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Today, Obama did his usual, and in an attempt to gain support for his plans he is now telling the seniors that they will not likely receive their benefits check in August lest the debt ceiling is raised.  His remarks were also aimed at veterens as well.  This is just an effort to get seniors and the AARP to pressure the Republican leadership to give in to Obama and his minions.

It is a sad day in this country when we have allowed the government to hide and squander the monies which were supposedly set aside for these issues.  The chickens are coming home to roost, and if we allow this ceiling to be raised once again, it will be the same next time, and the next.  There has to be some tough choices made here.  Stop giving monies to other governments.  Close some of these bases we have around the world.  Get us out of Afghanistan and bring the troops home, secure our borders, and dare others to screw with us.

Make the tax code fair and encourage businesses to build their companies here.

BUT, in order to do these things there has to be compromise on both sides, and as much as the Kenyan Klown is accusing the Republicans of playing "have it my way", he is just as bad if not worse, since it was not long ago when he was spouting that he "won the election, now deal with it".  Hypocrite, hide thou face!

Hillary in 2016?  Why not?  We've already had one "girly man" serving in office for the past 7 years, we might as well give her chance as well!

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From reading the Daily Kossack and HuffPo, I knew Obama would play the demogogue in exactly this fashion, if he didn't get his way.  The President controls the paymasters for about 90 percent of the budget. 

 

Sadly, we must raise the debt ceiling, but ensure actual cuts in the same amount as the raise are included.  last, I read, there were $2 to $2.4 trillion in such cuts both sides agreed upon.   

Start by stopping the trillion dollar health care rip off, then cut all the czars out, then cut about half of the 454 staff in the white house and get the budget down to about 5 million dollars.  Cut all travel by the president and staff and vice president & staff, use the phone.  Cut all of congressional expense by 40%.  Cut the congressional staff by 40% and payroll by 40%.  Make all nonprofit groups refile and pay for it and only approve true nonprofit groups.  Stop giving funds to gov't employees to pay for travel and parking to and from work.  Cut the state dept's budget by 50% and their expenses by 60%.  Reduce all expenses for congressional leadership and cabinet members by 40%.  The cuts can be endless, its just that no one in power wants to give it up.

The first sentence in the first post in this topic is a lie. Obama simply answered a question from a reporter who asked if he can guarantee that the checks will go out. He answered that he could not. In other words, he told the truth. It is the Republicans who are playing politics with your checks, whether for Social Security, Veterans, disability, etc.

I beg to differ.  He said it.  I heard him say it, just as the rest of the nation did so.  It is not a lie Jimi and sticking your head in the sand will not make it go away.  He is doing nothing more than the man you hated, GWB, did with his fear mongering.  he is doing it in order to get his way and avoid doing anything that will endanger his re-election.

jimi,

If you do not believew this was an attempt to rally the seniors you are delusional.  he knew exactly what he was doing.  The playbook was laid out by Geitner, and foreshadowed in the Liberal press.  These guys are masters of manipulation, and for slow learners like yourself they don't have to try very hard to convince.

Originally Posted by JimiHendrix:
The first sentence in the first post in this topic is a lie. Obama simply answered a question from a reporter who asked if he can guarantee that the checks will go out. He answered that he could not. In other words, he told the truth. It is the Republicans who are playing politics with your checks, whether for Social Security, Veterans, disability, etc.

And if he had not answered the question, the wingnuts would accuse him of evading the question and hiding the truth, another case where NOTHING the President does or does not do will satisfy the sheeple ideologues who criticize his every breath.

What he could have done is shown a little leadership quality.  He could have said, "I don't know, since historically we are entering some very unchartered waters. But what I do know is that we need compromise on both sides of the aisle in order to reign in government spending.  We need to make some correction to stop the direction we are headed, but promise to take care of our own before anyone else."

Would that be to hard for the Kenyan Klown to do?  Yep.  Because he has an agenda.

