Showing posts with label debt ceiling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label debt ceiling. Show all posts

Monday, May 9, 2011

Tea Party Slams Boehner and Ryan on Debt Ceiling

Raising the debt ceiling with no policy to work towards avoiding raising it in the future is a bad idea. The Tea Party has a right to be pissed. The Tea Party backed these people with certain expectations, if Boehner and Ryan don't plan to follow through with those expectations they need to be replaced.

Going along with the washington business as usual is how we got in this horrible financial shape to begin with. The culture needs to change, even it means changing the culture through legislation. No one in washington is going to change on their own. Feeling some pain is the only way to break the old spending habits. But it won't just be the politicians feeling the pain, millions of Americans need to come to the realization that we are broke, and that no one is entitled to anything...

by Wes Barrett - FoxNews


Tea Party leaders ripped into House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, as well as other House Republicans, saying any vote to raise the debt limit without major fiscal policy changes will amount to selling out the Tea Party, adding the group will work to unseat those who vote for an increase in the next election.

"We're telling Boehner and all of the House Republicans, they came into office with Tea Party help. We now expect them to keep their promises and hold the ceiling on the national debt," said William Temple, head of this fall's Tea Party National Convention. "The Tea Party will not be in a very forgiving mood this fall, nor as the GOP primary season opens, if House freshmen and others elected by the Tea Party cave to Obama. We will find replacements for them this fall."

He added the group could go along with a small increase in the debt ceiling, but only if Republicans were able to win a major policy battle such as a repeal of health care or the passage of a balanced budget amendment.

Temple appeared at a Washington press conference dressed in colonial garb and was especially critical of the 2011 budget compromise Boehner worked out with Republicans last month. The deal cut $37.8 billion in spending and narrowly avoided a government shutdown, but was short of the $100 billion in cuts Republicans originally sought.

Temple noted the emotion the house speaker famously wears on his sleeve and suggested Boehner and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., caved during the 11th hour negotiation.

"I wish our tearful House Speaker would just show some compassion for American taxpayers and our children, but he and Mr. Ryan have already surrendered to President Obama," Temple said. "It's a cowardly act of treason against coming generations, and we may be able to give Boehner something to really cry about in 2012."

Chair of the Congressional Tea Party caucus Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., echoed the idea that the 2011 vote was a missed opportunity, saying the debt ceiling vote offers a chance for a do-over.

"The debt ceiling vote will offer an opportunity that was squandered during the vote for the 2011 Continuing Resolution," she said in a statement.

In a Monday night speech to the Economic Club of New York, Boehner is expected to challenge Obama on the debt limit, warning that a hike in the ceiling without major spending cuts and reforms will actually hurt the economy and destroy more American jobs.

"To increase the debt limit without simultaneously addressing the drivers of our debt -- in defiance of the will of our people -- would be monumentally arrogant and massively irresponsible," Boehner says in prepared remarks released to Fox News. "It would send a signal to investors and entrepreneurs everywhere that America still is not serious about dealing with our spending addiction."

Economists who side with the Tea Party point to the idea that a no-vote on a debt increase should be easy for conservative Republicans, dismissing downsides of allowing the U.S. to hit the ceiling. CATO Institute Senior Fellow Dan Mitchell says the government will still be able to pay interest on the current federal debt even if there is no increase in the ceiling.

"The Treasury Secretary is being deceitful, the Fed chairman is being very misleading on the issue as well," he said. "Default is not the issue, the issue is whether we get government spending under control. The debt and deficit are the symptoms. The underlying problem of a government that is too big."

Read the rest at the link above...

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Federal Borrowing on Pace to Hit Debt Limit in Less Than Week










As set in a law passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama on Feb. 12, 2010, the legal limit on the national debt is $14.2940 trillion. As of the close of business Tuesday, according to the Daily Treasury Statement released at 4:00 pm today, the portion of the national debt subject to this legal limit was $ 14.268365 trillion. (The total national debt, including the portion exempted from the legal limit, was $14.3205 trillion.)

This left the U.S. Treasury with the authority to borrow only an additional $25.635 billion before it hits the statutory debt limit.

On April 4, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) in order to warn Congress that the Treasury was approaching the legal debt limit. In an appendix to this letter, Geithner pointed to the rapid pace at which new debt was accumulating.

“On average,” Geithner wrote, “the public debt of the United States increases by approximately $125 billion per month (although there are significant variations from month to month).”

In a 31-day month, $125 billion in new debt works out to an average of $4.03 billion in new debt per day. At that pace, the $25.635 billion in legal borrowing authority the Treasury had left at the close of business on Tuesday would be exhausted in less than seven days.

Geithner’s letter did not spell out the time period he used to determine that the debt increases at approximately $125 billion per month. In fact, according to the official debt figures published by the Treasury itself, the debt has been increasing at a somewhat faster pace than $125 billion per month during the Obama presidency.

On Jan. 20, 2009, the day Obama was inaugurated, the portion of the nation debt subject to the legal limit (a small portion of the debt is exempted from the limit) was $10.568142 trillion. By April 19, 2011, the portion of the national debt subject to the limit had increased to 14.268365 trillion. That means that during the first 821 days of Obama’s presidency the debt increased by $3.700223 trillion—or $4.5 billion per day.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Has John Boehner forgotten why he is in washington?

I have to tell you, with each passing day, my faith in John Boehner fades. He is much too willing to compromise in situations where he has no need to. And what that boils down to, is Boehner doing exactly what the democrats want him to do. I'll hand to to the democrats, they are very devious. They use the tools they have at their disposal better than the Republicans do.

For instance, everyone knows the democrats have the media in their pocket. If the Republicans appear unwilling to budge on an issue, the media is alerted and the Republicans are front page news as being obstructionists or the party of "no".

Right now we need some "no". No to obamacare, no to more spending, no to anything that isn't pointing our Country back to the right path. We have been on the road the democrats have laid out for us and we have seen that it ends in the destruction of our values and our Country.

Boehner needs to man up. He needs to refuse to budge on the debt ceiling and the continuing resolutions until the senate agrees to repeal obamacare or to reduce spending by a significant amount. These two billon dollar cuts are worthless. We accrue more interest in the time they spend arguing than the actual reduction.

Boehner has options. He has tools. He needs to remember why we put him in his current position. We put him there to be our voice. The person to stand up for the American citizens who are against obamacare and against the out of control spending. But in my opinion, the most important job John Boehner has is to end the corrupt, business as usual way washington operates. Chicago politics are an embarrasment to our Country, it is an even bigger embarrassment when it is brought to the National level...

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Geithner says Congress must raise debt limit

This is the kind of thinking that obama relies on to make his stupid decisions. No choice but to borrow more money. It's the easy way out, that's for sure. I know that there are millions of people in this Country who have no clue what kind of financial trouble we are in, and it seems like most of them are in the obama administration...

From Reuters

Treasury Secretary timothy geithner said on Wednesday that there was no alternative except for Congress to raise the debt ceiling so that the government can keep borrowing.

"Congress has to do it. There's no alternative," he said in response to questions at a House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee.

He repeated a warning that it would be have "catastrophic" consequences for the economy if the debt ceiling was not raised and the country defaulted on its debt obligations.