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Obama: Congress must — and will — raise debt limit

I could be wrong but I do not think this is a partisan issue. The debt limit has to be raise in the short term for the government to continue running (at least that is the understanding I have of the issue). It is completely unrelated to future budget changes.

How can you say it is unrelated to future budgets? The reason we are in the mess we are in is because we spend more than we take in. At some point we need to get a second or third job and make some serious cuts to what we are spending. We can’t keep asking for a higher line of credit without making some serious changes.
 
Oh, and that isn’t even counting the entitlement liabilities that are about to crush us with the aging baby boomers all retiring and in need of more medical attention in future years. If we don’t take some very drastic measures real soon, things are going to get very, very bad here in the US.
 
Obama has problems yet he wants to keep spending and minimize what the economic community is saying. It seems Obama's spending is more important than the economy recovering

The economy grows when people are working and spending money, and it doesn't matter who pays their wages. When jobs are cut, for whatever reason, there are less people to spend more money... Result, recession.

ricksfolly
 
The economy grows when people are working and spending money, and it doesn't matter who pays their wages. When jobs are cut, for whatever reason, there are less people to spend more money... Result, recession.

ricksfolly

Obama is not creating jobs he is increasing the deficit
 
Congress creates all the bills, not presidents, they only make suggestions, and sign bills into law. If you have to blame someone, blame Reid...

ricksfolly

Wrong Obama has had control of the stimulus money
 
Dream on... Believe what you believe, but belief doesn't mean you're right, just strongly committed.

ricksfolly

It appears the stimulus money is controlled by Obama the congress just approved it
 
It appears the stimulus money is controlled by Obama the congress just approved it

Actually the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 specifies how much money goes where so it is inaccurate to say that Obama controls it. It is true that many of the actual reward recipients were determined by federal agencies but congress didn’t just cut the president a blank check and tell him to spend it however he wanted.
 
Not as many people look into the economics forum so I'll post what I said there here.
DataPoints

"It is easy to be gloomy about our nation's fiscal problems. The federal government narrowly averted a shutdown over the 2011 budget and it looks as if lawmakers plan to play chicken over the fast-approaching national debt ceiling. These same lawmakers must soon reach agreement on long-term government spending and tax policy, or the nation will suffer fiscal and economic ruin. Yet I'm optimistic.

Lifting the debt ceiling by July 4 is absolutely vital; otherwise the Treasury will be unable to borrow and be forced to slash spending. As it happens, the gap between federal revenue and expenses reaches its deepest point of the year in mid-July, nearly $6 billion per day. The Treasury will pay its bills until nothing is left, then simply stop."

This is one of the few pieces by Zandi lately that I sort of agree with. However, that does not change the fact that his ideas will not be listened to, which is unfortunate. The only grievance I have is his use of financial mutually assured destruction rhetoric when talking about the debt ceiling timeline. The financial establishment can have their debt ceiling opinions aggregated into, "policymakers should act to do things, and then when it gets too close to Armageddon, give up all negotiations, sign something, and then try again later." This has created a negative feedback loop which is essentially now an established part of the debt ceiling negotiation process (I use the term negotiation loosely). Developed world nations default quite regularly, and I strongly recommend the book, "This Time is Different" by Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart.

HUGE DISCLAIMER: I am not advocating a federal bankruptcy, I just do not like how people pretend that such an event would destroy the world so many times over that not even a lizard could live in the desert for a thousand years. Such an outcome has never happened, even in the midst of some very large sovereign bankruptcies.

Basically, it's not the end of the world if it happens.
 
Actually the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 specifies how much money goes where so it is inaccurate to say that Obama controls it. It is true that many of the actual reward recipients were determined by federal agencies but congress didn’t just cut the president a blank check and tell him to spend it however he wanted.

Then why is there still money left?Also notice it did not go to high unemployment areas but the democrat districts.

Another words it was more of a democrat slush fund.

Federal government departments decided where the money went which means Obama was in control of the money
 
Not as many people look into the economics forum so I'll post what I said there here.


Basically, it's not the end of the world if it happens.


What happens when we can no longer make the interest payments? After all what we have here is an interest only loan since we are increasing the debt not paying it down
 
Then why is there still money left?Also notice it did not go to high unemployment areas but the democrat districts.

Another words it was more of a democrat slush fund.

Federal government departments decided where the money went which means Obama was in control of the money

If you will recall, the dems basically had supermajorities in both houses of congress so I’m not sure why it would be a surprise that almost all of the money went to their districts.

As for fed depts. that decided where the money went, that was only the money that was allocated to their domain of oversight. For example, the stimulus checks that people received in the mail, the home buyer’s tax credit, work on the levy in my congressional district etc. were specifically provisioned and directed by the language of the law itself.

You are partially correct however, Obama had control over a huge portion of the money but it just isn’t accurate to claim that he or any single person in government had control over it. It is correct to say that the democrats had total control over it however.

BTW, I love your ride. Have an old Sporty 1200 myself.
 
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If you will recall, the dems basically had supermajorities in both houses of congress so I’m not sure why it would be a surprise that almost all of the money went to their districts.

As for fed depts. that decided where the money went, that was only the money that was allocated to their domain of oversight. For example, the stimulus checks that people received in the mail, the home buyer’s tax credit, work on the levy in my congressional district etc. were specifically provisioned and directed by the language of the law itself.

You are partially correct however, Obama had control over a huge portion of the money but it just isn’t accurate to claim that he or any single person in government had control over it. It is correct to say that the democrats had total control over it however.

BTW, I love your ride. Have an old Sporty 1200 myself.

But we can say it was not about the economy or about unemployment it was a democrat slush fund

George Will: TARP, stimulus money amount to executive branch slush fund
 
But we can say it was not about the economy or about unemployment it was a democrat slush fund

George Will: TARP, stimulus money amount to executive branch slush fund

I think we can agree that it was a democratic slush fund first and foremost but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it wasn’t about the economy or unemployment. I think the dems were totally clueless and acted like crack whores would if you brought them a rock the size of a Volkswagen. They lose sight of everything else because there is a huge crack rock in the house.
 
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