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 1979, November 1983, December 1985, August 1987, November 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/