Originally Posted by upsidedehead:
Originally Posted by JimiHendrix:
The first sentence in the first post in this topic is a lie. Obama simply answered a question from a reporter who asked if he can guarantee that the checks will go out. He answered that he could not. In other words, he told the truth. It is the Republicans who are playing politics with your checks, whether for Social Security, Veterans, disability, etc.

And if he had not answered the question, the wingnuts would accuse him of evading the question and hiding the truth, another case where NOTHING the President does or does not do will satisfy the sheeple ideologues who criticize his every breath.

Typical regressive disdain of the American people.  At least wingnuts keep things from falling apart.  The use for screeching moonbats, I've yet to find. Perhaps, they devour mesquitoes! 

 

Obama knows the current revenue situation.  Or, if he doesn't he should resign and take tiny Tim with him!

 

The tears of Krugman and the venom of Olbermann sustain me!

His exact words:

 

President Obama on Tuesday said he cannot guarantee that retirees will receive their Social Security checks August 3 if Democrats and Republicans in Washington do not reach an agreement on reducing the deficit in the coming weeks.

"I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it," Mr. Obama said in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, according to excerpts released by CBS News.

 

 

Fear mongering on a grand scale. He knows exactly how to play to the audience. He also is full of it.

Yep, I'm just guessing, but my SS statement said it was solvent until 2037, no mention of cutting checks or throwing grandma out in the street. We passed the 14.3 trillion mark weeks ago. All they did was fake some more numbers.

 

This is like the stimulus (2) was needed to stop the sky from falling. And create jobs. And lower unemployment. Uh huh.

On Aug. 3, the nation would find out, with Obama forced to make a set of extraordinarily difficult choices about what to pay or not pay. By then, the government’s savings account would be nearly empty and the president would be relying on daily tax revenue to pay the nation’s bills.

There wouldn’t be enough — in fact, there would be a $134 billion shortfall in August alone.

 

According to the center’s analysis, the government would have to cut 44 percent of spending immediately. Through August, the government could afford Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense contracts, unemployment insurance and payments to bondholders.

 

But then it would have to eliminate all other federal spending, including pay for veterans, members of the armed services and civil servants, as well as funding for Pell grants, special-education programs, the federal courts, law enforcement, national nuclear programs and housing assistance.

 

More worrisome for government officials is the $100 billion in Treasury bonds that come due on Aug. 4 and must be paid off. Ordinarily, Treasury would pay off those bonds and issue new bonds.

 

But if the debt ceiling isn’t increased, Treasury could run into trouble “rolling over” this debt. Ratings agencies are threatening to downgrade U.S. bonds if the debt ceiling isn’t raised. If the bonds are downgraded, many investors — such as retirement funds — can’t buy them.

 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...90052126_epaper.html

 

 

Originally Posted by JimiHendrix:
You really can't deal with idiots like these Obama-haters. You really can't fix this kind of stupidity. So, now I will make you name-calling wish come true. Dog soldier, you are a racist idiot. There is no other possible explanation.

Jimbo...you have been unable to PROVE either of your ASSertions.  Your comment only further PROVES what I said earlier about you continually resorting to name calling when you have NO FACTS to back up your claims.


 

But if the debt ceiling isn’t increased, Treasury could run into trouble “rolling over” this debt. Ratings agencies are threatening to downgrade U.S. bonds if the debt ceiling isn’t raised. If the bonds are downgraded, many investors — such as retirement funds — can’t buy them.

We can't win with the ratings agencies. They have already warned that if we continue to "pay the VISA bill with the Mastercard"  by borrowing to cover our deficits to do such things as  to pay interest on the National Debt, they will downgrade our credit rating:

 

With attention focused on sovereign-debt worries in Europe, two major credit-rating firms reminded investors again that the U.S. has debt problems of its own.

Investors bought Treasury debt nonetheless, ignoring the comments, which echoed prior statements by the companies and may still be months or years away from having any practical meaning.

