Republicans and the Debt Ceiling : A Brief History

[MusicMan]

Not sure what point your trying to make. 

1. When Clinton left office we had surpluses as far as the eye could see
2. When Bush left office we had deficits as far as the eye could see.
3. All but the super rich were hurt by W's Presidency. 
4. We may never recover from the damage done by 'W's" presidency. Unless of course you
are in the top 2 %. Then you did unbelievably well.
5. The "Ryan Budget" never balances, it runs defecits each and every year.
6. It is a myth that the top 2% create jobs. They create havoc. When taxes are higher on
that top 2 % they instead plow that money back into their corporations.... Increasing employment, increasing
economic activity, and they still make tons of money.
7. Without a prosperous middle class you have economic stagnantion, unless you are at the top 2%.

[avs]

This says it all about the debt and the Republicans IMO
http://youtu.be/SPKNqNnXL9Y

[duvaldude08]

I am just sick of hearing this. I'm sick of replubicians versus democrats. Lets get this done and just save our country. Its becoming quite sickening. I HATE politics. I don't care about whose right and whose wrong. Lets get it done.

[buckethead]

Not sure what point your trying to make. 

1. When Clinton left office we had surpluses as far as the eye could see These projected (not actual) surpluses brought to you by Clinton Gingrich delivered by a theoretical vacuum.
2. When Bush left office we had deficits as far as the eye could see. These deficits brought to you in a joint effort by bush/Pelosi and previously ole what's his name (Delay?)
3. All but the super rich were hurt by W's Presidency.  silly.
4. We may never recover from the damage done by 'W's" presidency. Unless of course you
are in the top 2 %. Then you did unbelievably well. Sillier.5. The "Ryan Budget" never balances, it runs defecits each and every year. your point?
6. It is a myth that the top 2% create jobs. They create havoc. When taxes are higher on
that top 2 % they instead plow that money back into their corporations.... Increasing employment, increasing
economic activity, and they still make tons of money. If you say so, it must be true.
7. Without a prosperous middle class you have economic stagnantion, unless you are at the top 2%.

The middle class carries the vast majority of burden for the economy and the income tax base.

So I guess the point I'm trying to make is this: (  By the way, I'm doing it quite well   )

You are selling what the dems are selling except they aren't any different than the republicans.

Who was it that signed Glass-Steagall out of existence?

Republicans=bad but democrats=good? Spare me. It's a one party game. The "two" parties are simply vying for control of the largess.

Keep fighting the good fight, though.
'

[MusicMan]

The promise (by Bush II) was that tax cuts for the wealthy will grow jobs and the economy. It is the single most important pillar that the Republican economic philosophy stands on.  My point is that that pillar is false. If it worked our nation's economy would be humming, not sining the blues. Rich folks are doing great, the rest of us are no better off. As a nation we were better off with Clinton as Pres., even if he was being balanced by Gingrich and Co.

[duvaldude08]

The promise (by Bush II) was that tax cuts for the wealthy will grow jobs and the economy. It is the single most important pillar that the Republican economic philosophy stands on.  My point is that that pillar is false. If it worked our nation's economy would be humming, not sining the blues. Rich folks are doing great, the rest of us are no better off. As a nation we were better off with Clinton as Pres., even if he was being balanced by Gingrich and Co.

Exactly. The clinton years was a great time for this country.

[Ajax]

The promise (by Bush II) was that tax cuts for the wealthy will grow jobs and the economy. It is the single most important pillar that the Republican economic philosophy stands on.  My point is that that pillar is false. If it worked our nation's economy would be humming, not sining the blues. Rich folks are doing great, the rest of us are no better off. As a nation we were better off with Clinton as Pres., even if he was being balanced by Gingrich and Co.

I hate to defend W, but don't you think 9/11 kinda threw a monkey wrench into a lot of plans? 

[MusicMan]

I think we would have to defer to Dick Cheney on that one. He was named Head of the Counter Terrorism Task Force at the beginning of 'W's'  admin but they didn't actually convene until Sept 10.

P.S. Google  "Project for a New American Century" for more on that.

[Garden guy]

Does anyone know real numbers of what our debt would be if the bush era tax breaks for the wealthy were never inacted?

[BridgeTroll]

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13346

The Intransigent Meet the Unserious
by Michael D. Tanner


Democrats go hardball on tax hikes while Republicans play softball.

Last Friday, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi held a press conference to announce that House Democrats should oppose a debt-ceiling agreement that included any cuts in Medicare or Social Security. Meanwhile, over in the Senate, Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) and Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) announced that they would filibuster any deal that included changes to those programs, and possibly Medicaid as well.

So, of course, you saw the deluge of media stories blaming Democratic intransigence for threatening to throw the country into default. Neither did I.

Republicans have clearly drawn a line in the sand, opposing any tax increase. But Democrats have been even more unbending, resisting any serious structural reform of entitlements or deep spending cuts, while insisting on huge tax hikes as part of any deal.

Why the insistence on tax hikes? Democrats know that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, tax revenues will return to their historic average of 18 to 19 percent of GDP by the end of the decade. They know this will happen even if the Bush tax cuts are extended and the alternative minimum tax is fixed. The only reason, therefore, for tax increases would be to enable more government spending.

The president is now calling for a "big" deal that would reduce the debt by $4 tillion over ten years, while we'll borrow more than a third of that this year. Ã, In fact, over those ten years, we are expected to run up more than $13 trillion in new debt.

