Debt Ceiling

[Headinjun]

2009 wasn't Obama's budget.

"" is right. Not only were those spending levels set by an overwhelmingly Dem Congress, but Obama also tacked on an extra couple hundred billion to boot that year.

Anyway, back to the point at hand, I agree with President Obama back when he was a senator and was critical of raising the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling should be used as it was intended to be used: leverage to curtail spending. If Congress simply continues to raise it as a matter of course, then it is pointless.

 

Now we have an overwhelmingly GOP congress, do we get to blame the deficits on them now or just Obama??

[john "teach me how to" dougie]

2009 wasn't Obama's budget.

"" is right. Not only were those spending levels set by an overwhelmingly Dem Congress, but Obama also tacked on an extra couple hundred billion to boot that year.

Anyway, back to the point at hand, I agree with President Obama back when he was a senator and was critical of raising the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling should be used as it was intended to be used: leverage to curtail spending. If Congress simply continues to raise it as a matter of course, then it is pointless.

 

Now we have an overwhelmingly GOP congress, do we get to blame the deficits on them now or just Obama??

Obama has never signed a GOP budget.

[Headinjun]

Does that mean all the spending the right likes to bitch about is theirs?

They have control, and the option to get creative and propose balanced approaches.

Why don't they?

[K-S-U-Wildcats!]

 

Does that mean all the spending the right likes to bitch about is theirs?

They have control, and the option to get creative and propose balanced approaches.

Why don't they?

Again, the GOP has proposed budgets that cut spending, but the Senate won't concur and the President has vowed to veto them in any event. What the hell else are they supposed to do? What's the "creative" option they're all missing by which you can somehow, against all logic and common sense, blame the GOP for our overspending?

Hey, here's a creative option: what if they refuse to raise the debt ceiling until additional spending and destructive entitlement programs are cut?

[Rage Against the McKee]

Didn't the democrats propose a budget that would reduce deficits as well? Seems like there has been a failure from both sides to me.

[Headinjun]

Does that mean all the spending the right likes to bitch about is theirs?

They have control, and the option to get creative and propose balanced approaches.

Why don't they?

Again, the GOP has proposed budgets that cut spending, but the Senate won't concur and the President has vowed to veto them in any event. What the hell else are they supposed to do? What's the "creative" option they're all missing by which you can somehow, against all logic and common sense, blame the GOP for our overspending?

Hey, here's a creative option: what if they refuse to raise the debt ceiling until additional spending and destructive entitlement programs are cut?

Yeah they always propose cutting spending alright. It's always the little slices of the pie that don't make a dent and then they turn around and never cut defense or security which happens to have the biggest wastes there is. 

Lets not forget all the ridiculous riders the right had put on their budgets like privatizing Medicare and now defunding insurance company reform. 

Yep they're really coming with an honest pragmatic approach.

[Rage Against the McKee]

Why don't both sides just compromise and implement the cuts that each party proposes while raising taxes on the top 5% of income earners?

[K-S-U-Wildcats!]

Didn't the democrats propose a budget that would reduce deficits as well? Seems like there has been a failure from both sides to me.

  that was a good one!

[Headinjun]

Didn't the democrats propose a budget that would reduce deficits as well? Seems like there has been a failure from both sides to me.

  that was a good one!

It did KSU just likes being a myopic right wing dumbass..

KSU, do you remember the last debt ceiling fight where the Dems called for a  10-1 ratio in spending cuts to tax increases?   Probably not.

Just thought I would remind you, or just let you know of some info outside the thick bubble of fiction and dumbassery.

[K-S-U-Wildcats!]

Didn't the democrats propose a budget that would reduce deficits as well? Seems like there has been a failure from both sides to me.

  that was a good one!

It did KSU just likes being a myopic right wing dumbass..

KSU, do you remember the last debt ceiling fight where the Dems called for a  10-1 ratio in spending cuts to tax increases?   Probably not.

Just thought I would remind you, or just let you know of some info outside the thick bubble of fiction and dumbassery.

That was not a budget, you dumbfuck, just a hypothetical campaign talking point to paint the GOP presidential candidates as extreme for recognizing that we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem. The Dems have never put pen to paper and actually drafted a budget that would reduce spending. The GOP has. To pretend that the Democrat party is serious about reducing spending or the deficit is just rough ridin' stupid.

Do you really believe that if the GOP had conceded to tax increases, the Dems would have agreed to 10x the spending cuts? Are you a rough ridin' idiot?

Also, I overlooked it earlier, but I love your term "insurance company reform" for ObamaCare. Is that what the libs are calling it now?

[K-S-U-Wildcats!]

Yeah, the Dems sure are serious about cutting spending! From yesterday:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/22/rep-nancy-pelosi-nothing-left-cut-budget-cupboard-/

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says Republican-led efforts to rein in government spending are pointless because there is nothing left to cut in the almost $4 trillion-a-year federal budget.

