Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid chose tonight to delay, and not vote on his plan to raise the debt ceiling. Republicans requested over and over, on the Senate floor, to vote on the Reid plan tonight. The Congress needs to move past the Reid plan, which cannot pass the Senate, and cannot pass the House of Representatives. The Reid plan, full of gimmicks and budgetary tricks, hands the president another credit card to max out through his reelection — the biggest credit card in history.
The plan Republicans support avoids default, cuts spending, caps future spending, and balances the budget. This approach is supported by 60 percent of Americans. With the Democrats’ latest delay on a real solution to our nation’s fiscal problems, they bring us closer to default. We have just four days left.
America needs a credible plan for cutting spending. Instead of plans, they ask Americans to tweet #compromise while putting out slogans such as the “Boehner Drop.” This is not governing, this is politics as usual, and the American taxpayer foots the bill.
Without a serious effort to cut debt and prevent default, President Obama will be presiding over the first-ever downgrade of our nation’s creditworthiness. This will raise interest rates, a “debt tax,” on all Americans, which may cost by some estimates $100 billion a year. An anxious market has already lost over 530 points this week.
While Republicans offer solutions week after week, it’s the default Democrats who say no time and time again. Democrats were the only ones talking about a government shutdown during the debate over funding the government just a few short months ago. Now they are repeating that same playbook of scare tactics and electoral politics, with much higher stakes: our nation’s economy, an economy that we found out on Friday is not growing nearly fast enough to reduce unemployment. Democrats, if serious about avoiding a rating downgrade, will quickly move past the Reid plan. And the Congress should move forward with a plan that strengthens our financial future.
Finally. A mature and rational comment on the disgraceful behavior of Obama and his Democrats.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSenator Barasso, thanks for your writing here. It's clear you guys win on points. The public just needs to be even better informed that the Democrats in the Senate have not passed a budget, have not put up their current gimmicky plan to a vote, and are hoping to score political points more than they are to restore fiscal sanity to the USA.
God have mercy!
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"And the Congress should move forward with a plan that strengthens our financial future."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe problem is that at least one rating agency has said that if the debt ceiling is increased in two stages (one now and one next year), as the Republicans want there is a good chance that the US will lose its AAA rating no matter how much is cut.
Thats why the republican plan is irresponsible (lets see what the Dems offer as a plan later today)..
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs Charles Krauthammer pointed out, we are going to be downgraded no matter what. Not because of the size of the debt ceiling increase, but because of the refusal to do serious, up-front cuts in spending.
As non-serious as the Republican plan is for cutting spending, the Democrats are even worse. If they had their way, they would not cut one thin dime.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe debt ceiling has nothing to do with default. It is about potential government shutdown, not default.
The default will come when it is perceived that US does not have the ability to service the bond coupons anymore (a la Greece). Raising debt ceiling, if anything, increases the probability of that outcome.
Bond traders don't care about the BS peddled on MSNBC or even WSJ. For the markets the messy fight that GOP put up to get the spending at least constrained is a very welcomed positive sign that they are serious about getting debt problem under control without waiting for bond market to do it for them.
The only way to avoid default is to bring spending in line with historical averages (<18% GDP) and to bring tax rates down (or, preferably, to switch to a fair tax - like consumption tax system) to allow for economic growth. Everybody on Wall St. knows that. And the credit rating of US will be based on that and definitely not on an internal decision to get another credit card - the true meaning of raising a debt ceiling.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDefault and downgrading was not even discussed by anyone until the GOP in the House decided to attach raising the debt limit to bills no Democrat would stand for. Once it appeared that no increase might be made... THAT is when we became concerned about default and or downgrading.
In other words you are STILL trying to conflate the two for your own political purpose but fortunately there are those of us economically literate enough to see through it.
Yes, we need to have the discussion about spending, taxes and entitlements, but tying it to a hostage you cannot kill was stupid. If you cannot convince the electorate that yours are the best ideas then you have to convince the opposing party, or work with what you can agree on. Basic civics.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf they (Congress and the President) do nothing, the spending cuts start on Tuesday...assuming we are not again being lied to about the debt ceiling Armageddon date.
