting on their thumbs doesn't mean it's a good idea to waste your damn time passing partisan bills instead of bipartisan ones.



Reid didn't really shelve the vote. He simply didn't have enough votes to end the filibuster of his bill, and so the bill died right then and there.

Bottom line: BOTH sides are to blame in this. Both the Tea Party Grover Norquist Republicans who absolutely wouldn't compromise on anything whatsoever (no tax increases, period! Even though Obama is putting 4 trillion worth of cuts on the table, something we NEVER would have gotten a few months ago!) and the Democrats who didn't want to face reality and realize that if we are to fix our deficit problem, we MUST reform the entitlements.

And yes, while I do agree that the Senate for the most part let Obama do their dirty work, the House, as I just explained above, wasted their mother****ing time passing bills they knew nobody else would agree to. Cut Cap and Balance would have garnered a hell of a lot more support, even from Dems, if it were simply just "Cut and Balance," for instance.

For the record, I'm not referencing House v. Senate as a means of referencing Republicans v. Democrats. As I saw it, we had one chamber putting things together, asking for discussion, trying to get something done...and we had one chamber who pouted and acted like children, refusing to come to the table. They were trying to remain politically innocent and avoid having their names and faces put to the bill...at least that's my guess, and it's really the only explanation I can come up with that makes any sense...because they had no reason to be so unproductive and unwilling to get involved in any meaningful discussion. As much as the Senate made a political move by remaining inactive, the Houst made one by refusing to include any of the vague Senate demands on paper. In a sense yeah, they're both guilty...but the idea that republican refusal to compromise is the sole or primary reason that we had such a huge (albeit expected) delay and related expenditures is just wrong.
 
look at all the democrats vote against the COMPROMISE and in favor of DEFAULT

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll690.xml

how dangerously IRRESPONSIBLE of them

how dare they PLAY POLITICS with the full faith and credit, holding the entire united states economy HOSTAGE...

etc

meanwhile, our affable, laughable, gaffe-able veep yesterday called those tea party intransigents TERRORISTS

Vice President Joe Biden calls Tea Party members "terrorists" after tense debt ceiling negotiations

good thing ms giffords, bless her heart, didn't hear

civility, anyone?
 
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Arbitrary? Continually increasing the debt ceiling without serious consideration to our financial policy has led to us borrowing almost half of every single dollar we spend, but you're calling it arbitrary? Simply passing a new increase (especially a $2.4 trillion increase) would have left those interested in trying to recreate some semblance of fiscal responsibility with absolutely no leverage to get anything accomplished. You know damned well if we had just voted to raise the debt ceiling and said, "Oh, we'll cover our financial disaster later" that we never would have addressed spending.

I disagree. What matters isn't the size of the increase itself (or the length of time until the next debt ceiling vote), it's the size of the increase relative to the amount of cuts. The goal is pretty much for the cuts to exceed the increase. When Boehner said "I'm only going to raise the ceiling by 1 trillion, but my plan only has $900 billion worth of cuts" what does that mean? Why one trillion? If you raise the ceiling by only one trillion, another debt debacle will come up before the end of this year, and we have to go through this three-ring circus again. That only serves to create more uncertainty in the already fragile economy, at this point (and, while I don't agree with this, there are cynics out there who even say that that move by Boehner was intentionally put in there in order to screw up the economy for the President). Why not just come up with an original bill that extends the debt ceiling by a lot, but also cuts a lot so we don't have to go through this bull**** again a mere 4 months from now?
 
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When they chose to draw the line is the sand could be considered arbitrary. It wasn't, but it could be. The real reason why republicans chose now to draw their line in the sand, finally, is they thought they could win political points, especially with 2012 coming up, and if they should win in 2012, this opens up a little more spending room for them. You cannot go around spending nonstop, and then when the other guy spends throw a fit and hope to be seen as fiscally conservative.

