National Debt And Stuff

[jonatha]

But it's improper for the spending to be decided before the decision how much to borrow, as raise-the-debt-ceiling crusaders are insisting.

You may think so, but that's how it works.

In fact, it's hard to see how it could work any other way. You know how much you want to spend before you know how much you're going to raise in taxes (although you may have a reasonable idea). The difference must by definition be borrowed...

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Here is an excerpt from a chatroom. Zlad ran away, but can someone pick up the argument, and explain why it's appropriate for spenders to run up the bill however high they want before there's a decision on how much debt money is available.

Zlad: you realise they already voted on the budget that would go over the debt ceiling. They knew it was going over it when they voted on it. Arguing about the debt ceiling is just political theatre.

Zlad: Left the room

Lumpenproletariat: The money should be borrowed first, before voting what to spend it on, or how much of it to spend. Don't spend money before it is first acquired, through borrowing or taxing.

You bring up a great point! Congress is in violation of the law in authorizing spending above the spending limit. The House Speaker should go to prison.

 

[Elixir]

Here is an excerpt from a chatroom. Zlad ran away, but can someone pick up the argument, and explain why it's appropriate for spenders to run up the bill however high they want before there's a decision on how much debt money is available.

Zlad: you realise they already voted on the budget that would go over the debt ceiling. They knew it was going over it when they voted on it. Arguing about the debt ceiling is just political theatre.

Zlad: Left the room

Lumpenproletariat: The money should be borrowed first, before voting what to spend it on, or how much of it to spend. Don't spend money before it is first acquired, through borrowing or taxing.

You bring up a great point! Congress is in violation of the law in authorizing spending above the spending limit. The House Speaker should go to prison.

Of course. The Speaker and maybe two or three of his closest conspirators should go to prison for life, and the rest of the Krazy KauKus put under House arrest. It has ever been so. But that's beside the point. The POINT is : {{{{tears hair, sets it on fire and runs about the room}}}

Anyhow, Lawrence O'Donnell posits that maybe Biden is doing everything right.
He thinks Sleepy Joe could be about to get the House to sign off on a budget that will be "better" than what he will be able to negotiate in September when the budget year expires. (Doing it now makes it look like a concession to Mr Speaker, after saying no negotiating on the debt ceiling.) Throw Mac some relatively harmless bone or two and send him back to his handlers in a last minute panic...
Biden could avert the "debt crisis", while in the same stroke, forestalling a(nother) government shutdown in October and all its attendant ills. Be a hero going into 2024!
This guess is the best I've heard to explain the current situation and rhetoric.
Problem is I don't think the Krazy Kaukus will vote of anything, because they've made up their minds that they can say Joe didit.

 

[Copernicus]

Here is an excerpt from a chatroom. Zlad ran away, but can someone pick up the argument, and explain why it's appropriate for spenders to run up the bill however high they want before there's a decision on how much debt money is available.

Zlad: you realise they already voted on the budget that would go over the debt ceiling. They knew it was going over it when they voted on it. Arguing about the debt ceiling is just political theatre.

Zlad: Left the room

Lumpenproletariat: The money should be borrowed first, before voting what to spend it on, or how much of it to spend. Don't spend money before it is first acquired, through borrowing or taxing.

You bring up a great point! Congress is in violation of the law in authorizing spending above the spending limit. The House Speaker should go to prison.

Of course. The Speaker and maybe two or three of his closest conspirators should go to prison for life, and the rest of the Krazy KauKus put under House arrest. It has ever been so. But that's beside the point. The POINT is : {{{{tears hair, sets it on fire and runs about the room}}}

Anyhow, Lawrence O'Donnell posits that maybe Biden is doing everything right.
He thinks Sleepy Joe could be about to get the House to sign off on a budget that will be "better" than what he will be able to negotiate in September when the budget year expires. (Doing it now makes it look like a concession to Mr Speaker, after saying no negotiating on the debt ceiling.) Throw Mac some relatively harmless bone or two and send him back to his handlers in a last minute panic...
Biden could avert the "debt crisis", while in the same stroke, forestalling a(nother) government shutdown in October and all its attendant ills. Be a hero going into 2024!
This guess is the best I've heard to explain the current situation and rhetoric.
Problem is I don't think the Krazy Kaukus will vote of anything, because they've made up their minds that they can say Joe didit.