THAT is what the politicians are really scared about. Tuesday represents real cuts, not 10 year plans that never get implemented.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBurn the building down, in other words. Yippee.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo your solution is to...not raise the debt ceiling now. And yet you're concerned about controlling spending. It's a self-contradictory position.
Guess how badly spending is going to get out of control by not raising the debt ceiling and dramatically increasing the cost of borrowing.
The debt ceiling hike is NOT the appropriate context for hammering out a new budget, unless you think your side can get everything it wants via such extortion. Which it can't.
Also, if the government shuts down, it might become hard to continue collecting the revenue necessary to service those bond coupons, in which case default happens anyway.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseyeah, that's exactly what I said, einstein...
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse'Bill' is the English word for a 'check' .... a restaurant charge. Interesting that there are two 'bills' in your handle, considering you seem to me to be a Taxoholic.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI would agree that the fiscal issues facing this country are not going to be solved over the weekend, nor is raising the debt ceiling alone going to be sufficient to avoid eventual default.
Given that Medicare is the biggest growing expense out of our control, Medicare reform would be the logical place to begin. However, while Paul Ryan laid out a good Republican baseline for beginning negotiations, and the Democrats have yet to release anything specific with which to counter the Ryan plan, this important discussion has been sidelined by this unproductive, short-sighted debate over the debt ceiling and the demand to cut spending RIGHT NOW. Whatever savings we do get will be miniscule compared to the long-term effort of reducing Medicare expenditures without eliminating the program entirely (which, let's face it, would cost either party who voted for it control of Congress for a generation). Means testing is a good start.
The other side of the coin is military spending, which is formulated around our foreign policy. If austerity is the name of the game, then we're going to have to draw down on overseas commitments. Allies will have to pick up some of that slack. At present, we spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined.
Substantial cuts to both are the only way forward for a balanced budget without tax increases, and even then, I'm not convinced that we won't eventually need to raise taxes at some point, regardless of what Grover Norquist tells us.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm laughing this morning at the unintentionally hillarious comment "(let's see what the Democrats offer as a plan later today)"
I'm not sure which is funnier: That you think the Democrats actually have a plan or that the Democrats are waiting until Saturday afternoon the weekend before their self-declared economic Armageddon to "unveil" their plan.
Pathetic.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf you owed a bank three hundred thousand dollars and you sat down to meet with the loan officer, do you think he would rather hear you say, "I've cut my monthly bills by giving up cable TV, packing my lunch instead of eating out, gave up the leased second car, so I'll have more cash on hand to cover the payments for what I've borrowed from you," or do you think he wants to hear you say, "I've just borrowed another hundred thousand from another bank and I have plans to get a third loan from a loan shark. I know the payments on those loans is almost my whole monthly paycheck, but I'm good for it, really."
The downgrade isn't because the Tea Party wants to cut spending. The downgrade is because we haven't cut spending. We are becoming a bad credit risk because our projected deficits are too large of a percentage of our GDP. To try to blame the Tea Party for this when they are the only ones who got the much-needed discussion started is ridiculous.
Don't hold your breath waiting for a Democrat plan. They could have taken Cut, Cap, and Balance and used it as the shell of a deal shaping it into something that could pass the Senate. But they didn't. They think if they do nothing, the Republicans will get blamed. They don't care what that does to our economy.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIn the end, Republicans will throw their voters under teh bus, and tax increases will be included in the compromise bill. Kings and lords will have their coin sooner or later.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseExpat thinks raising taxes is the only responsible plan.
Every crisis has "raise taxes" as the solution. Amazing how that happens.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYes, better increase poverty and suffering instead.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf you think the poverty level has anything to do with how much we take in taxes, think again.
After 50 years of The Great Society and trillions of dollars of our national treasure flushed down the toilet, the poverty level has not budged.
What part of "The poor will always be with you" do liberals not understand?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe part where it's not true? The poverty rate dropped roughly 10% between 1959 and 1969, around the time of the Great Society. Since then, it has not gone noticeably over 15%.
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It fell noticeably under Clinton and creeped back up under Bush. Even then, however, it did not come anywhere near the rates seen prior to the Great Society.
Did the Great Society eliminate poverty? Obviously not, but it's clear that poverty went and stayed down after its passage.
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