“The cupboard is bare. There’s no more cuts to make. It’s really important that people understand that,” Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

[john "teach me how to" dougie]

Yeah, the Dems sure are serious about cutting spending! From yesterday:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/22/rep-nancy-pelosi-nothing-left-cut-budget-cupboard-/

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says Republican-led efforts to rein in government spending are pointless because there is nothing left to cut in the almost $4 trillion-a-year federal budget.

“The cupboard is bare. There’s no more cuts to make. It’s really important that people understand that,” Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

So, according to the current leader of the democrat party, we just need to double taxes and we'll be good.

[OregonSmock]

President Obama and Congress have already reduced the national debt by about $2.5 trillion.  The sequester reduced it even more. 

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jul/25/barack-obama/obama-says-deficit-falling-fastest-rate-60-years/

In 2009, the first year of Obama’s presidency, after tax cuts and new spending, the deficit was 10.1 percent of GDP. In 2012, the deficit declined to 7 percent of GDP. So that’s a decline of 3.1 percentage points.

You have to go back 63 years to the period between 1946 and 1949 to find a bigger four-year drop than what the country saw between 2009 and 2012. Right after World War II ended, the U.S. deficit stood at 7.2 percent of GDP. By 1949, America had a surplus of 0.2 percent. So that’s a decline of 7.4 percentage points.

We downloaded data from the Office of Management and Budget that shows the deficit as a percent of GDP all the way back to 1930. When we ran the numbers, we found, as Obama said, you need to go back to 1946 to find a larger change.

[OregonSmock]

Net budgetary savings from sequester over 2013-2021 period:  $1.1 trillion.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_sequestration_in_2013


Also, here's a non-Maddow blog budget chart for the right wing herd to dissect and attempt to invalidate: 

[john "teach me how to" dougie]

This is great beems! No reason to raise the debt limit and can actually reduce it by 2.5 trillion.

[K-S-U-Wildcats!]

Ok, so now we're playing the "as a percentage of GDP" game. Cool.

[OregonSmock]

This is great beems! No reason to raise the debt limit and can actually reduce it by 2.5 trillion.

I thought you understood the difference between budget deficits and the national debt.  Hmm... guess not.

[OregonSmock]

Ok, so now we're playing the "as a percentage of GDP" game. Cool.

Not playing any games.  Just sticking with facts and stuff like that.

[K-S-U-Wildcats!]

So because, over the next 10 years, we're supposedly going to spend less than we did in 2010 - the high watermark for federal spending - that's an accomplishment? That's fiscal responsibility? Here's some real numbers for the dumbasses in the room:

National Debt when Obama was inaugurated: $10.6 trillion.
National Debt today: Almost $17 trillion.
National Debt when Obama leaves office: About $20 trillion.

Federal Spending for fiscal year 2008: $2.9716 trillion.
Federal Spending for fiscal year 2012: $3.538 trillion.

That's some reduction!

[OregonSmock]

Sure... let's take everything out of context and completely ignore the fact that Obama inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression (along with two wars in the Middle East).  Let's go ahead and ignore everything that lead to the financial collapse.  Let's ignore the aging baby boomer population and the inefficiency of programs like Social Security and Medicare.  Let's ignore every statistic that shows that the actual budget deficit has been steadily decreasing over the past few years.  Let's take the easy, dumbass approach to life and blame everything on groups of people we don't like or easily identify with.  Sounds good.

[john "teach me how to" dougie]

This is great beems! No reason to raise the debt limit and can actually reduce it by 2.5 trillion.

I thought you understood the difference between budget deficits and the national debt.  Hmm... guess not.

President Obama and Congress have already reduced the national debt by about $2.5 trillion.

The debt limit is the national debt.

[OregonSmock]

This is great beems! No reason to raise the debt limit and can actually reduce it by 2.5 trillion.

I thought you understood the difference between budget deficits and the national debt.  Hmm... guess not.

President Obama and Congress have already reduced the national debt by about $2.5 trillion.

The debt limit is the national debt.

And as we continue to have budget deficits, the national debt continues to grow.  Reducing those budget deficits does not eliminate the national debt overnight.  Class dismissed.

[john "teach me how to" dougie]

This is great beems! No reason to raise the debt limit and can actually reduce it by 2.5 trillion.

I thought you understood the difference between budget deficits and the national debt.  Hmm... guess not.

President Obama and Congress have already reduced the national debt by about $2.5 trillion.

The debt limit is the national debt.

And as we continue to have budget deficits, the national debt continues to grow.  Reducing those budget deficits does not eliminate the national debt overnight.  Class dismissed.

lol. anybody speak beems out there?

[Emo EMAW]

Maybe I'm slow here, but if at one point in time we have some debt, and over some period of time we're running a budget deficit, wouldn't we then have more debt?  If Obama has reduced the debt by $2.5 trillion then we much have run a budget surplus, and quite a significant one at that?

[john "teach me how to" dougie]

I have a feeling beems made up the 2.5 trillion in debt reduction number, or maybe he meant increase, but that doesn't prop up his point, so I don't know.

The lowering of the debt by saying its a smaller percentage of the GDP is just a ridiculously deceptive comment to appeal to the low information voter who will parrot it out on message boards.