"The warning on the U.S. rating is well-founded," said Brian Yelvington, chief fixed-income strategist at Knight Capital. "However, it will probably fall on deaf ears until the peripheral Europe story plays out."

Moody's Investors Service said in a report on Thursday that the U.S. will need to reverse the expansion of its debt if it hopes to keep its "Aaa" rating.

"We have become increasingly clear about the fact that if there are not offsetting measures to reverse the deterioration in negative fundamentals in the U.S., the likelihood of a negative outlook over the next two years will increase," Sarah Carlson, senior analyst at Moody's, said.

Separately, Carol Sirou, head of Standard & Poor's France, told a Paris conference on Thursday that the firm couldn't rule out lowering the outlook for the U.S. rating in the future.

George Stahl has details of what's moving markets before the opening bell on Wall Street, including the European Central Bank's decision this morning to hold its key interest steady at one percent.

"The view of markets is that the U.S. will continue to benefit from the exorbitant privilege linked to the U.S. dollar" to fund its deficits, Ms. Sirou said. "But that may change."

However, Ms. Sirou, who has an administrative role and has no say in sovereign ratings, was mainly reiterating statements the agency has made in the past. She specifically referred to a comment more than two years ago by John Chambers, chairman of S&P's sovereign-rating committee, suggesting that AAA ratings can always be changed.

The U.S. currently has the highest possible credit rating and a stable outlook at both raters, but both have warned repeatedly in recent years that the government's long-term budget headaches must eventually be addressed

http://online.wsj.com/article/...079311379009904.html

As for revenues, that could be easily addressed by simply getting out of the way of business by reining in the NLRB, the EPA, and other agencies so that the Trillion+ in sidelined capital can be put to use to create jobs. The best revenue enhancer is still job creation. While it might hurt his socialistic pride to do so, Obama could still pull the rabbit out of  the hat by election day by also repatriating the Trillion or two offs**** and putting it to use  by changing the tax code on offs**** profits.

 

As for Obamacre, that won't be much of a problem at first for business, businesses will just dump their employees into the state exchanges. Obamacare will be a major problem later for the states and feds ( and businesses later in taxes) because the working assumption was that only 7% of workers would be dumped into into the subsidized exchanges. The last polling of businesses I've seen is that in the range of 30 to 50% of employers will dump their employees into the exchanges. I assume that the left actually wanted it that way so that they would have an excuse to nationalize the  healthcare industry.

Obamacare will be a major problem later for the states and feds ( and businesses later in taxes) because the working assumption was that only 7% of workers would be dumped into into the subsidized exchanges. The last polling of businesses I've seen is that in the range of 30 to 50% of employers will dump their employees into the exchanges. I assume that the left actually wanted it that way so that they would have an excuse to nationalize the  healthcare industry.

 

That would give him his national one payer health care system.  It works so well in Europe.

Boehner agrees with OBama. 

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) agrees with Obama, and not his GOP colleagues, on this one. During an interview last night with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, Boehner agreed that if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, Social Security is one of the programs that is on the chopping block:

 

VAN SUSTEREN: Congresswoman Bachmann talked to me last night about Social Security, because that wa one of the things the President said, said something about, come August 2nd, you know, maybe the checks won’t go out. Does the money from the Social Security come from a different account essentially, so that even if we do hit the debt ceiling and there is still some government shutdown, those checks still go out because the revenue from them is from people working?

BOEHNER: Ohhh, I don’t believe so. At the end of the day, it all comes out of the general fund, and the general fund is expected to be out of cash come August 3rd or August 4th, and then the Treasury Secretary would have to make decisions on what to pay and what not to pay.

Originally Posted by Mr.Dittohead:

Boehner agrees with OBama. 

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) agrees with Obama, and not his GOP colleagues, on this one. During an interview last night with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, Boehner agreed that if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, Social Security is one of the programs that is on the chopping block:

 

VAN SUSTEREN: Congresswoman Bachmann talked to me last night about Social Security, because that wa one of the things the President said, said something about, come August 2nd, you know, maybe the checks won’t go out. Does the money from the Social Security come from a different account essentially, so that even if we do hit the debt ceiling and there is still some government shutdown, those checks still go out because the revenue from them is from people working?

