[Bryan]

John Boehner walks away from debt talks - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

He really needs to brush up on history...

When taxes have been raised in the past, we have come out of recession and had economic growth.

[DaGeek]

Why can't those cool economic scenarios in which we have perfect information and there's actually always one connected cause for each event be real? They always seem to work out in the textbooks... Stinkin' reality.

Jerry, when are you gonna be Prez again?

[jthomas1600]

Originally Posted by Bryan

John Boehner walks away from debt talks - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

He really needs to brush up on history...

When taxes have been raised in the past, we have come out of recession and had economic growth.

Bryan, that's uncalled for. Name calling in the very first post does not set a good tone for discussion. Just my two cents.

[JerryLove]

Originally Posted by DaGeek

Jerry, when are you gonna be Prez again?

I seem to be having trouble getting on the ballot

Simple truth 1: Not raising the debt ceiling now would be disasterous. It must be done. Threats to do otherwise are either nieve to the point that the person has no place in public office; or are simply threatening suicide if they don't get their way. Any realistic plan which did not involve raising the debt ceiling needed to be passed more than a year ago to affect now.

Let me reiterate: Even if a balanced budgget were passed *tomorrow*; we would still need to raise the debt ceiling this time through.

Simple truth 2: Cutting a trillion dollars in spending overnight (balancing the budget so that we were even as of tomorrow) would also be disasterous. The details depend on where you cut it. Cut it from the war chest and those soldiers overseas no longer have paychecks nor fuel to get home. Cut it from food stamps and children die by the thousands of starvation, and so on and so forth. *Future* spending can be cut quickly; but any reduction in near-term spending really needs to be phased out.

Simple truth 3: We cannot expect to have the oldest population in our history, the lowest taxes in a century, be involved in multiple wars, and be deficit free in a economic recession. Something has to give.

*Someone* is being unreasonably. Likely an awful lot of someones.

[BillSPrestonEsq]

Originally Posted by jthomas1600

Bryan, that's uncalled for. Name calling in the very first post does not set a good tone for discussion. Just my two cents.

Correct.


From the board rules in the FAQ as set down long, long ago.

Originally Posted by Board rules

This is a Christian forum and publicly attacking any one, whether they are a poster or not, will not be tolerated. Any thread that is designed to publicly attack some one will be deleted.

Please desist with name calling by all parties. Thank you. This area has been uncivil for far too long and canning all name calling and ad-hominems would go a long way to make it a better place.

[Bryan]

sometimes you have to call a spade a spade.

[normajean777]

While the debt ceiling may need to be raised, please all this armageddon talk is simply stupid. If the ceiling is not raised, America defaults NOT because they need to, but only if Obama goes against the 14 amendment and decides not to pay creditors first. There is still roughly $180 billion coming in each month, and that can be used against priority payments. Secondly, there have been multiple shutdowns in the past and no lasting effects have been noticed. What makes this different?

And thirdly, I have no idea the truth behind this, but our financial guy on the news, said that Obama can simply raise the ceiling himself? Without congress or the senate. So is this true, and the whole point of the negotiations is to look like this is the "fault" of both parties in the end?

[JerryLove]

Originally Posted by normajean777

While the debt ceiling may need to be raised, please all this armageddon talk is simply stupid. If the ceiling is not raised, America defaults NOT because they need to, but only if Obama goes against the 14 amendment and decides not to pay creditors first. There is still roughly $180 billion coming in each month, and that can be used against priority payments

So who will we not pay instead: The elderly or the military?

And I'm not really sure how "the validity of public debt shall not be questioned" means "creditors must be paid first". Perhaps there's some case-law you are thinking of?

Secondly, there have been multiple shutdowns in the past and no lasting effects have been noticed. What makes this different?

I believe the past shut-downs were caused by an inability to pass a federal budget: not by an inability to incur debt. It seems likely to be apples and oranges (though I'm open to a correction here)

And thirdly, I have no idea the truth behind this, but our financial guy on the news, said that Obama can simply raise the ceiling himself? Without congress or the senate. So is this true, and the whole point of the negotiations is to look like this is the "fault" of both parties in the end?

See "Constitutionality of the debt ceiling" here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_US...ceiling_crisis

[BillSPrestonEsq]

Originally Posted by Bryan

sometimes you have to call a spade a spade.

Bryan, on this board you have to be civil, period, and no you don't have to call a spade a spade. You chose to bring up a topic and you chose to violate board rules. Don't do it. No name calling, period. This section of the forum has been a bit uncivil for some time. Please help in making it more civil, and I will try to enforce this unilaterally regardless of who is doing it or who is being called names.

[Bryan]

This whole situation continues to amaze me. Nobody is willing to compromise it seems. I hope something happens soon.

They should just raise the debt ceiling a couple trillion dollars and worry about the deficit later. Now is not the time to be fighting over the deficit when we could potentially default on our debts.

[gtrdave]

Originally Posted by Bryan

They should just raise the debt ceiling a couple trillion dollars and worry about the deficit later.

So, they should do the same thing that they've always done...

Seems to me that the definition of insanity is exhibited by such behavior.

[Epaphras]

Originally Posted by Bryan

They should just raise the debt ceiling a couple trillion dollars and worry about the deficit later. Now is not the time to be fighting over the deficit when we could potentially default on our debts.