And Biden does not have the power to make good on a negotiation. Anything he agrees to has to be agreed to by the Democrats in the Senate, and that won't necessarily be an easy sell.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Zlad: you realise they already voted on the budget that would go over the debt ceiling. They knew it was going over it when they voted on it. Arguing about the debt ceiling is just political theatre.

Zlad: Left the room

Lumpenproletariat: The money should be borrowed first, before voting what to spend it on, or how much of it to spend. Don't spend money before it is first acquired, through borrowing or taxing.

You bring up a great point! Congress is in violation of the law in authorizing spending above the spending limit. The House Speaker should go to prison.

How does this violate the law? The current procedure seems to be that Congress can legally go as high as it wants to, in disregard of the debt ceiling, and so no one is breaking the law.

What is needed is to change the current procedure so that the final vote to spend is delayed until after the limit is fixed. So the spending increases are not official until after the new debt level is authorized. And then if that debt increase is not high enough, there's a final spending vote which can scale back the programs as needed to keep the total spending under the agreed limit. Or the debt and spending levels could change back and forth until the debt limit and the total spending come into agreement.

Such a process would be like the bargaining between traders, where each side puts forth its proposed price or offer, and only when both sides finally agree does the deal become official.

This would be a reliable process, proven successful over centuries, or thousands of years of experience. There's no deal until both sides -- in this case those spending and those deciding the debt limit -- agree to the same spending total and debt limit terms.

Whereas the current process in effect guarantees that the debt level has to keep rising, because the spenders are given a blank check while those limiting the debt are browbeaten into submission to whatever the spenders demand.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

As has been noted by Joe Biden, the GOP wants to slash spending deeply. Becase "deficits". But now the GOP is planning to make massive Trump tax cuts permenent. See? Deficits don't matter now.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

As has been noted by Joe Biden, the GOP wants to slash spending deeply. Becase "deficits". But now the GOP is planning to make massive Trump corporate tax cuts permenent. See? Deficits don't matter now.

FIFY

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Zlad: you realise they already voted on the budget that would go over the debt ceiling. They knew it was going over it when they voted on it. Arguing about the debt ceiling is just political theatre.

Zlad: Left the room

Lumpenproletariat: The money should be borrowed first, before voting what to spend it on, or how much of it to spend. Don't spend money before it is first acquired, through borrowing or taxing.

You bring up a great point! Congress is in violation of the law in authorizing spending above the spending limit. The House Speaker should go to prison.

How does this violate the law?

Conspiring to break the law. They know the spending isn't authoriazed under their previously passed legislation. This is conspiracy to commit a crime.

 

[Copernicus]

What is needed is to change the current procedure so that the final vote to spend is delayed until after the limit is fixed. So the spending increases are not official until after the new debt level is authorized. And then if that debt increase is not high enough, there's a final spending vote which can scale back the programs as needed to keep the total spending under the agreed limit. Or the debt and spending levels could change back and forth until the debt limit and the total spending come into agreement.

Your solution blindly accepts having a second pass at spending authorization. What Congress has been doing is ignoring the debt limit law by simply raising the debt limit every time it was being exceeded. The debt limit was only there for show--to convince the public that they were being fiscally responsible about spending when, in fact, the real debt limit was always established by the first spending authorization.

What is needed is not to find ways to keep maintaining the charade. What is needed is for the government to simply get rid of the debt limit altogether. That is not a rational way to manage our complex national economy. In fact, besides being demonstrably stupid, it is extremely dangerous.

 

[ZiprHead]

Jesus titty fucking christ!

Republicans Preparing Major Tax Cut Bill For After Debt Ceiling Crisis

As spring gives way to summer, Republicans will transition from fiscal responsibility to tax cuts.

ca.sports.yahoo.com

 

[lpetrich]

Jesus titty fucking christ!

Republicans Preparing Major Tax Cut Bill For After Debt Ceiling Crisis

As spring gives way to summer, Republicans will transition from fiscal responsibility to tax cuts.

ca.sports.yahoo.com

So they can then complain about how horrible the deficit is. Sort of like killing one's parents and then begging for mercy because one is an orphan.

