Thursday, October 10, 2013

Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, October 10, 2013


So... will "The Stupid Party" once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

 Apparently we'll soon find out...

 In the meantime... on to newsbites! (As always, found in the comment section!)

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3 comments:

William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/lew-tells-senate-panel-debt-default-would-force-perilous-choices-on-economy/2013/10/10/5c1f648c-31a5-11e3-9c68-1cf643210300_print.html

House Republican leaders said Thursday they will offer a temporary increase in the federal debt ceiling...

* KICKING THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD YET AGAIN...

...in exchange for negotiations with President Obama on longer-term “pressing problems”...

* WHY SHOULD THE LEADER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE HAVE TO BRIBE THE PRESIDENT TO NEGOTIATE IN GOOD FAITH? (FLIP PARTIES AND PLAYERS AND THE SAME QUESTION WOULD BE ASKED BY ME!)

...but they stopped short of agreeing to end a government shutdown now in its 10th day.

(*HOLDING MY BREATH*)

In a news briefing following a closed-door meeting of House Republicans to present a plan to raise the debt limit for six weeks, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said, “What we want to do is offer the president today the ability to move a temporary increase in the debt ceiling.”

* IN RETURN FOR...???

* FOLKS... IF THE BUDGET WERE IN THE BLACK NEGOTIATIONS WOULD BE ABOUT HOW TO SPLIT THE POT. BUT THE BUDGET ISN'T IN THE BLACK. IT'S IN THE RED. DEEPLY IN THE RED! SHOULDN'T REDUCTION OF "RED" BE SOMETHING AGREED TO IN ADVANCE WITH SPECIFIC CUTS THE SUBJECT OF FURTHER NEGOTIATION? (RHETORICAL QUESTION!) BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HERE. BOEHNER SEEMS READY TO SNATCH DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY.

The GOP plan would suspend the debt limit until Nov. 22, the Friday before Thanksgiving, while also forbidding Treasury Secretary Jack Lew from using “extraordinary measures” that his department has used in recent years to extend his borrowing authority for weeks after the ceiling is reached, according to a senior GOP aide who was in the room. This creates a hard “X date,” as financial analysts call the issue, leaving no wiggle room beyond that day.

* BUT ISN'T THAT THE CASE IF WE STAY THE COURSE? NO WIGGLE ROOM, I MEAN? WHY NOT JUST MAKE PROGRESS NOW? WHAT'S A SIX WEEK DELAY GOING TO PROVIDE OTHER THAN TO ALLOW OUT OF CONTROL SPENDING TO CONTINUE FOR ANOTHER SIX WEEKS?

The plan was presented to the House GOP caucus Thursday morning after Lew warned lawmakers that he would be unable to guarantee payments to any group — whether Social Security recipients or U.S. bondholders — unless Congress raises the federal debt ceiling.

* LEW IS LYING. U.S. BONDHOLDERS HAVE CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED REPAYMENT PRIORITY. PERIOD. (SEE: 14TH AMENDMENT; U.S. CONSTITUTION.)

October 10, 2013 at 5:01 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Meanwhile, several of the House’s most conservative members withheld comment about the proposal. “I’m not very enthusiastic,” Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said without elaborating.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, was non-committal when asked about the plan and said his support depends on what happens in the meeting with the president Thursday.

Heritage Action for America, a conservative advocacy group influential with tea party Republicans, said Thursday that while it remains committed to fighting Obama’s health-care law and opposes “clean debt ceiling increases,” it wants to give House GOP leaders “the flexibility they need to refocus the debate on ObamaCare.” Therefore, the group said, it will not include votes in favor of the proposal in its rankings of lawmakers’ conservatism.

* COP OUT.

Financial experts much prefer a longer-term extension of the debt ceiling...

* BULLSHIT. A BLANKET LIE. WHAT "FINANACIAL EXPERTS" KEEP SAYING IS THAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO GET ITS FINANCIAL HOUSE IN ORDER AND CUT EXPENDITURES AND CUT DEFICITS AND THUS CUT THE DEBT! "FINANCIAL EXPERTS" SAY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO TACKLE UNFUNDED LIABILITIES! RATINGS AGENCIES HAVE DOWNGRADED OUR DEBT BECAUSE WE HAVE TOO MUCH OF IT AND ARE ADDING TO IT RATHER THAN SUBTRACTING FROM IT!

Just three weeks ago, Boehner’s leadership team presented a plan to lift the debt ceiling accompanied by a one-year delay of Obama’s health-care law and a litany of other conservative domestic policy demands.

* UNDERSTAND, FOLKS... BOEHNER AND THE RINOs ARE LITTLE BETTER THAN THE DEMS. THEY LOVE PERPETUAL DEFICIT SPENDING TOO! BOEHNER & CO. HAVE BEEN DRAGGED KICKING AND SCREAMING TO THIS POINT IN HISTORY. GOD BLESS TED CRUZ AND THE REST OF THE TEA PARTY!

Lew told the Senate Finance Committee Thursday morning that he would do all he can to minimize the pain of breaching the $16.7 trillion debt limit. But Lew also told the senators that in an unprecedented situation in which he would be relying entirely on the erratic flow of incoming revenue, the economy would suffer and there would not even be certainty that the government could make all interest and principal payments. “No credible economist or business leader thinks that defaulting is good for job creation or economic growth,” Lew said.

* FOLKS... I HEARD TODAY ON THE RADIO THAT INTEREST PAYMENTS REPRESENT ROUGHLY 8% OF FEDERAL REVENUE. (*SHRUG*) ONLY A DELIBERATE DECISION TO IGNORE THE CONSTITUTION AND SPEND REVENUES ELSEWHERE WOULD LEAD TO DEFAULT. (IN OTHER WORDS, IT'S LEW AND OBAMA AND THEIR MEDIA ALLIES WHO THREATEN US WITH DEBT DEFAULT.)

October 10, 2013 at 5:01 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/9/obamas-national-debt-rate-on-track-to-double/

President Obama likes to say that raising the nation’s borrowing limit “won’t add a dime” to the federal debt, but he neglects to mention that the government already has borrowed the equivalent of more than 60 trillion dimes since he took office.

(*SHRUG*)

When Mr. Obama became president in January 2009, the total federal debt stood at $10.6 trillion. This week, it hit $16.7 trillion — an increase of 57%.

(In the same time frame under President George W. Bush, total federal debt rose 38%. Under President Clinton, it rose 32%.)

The administration recently projected an annual deficit of $750 billion in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 and $626 billion the year after that.

* THAT'S THE ADMINISTRATION'S OWN PROJECTION!

“At that rate, the debt owed to the public will more than double during the Obama presidency,” FactCheck said in its quarterly statistical report on Mr. Obama’s tenure in office.

* YOU'RE READING THIS, RIGHT...?!?!

Mr. Obama said he won’t talk about long-term budget issues until Republicans agree to reopen the government and raise the debt limit without conditions.

* AND I SAY... TELL OBAMA TO GO F--K HIMSELF.

The office of House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said Wednesday that linking spending reforms to increases in the debt limit is “common, bipartisan practice.” The Republican leadership pointed to a Congressional Research Service report last month that said Congress has used debt-limit laws to change fiscal policy 20 times since 1917. In that same 96-year span, the nation’s debt limit has been raised 103 times.

* AND ISN'T THIS THE PROBLEM, FOLKS...? ENOUGH WITH RAISING THE DEBT LIMIT! LET'S START BALANCING BUDGETS AND PAYING OFF THE DEBT! LET'S START ACTING RESPONSIBLY!

October 10, 2013 at 5:52 PM

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