I don't deny that their actions are nothing if not politically motivated. But as I've said before, I really don't care why or who, as long as somebody starts focusing on our very dangerous spending patterns. It needed to happen years ago, and the fact that it didn't is on the hands of every legislator and president we've had in office over the last few decades, regardless of affiliation. I don't think I can come up with more than a small handful of bills that weren't promoted or passed or brought to the forefront specifically for the sake of political expediency. Sometimes those bills help the general population and sometimes they cause more harm over the long term...I think a fiscal bill geared towards cutting spending and curbing borrowing will help us long term, even if it causes short term pain (and a good, serious bill probably would). I actually think the Republicans got it wrong here and will suffer politically for holding the reigns on this. The media and the DNC have done a very good job of making the republicans look like ideologues trying to facilitate breaks and bonuses for big business while "punishing" the middle class...even though only one bill (and one that was never seriously considered) provided any sort of major incentive for business.
 
For the record, I'm not referencing House v. Senate as a means of referencing Republicans v. Democrats. As I saw it, we had one chamber putting things together, asking for discussion, trying to get something done...and we had one chamber who pouted and acted like children, refusing to come to the table. They were trying to remain politically innocent and avoid having their names and faces put to the bill...at least that's my guess, and it's really the only explanation I can come up with that makes any sense...because they had no reason to be so unproductive and unwilling to get involved in any meaningful discussion. As much as the Senate made a political move by remaining inactive, the Houst made one by refusing to include any of the vague Senate demands on paper. In a sense yeah, they're both guilty...but the idea that republican refusal to compromise is the sole or primary reason that we had such a huge (albeit expected) delay and related expenditures is just wrong.

I don't really see it that way. We had one chamber sitting on their thumbs waiting for the President to do their dirty work, while the other pretty much did it's own **** that it knew wasn't going to go anywhere. And apart from that, there wasn't much "discussion" except among Republicans themselves.

As for the bolded: you know I'm not one of the ones saying that, but intransigence on the part of some of the conservative GOP ideologues was definitely part of it. There's enough blame to go around elsewhere, however.
 
It is the fault of both Dems and GOP in both the senate and the house for playing partisan hackery and holding the country financially hostage just to score points for an upcoming election. Neither side really cares about the American peoe, only what they can get out of it.

The whole lot should be thrown out on their asses.
 
We have a group of people in elected positions of power in government who hate government and would like to see large parts of it destroyed or abolished.

What more needs to be explained to anyone?

True. The problem is that they've shown themselves to be unwilling to stand up and be the first one to throw the molatov cocktail into the works of the government. They talk a good game, but I'm pretty sure most if not all of them voted for the bill presented to the House last night.
 
I disagree. What matters isn't the size of the increase itself (or the length of time until the next increase), it's the size of the increase relative to the amount of cuts. The goal is pretty much for the cuts to exceed the increase. When Boehner said "I'm only going to raise the ceiling by 1 trillion, but my plan only has $900 billion worth of cuts" what does that mean? Why one trillion? If you raise the ceiling by only one trillion, another debt debacle will come up before the end of this year, and we have to go through this three-ring circus again. That only serves to create more uncertainty in already fragile economy, at this point (and, while I don't agree with this, there are cynics out there who even say that that move by Boehner was intentionally put in there in order to screw up the economy for the President). Why not just come up with an original bill that extends the debt ceiling by a lot, but also cuts a lot so we don't have to go through this bull**** again a mere 4 months from now?

Because if we have the borrowing capacity available we'll find a way to spend until we reach the ceiling again. We can make tons of cuts today and increase the debt limit by $2.4 trillion or more...and what you'll see are new programs, plans, projects, and spending needs that will lead to us maxing out pretty quickly. That's why the plan SHOULD have included mandatory % decreases in spending / increases in revenue over time which would have led to a balanced budget, as well as a cap on how much we can borrow vs. how much we spend (i'm sorry, but almost 1/2 is way too damned high), with that ratio decreasing over time.
 
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