BOEHNER: Ohhh, I don’t believe so. At the end of the day, it all comes out of the general fund, and the general fund is expected to be out of cash come August 3rd or August 4th, and then the Treasury Secretary would have to make decisions on what to pay and what not to pay.

 

You can’t believe a word that comes out of any of these guys mouths…whether it be Obama or Boehner.

 

“…the Treasury Secretary would have to make decisions on what to pay and what not to pay.”

 

Here you have Boehner passing the buck on making payment decisions, when it’s Congress’s Constitutional duty to control the purse strings.

 

The real fear for Congress and the President if the debt ceiling is not raised, is that not only will they be forced to spend only what is brought in (pay as you go) but they will also be forced to make decisions.

 

They don’t want to make decisions…they want to make accusations against one another.  They want ammunition for the upcoming election.  The last thing either of them want is to actually make hard decisions.

 

If they want to make social security payments…make them.  If the don’t want to default on interest payments…then don’t default.

 

Washingtongets about $200 billion MONTHLY

 

Put your political axes and demagoguery aside and simply do the math.

 

The federal government receives approximately $200 billion in revenues each month.

Interest on the national debt in August will be approximately $29 billion.

Social Security will cost about $49. 2 billion.

Medicare and Medicaid will cost about $50 billion.

Active duty military pay will cost about $2.9 billion.

Veterans affairs programs will cost about $2.9 billion.


There are hundreds and hundreds of departments with thousands and thousands of bureaucrats…why oh why would Social Security be the first on the list to get cut?

 

Simple fear mongering and demagoguery…exactly what our wise overlords excel at…not actually making tough decisions.

Boehner agrees with OBama. 

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) agrees with Obama, and not his GOP colleagues, on this one. During an interview last night with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, Boehner agreed that if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, Social Security is one of the programs that is on the chopping block:

VAN SUSTEREN: Congresswoman Bachmann talked to me last night about Social Security, because that wa one of the things the President said, said something about, come August 2nd, you know, maybe the checks won’t go out. Does the money from the Social Security come from a different account essentially, so that even if we do hit the debt ceiling and there is still some government shutdown, those checks still go out because the revenue from them is from people working?

BOEHNER: Ohhh, I don’t believe so. At the end of the day, it all comes out of the general fund, and the general fund is expected to be out of cash come August 3rd or August 4th, and then the Treasury Secretary would have to make decisions on what to pay and what not to pay.

It's not like this sort of thing has never happened before and the world didn't end:

 

According to Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, the “impact on the economy would be catastrophic" if congress fails to pass the debt ceiling and a vote against passing the debt ceiling would produce "the first default in history caused purely by insanity.”

Such hyperbole does not pass the most cursory scrutiny: "the first default in history" surely seems to imply that congress never before failed to pass a debt ceiling increase, yet it has happened over and over before. Examples include: December 1973, March 1979November 1983December 1985August 1987November 1995, December 1995 to January 1996, and September 2007. And no, there was no crisis in the economy nor any default. Instead, the government simply was forced to temporarily stop borrowing and cut spending to align expenditures with revenues. And on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said, "Even a very short-term or limited default would have catastrophic economic consequences that would last for decades… For these reasons, I am requesting that Congress act to increase the limit early this year, well before the threat of default becomes imminent."



Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion...iling/#ixzz1SCzRtP5H

 

It also might behoove people to read more of what the economist John Lott has to say about this issue:

Here's a look at seven myths that the Obama administration is pushing on the American people: 

1) Not increasing the debt ceiling means the U.S. government will default on its debt. This is probably the biggest lie that almost all other claims arise from. Default occurs if the government stops paying interest on the money that it owes. Not increasing the debt ceiling only means that the government can't borrow more money and that spending is limited to the revenue the government brings in. And, with interest payments on the debt making up less than a ninth of revenue, there is no reason for any risk of insolvency. 