Imagine trying to get hyped up to get on a budget and start paying off your credit card debt the minute you are approved for a new credit card. Ain't gonna happen. You can't get out of debt by taking on new debt, that is the definition of stupidity. And you won't be motivated to change if you don't get hurt a little bit: being forced to live within your means is not Armageddon, that's what households and businesses have to do every day.

The federal government only needs the first $0.10 of every $1 in revenue each month to meet our existing debt obligations. The other $0.90 can be prioritized and when the money runs out, then the least-effective and least-needed programs go away, which is fine with me and fine for the 99.9% of Americans who aren't a part of the particular special interest served by that particular government program. Withdrawing from Afghanistan (which let's face it, is a quagmire) and downsizing the military by at least 50% (both personnel- and cost-wise) will help a ton. Ceasing to raid the Social Security Trust fund for cash will help that program's solvency, and there are plenty of savings to be had in Medicare/Medicaid with commonsense fixes like raising the age of benefits for people under 40, cost-controlling, and routing out fraud and abuse.

I support a national referendum on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Congress has proven its inability (both in the most recent episode but over the last 30+ years of spending spree insanity in general) to get serious about budget deficits, growth of government, and the national debt. A balanced budget amendment is a much-needed check against spending increases for the sake of increases.

[tigerfan88]

Here's what bothers me the most: social security shouldn't even be a bargaining chip or component of the debt talks. See here for a good explanation of why this is the case. I have a mom who is 62 and a father who is 63. Both have battled cancer and numerous other health issues. They depend on their benefits in order to pay for medications, other out of pocket health expenses, and other bare necessities. I know many other seniors who are struggling to make ends meet with just their current benefits--imagine what would happen if current benefits were cut? It'd be just about impossible for them to survive. I have no issues with modifying benefits for future social security recipients, nor do I have issues with spending cuts in other areas. But taking from seniors, disabled people and current/former military members who receive benefits and have paid into the system all their lives? That's something I take issue with.

There's no doubt that social security needs to be fixed for future generations. It's a system that has a lot of holes. As it currently stands, social security won't be around for our generation when we actually need it. That obviously needs to be fixed, but not at the expense of those who are receiving it right now. You can't just tell a 80 year old to go out and get a job to make up for a cut to their social security benefits. That's unrealistic and cruel. You can, however, tell a 30 year old to save on their own for their retirement because their social security benefits alone won't be enough. That's realistic.

To be honest, I cannot believe the talks have gone on for this long. I cannot believe that a minority group (the Tea Party) has enough influence to potentially cause a huge economic disaster for this country. It's saddening that a whole nation may suffer because of one group's narrow minded views. I'm all for political freedom, but it is clear that the majority of people in this nation (republican and democrat) do not share the Tea Party's views.

All I (and many other Americans) can do is hope that common sense and logic will prevail in this case, that our politicians will reach an agreement that is fair and logical, and that we will avoid a devastating default on our loans.

[jthomas1600]

Tigerfan, I agree with much in the first part of your post, I have a few questions though about your third paragraph/statement. How is it that you credit the Tea Party with this? I know I don't follow politics very closely, but I wasn't aware that there were enough Tea Party members in office, let alone in key positions or with enough seniority, to have a lot of influence. Are their enough of them in office? Or are you saying that they somehow control the republican party? Or that the sway public opinion enough to effect the outcome that way?

Also I would point out that even if they are driving this thing and we have an economic meltdown I'm not sure you could really say they caused it. If I'm building a brick tower and my crew does a crappy job on the foundation and uses cheap mortar, when the thing comes crashing down I don't blame the guy that put the last brick on.

Eventually we're going to have this melt down if we don't change something. If I'm going bankrupt it might make sense to take a strategic loan for investment purposes. But if I'm going bankrupt and I just keep borrowing more money every month to pay my bills, that's not really helping anything. It seems to me, the latter is what we as a country have been doing.

[tigerfan88]

In all honesty, I am not following the debt talks as closely as some are. Politics, in general, tend to give me a bit of a headache, although this is a big enough deal to at least follow it somewhat. And in all honesty, I had no idea about the Tea Party's involvement until hearing about it today while watching ABC. One of the shows had a political analyst on that basically explained what's going on and mentioned the Tea Party. I found that interesting and researched it further. Here's an article that talks a little about the Tea Party and their influence in the debt talks. Countless other articles by a variety of websites say much of the same thing.

Basically, there is a small, but powerful group of Tea Party members in the House and they are unwilling to compromise at all with the talks. They want no tax increases whatsoever, which goes against what most democrats and even quite a few republicans are advocating. There are around 100 Tea Party members in the House, and those 100 are seemingly enough to at least make certain bills difficult to pass. Like the article I linked to above says, John Boehner is under a lot of pressure by these Tea Party members to ensure that whatever deal that is reached includes no tax increases. Considering that members of both parties do want tax increases (at least to the wealthy), this makes an agreement difficult to reach. Or at least that's how I interpret it based upon everything I've read. I'm not all that political myself and have nothing for or against any of the political parties.

I definitely agree that change has to happen. But I think those involved in the talks have to look at the immediate impact on the country. I think longer term modifications/cuts are better than a ton of cuts right now when the economy of this nation is still recovering.