It's also important to remember that the president is not offering $4 trillion in spending cuts. The deal he has proposed includes more than $1 trillion in tax hikes. Another $1 trillion is assumed savings on interest payments. Thus, what is really on the table is barely $2 trillion in actual spending reductions. What the president is really offering is closer to $2 in spending reductions for every $1 in tax hikes, not the 4:1 ratio reported by the media. Moreover, that is over ten years, meaning the cuts would actually be just $200 billion per year. We will pay more than that this year in interest on what we have already borrowed.

As minimal as these cuts are, they are actually even less than they appear. Most people assume that a spending cut means spending less next year than we spend this year. Then again, most people don't understand Washington. Washington operates under "baseline budgeting," meaning that if Congress plans to spend $2 billion more on a program than it spent this year, but only spends $1 billion more, that is a $1 billion "cut." Thus, the $2 trillion in spending "cuts" currently being discussed would actually allow government spending to increase by $1.8 trillion.

Of course, the president also has expressed a willingness to put Medicare and Social Security on the table, despite opposition from the Democrats in Congress. But here too the proposals are far less than they appear. They would do nothing to change the structure of these programs, instead offering a grab bag of future benefit trims that may or may not ever occur, such as further squeezing reimbursements to hospitals and physicians.

So the deal that the Republicans are currently offering would actually allow federal revenue, federal spending, and the national debt all to increase over the next decade. They have abandoned structural changes to entitlement programs â€" anything like Paul Ryan's Medicare reform is off the table â€" and appear to have dropped calls for a balanced-budget amendment or a spending cap.

This is radical? This is intransigence? If only.

[Garden guy]

Does anyone know real numbers of what our debt would be if the bush era tax breaks for the wealthy were never inacted?

I guess not...

[BridgeTroll]

The view from Europe...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,774666,00.html

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"The bitter debate in Washington about raising the debt ceiling has largely left the financial markets cold. … The market players apparently expect that an agreement will be reached in time. That's the only possible explanation for their surprisingly calm response."

"We can only hope that the top politicians in Washington take Moody's warning seriously, despite the relaxed response from the financial markets so far. A US default and a lower credit rating would … send stock prices through the floor and could choke off America's economic recovery -- with global repercussions. The politicians in Washington are playing with fire. A swift compromise is needed. Nobody needs a US default."

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"It's actually unimaginable. On August 2, the US could, for the first time in its history, become insolvent because the Republican majority in the House of Representatives refuses to raise the ceiling on the national debt. But until now, everyone is acting as if it will all be OK and the politicians in Washington will come to their senses in time."

"The Republicans are playing with fire. Nobody can imagine what the repercussions might be if the unthinkable happens and the US is suddenly no longer a safe haven for investors. Anything is possible, from a small, barely perceptible amount of turbulence in the financial markets to a global panic. Congress should think carefully about what it is doing."

The conservative Die Welt writes:

"In this period of competing debt crises, America and Europe are looking at each other in amazement, with each side understanding less and less about what is happening on the other side of the Atlantic. While Europe's chaos is obvious to the Europeans and the rest of the world, there are few signs of self-doubt or self-awareness in the US. In the middle of the poker game between the two political parties to prevent a national default on Aug. 2, polls show that 77 percent of Americans believe that they live in the world's greatest system of government. Just as many are convinced that life is only worth living as an American."

"Democrats and Republicans are so hopelessly embroiled in a religious war that compromise and pragmatism are just dreams from a far-off era of reason. … The influence of the Tea Party movement … can not be overestimated. … The movement sees traditional politics as corrupt and regards Washington as a den of iniquity. … They see the other side as their enemy. Negotiations with the Democrats, whether it's about appointing a judge or the insolvency of the United States, are only successful if the enemy is defeated. Compromise, they feel, is a sign of weakness and cowardice."

The business daily Handelsblatt writes:

"Washington still considers a default to be unimaginable. Obama does not want to go down in history as the president who bankrupted America, so the only alternative is another unsavory deal -- the 'kick the can down the road' solution, as American politicians like to call it. The debt limit will be raised again just before the impending volcanic eruption, exacerbating the problem and postponing an attempt to solve the problem (of the US's enormous debt) to the next, not too distant deadline. Investors are also counting on this scenario. That is the only explanation for the relative calm on the market for US government bonds."

"That will change if the European Union crisis countries manage to sort out their finances, while the US continues with its debt delusions. Then the markets will soon achieve what the politicians have failed to do -- and force the US into an era of belt-tightening."

The mass-circulation Bild writes:

"Playing poker is part of politics, as is theatrical posturing. That's fair enough. But what America is currently exhibiting is the worst kind of absurd theatrics. And the whole world is being held hostage."

"Irrespective of what the correct fiscal and economic policy should be for the most powerful country on earth, it's simply not possible to stop taking on new debt overnight. Most importantly, the Republicans have turned a dispute over a technicality into a religious war, which no longer has any relation to a reasonable dispute between the elected government and the opposition."

"If it continues like this, the US will be bankrupt within a few days. It would cause a global shockwave like the one which followed the Lehman bankruptcy in 2008, which triggered the worst economic crisis since the war. Except it would be much worse than the Lehman bankruptcy. The political climate in the US has been poisoned to a degree that is hard for us (Germans) to imagine. But we should all fear the consequences."