Time after time, congress and the president have failed to agree on a debt ceiling increase and still there has been no default. Examples include: December 1973, March 1979, November 1983, December 1985, August 1987, November 1995, December 1995 to January 1996, and September 2007

Indeed, this really shouldn't even be a point of debate. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution requires that the debt payments come first before any other spending. 

 

2) Until the debt ceiling is raised, uncertainty over the payment of U.S. debts will create chaos in financial markets. Given that the Constitution mandates U.S. debts be paid before any other spending and that sufficient money will be available to cover our interest payments, the only uncertainty arises from Obama's actions. Will he try not to pay the interest? Even a delay of a day in paying this interest will create a default. Court action could eventually force Obama to follow the Constitution but a default would have already occurred. But there is a simple way to end this uncertainty: have the president declare now that he will indeed follow the Constitution and make those payments. 

Failure to increase the debt ceiling clearly doesn't mean default. During one three week period at the end of 1996 and the beginning of 1996, some of the government shutdown when a similar battle over the debt ceiling occurred, but there was no default. President Clinton used the revenues that were coming in to pay the interest on the debt. 

 

3) Obama doesn't know if there is money to send off Social Security checks on August 3. The president knows very well how much revenue will be available to send out checks on August 3. Indeed, enough money will be available to not only pay the interest, but to also cover all Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and children's health insurance, defense, federal law enforcement and immigration, all veterans benefits, Response to natural disasters. Terrifying elderly people who are dependent on their Social Security checks may make good politics, but it is unconscionable. Yet, these scare tactics aren't really very surprising. The Democrats behaved no differently when they ran television ads bizarrely depicting Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as pushing an old lady in a wheel chair off a cliff. 

 

4) Mortgage interest rates will rise dramatically if the debt ceiling isn't increased. Not true. Indeed, the opposite is more likely, for not raising the debt ceiling stops the government borrowing more money. Less borrowing by the government could lower mortgage rates as there would be more lending available for potential homeowners. The interest rate paid by the government might go down for a second reason. Just as banks charge individuals a lower interest rate for those who have less debt compared to their incomes, the same is true for governments. 

 

5) Time is Running Out on Debt Deal, and it must be done immediately. Despite Obama’s insistence that a deal be completed by July 15 and Geithner’s claim that a deal had to be reached by July 22, as already noted, there have been many times over the last few decades where negotiations have extended past when the debt limit has been reached. The longest delay lasted three weeks. Besides claiming that there will be a default, no explanation has been offered for why the debate is any different this time. 

Possibly all these claims of urgency are part of some grand strategy to scare people, but that strategy depends on voters not knowing what is necessary for a default to occur.

 

6) If government spending is cut, there will be a depression. Obama promised that a "temporary" increase in government spending would "stimulate" the economy, but he is now telling us that we can't cut that "temporary" increase -- that we are stuck with it. 

If Obama's program -- including a 28 percent spending hike since 2008 and more than $4 trillion in deficits -- worked so well, why has our unemployment rate risen more than elsewhere? The European Union, Canada, South America, Japan, and Australia have all had smaller increases in unemployment compared to the U.S. after Obama's "stimulus." We have also had these shutdowns before and the numbers don’t show any negative impact on unemployment or GDP. Figures for the longest shutdowns during the fourth quarter of 1995 and the first quarter of 1996 are available here

 

7) The value of the dollar will plummet. Again, the supposed collapse occurs when we default. But there won't be any default. In addition, less government borrowing means lower future taxes, thus making the U.S. a more attractive place to invest. More foreign investment will actually cause the dollar to rise. 

It is time for President Obama and his administration to stop scaring people. Cutting government spending back to its 2007 level won't be the end of the world. After all, during the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama himself repeatedly promised “a net spending cut."

 http://www.foxnews.com/opinion...bt-ceiling-disaster/

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