I like this:
The Recount on Twitter: "“[Republicans] want to protect tax cuts on yachts and private jets and make single moms pay for it. And that’s where we say no.”
– Rep. @AOC (D-NY) slams Republicans calling for discretionary spending cuts in debt ceiling negotiations (vid link)" / Twitter

She also said that the Congressional Progressive Caucus was not elected to lie back and let the R's make life difficult for people. She also asked why the R's value billionaires over veterans and single mothers.

Acyn on Twitter: "Casar: I think it's a question I've been asked about multiple times. And this is a question, like asking a hostage, why didn't you pick the lock faster? Why didn't you get your arms untied quicker? (vid link)" / Twitter

Congressman Greg Casar on Twitter: "We will not let Speaker McCarthy and Republicans burn the house to the ground and then blame the firefighters for the flames. (vid link)" / Twitter

AOC and Greg Casar showed up with several others: Barbara Lee, Jerry Nadler, Ilhan Omar, Pramila Jayapal, Jimmy Gomez, ...

 

[lpetrich]

Gaetz says most in GOP ‘don’t feel like we should negotiate with our hostage’ | The Hill

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said Tuesday that he and his conservative colleagues “don’t feel like we should negotiate with our hostage” on a debt-limit compromise.

In his comments, the Florida Republican underscored the precarious negotiating position House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is in as he seeks to strike a deal with the White House that could ultimately pass the House.

“My conservative colleagues for the most part support, ‘Limit, Save, Grow,’ and they don’t feel like we should negotiate with our hostage,” Gaetz told Semafor on Tuesday, doubling down on his support for the House-passed GOP bill that would cut spending by an average of 18 percent in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.

Hostage???

 

[Copernicus]

Gaetz says most in GOP ‘don’t feel like we should negotiate with our hostage’ | The Hill

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said Tuesday that he and his conservative colleagues “don’t feel like we should negotiate with our hostage” on a debt-limit compromise.

In his comments, the Florida Republican underscored the precarious negotiating position House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is in as he seeks to strike a deal with the White House that could ultimately pass the House.

“My conservative colleagues for the most part support, ‘Limit, Save, Grow,’ and they don’t feel like we should negotiate with our hostage,” Gaetz told Semafor on Tuesday, doubling down on his support for the House-passed GOP bill that would cut spending by an average of 18 percent in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.

Hostage???

That would be the public that includes the idiots who voted for Matt Gaetz.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What is needed is to change the current procedure so that the final vote to spend is delayed until after the limit is fixed. So the spending increases are not official until after the new debt level is authorized. And then if that debt increase is not high enough, there's a final spending vote which can scale back the programs as needed to keep the total spending under the agreed limit. Or the debt and spending levels could change back and forth until the debt limit and the total spending come into agreement.

Complex, long-lasting problems have solutions that are simple, easy and wrong. This is an example of such: It would work if everything could be decided in advance but in the real world Congress must react to changes--most of the spending is decided in the big budget bills, but not all.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Jesus titty fucking christ!

Republicans Preparing Major Tax Cut Bill For After Debt Ceiling Crisis

As spring gives way to summer, Republicans will transition from fiscal responsibility to tax cuts.

ca.sports.yahoo.com

Disagree. They're not trying to run up the deficit. They're trying to inflame their followers by proposing legislation their followers will like and the Democrats will defeat. They need a quest to get their followers to follow, they lost abortion so now they need to double down taxes. I don't think they actually want to win this one, either.

 

[lpetrich]

Lots of rumors of being close to an agreement, but nothing definite.

Indivisible Guide on Twitter: "If you missed our phonebank with @AOC: "Contrary to what Kevin McCarthy says, the debt limit is not about raising our limit for future spending. It's about paying for our bills that we've already voted on & already committed to, including what Republicans have already voted for." (vid link)" / Twitter

She says that DC people try to make people feel helpless. She then said that that is not necessarily so, that one can push back. She then described the Trump tax cuts as big giveaways to the wealthiest citizens and corporations, tax cuts that would make big deficits. Then describing what the R's' strategy as "extortion".

She then mentioned tax credits for private jets and yachts.

Then why they are trying to use the debt limit to force cuts in veterans' benefits and the like. She said that they don't want to put swing-seat R's on the record as voting for these cuts. So they threaten to hold the US economy hostage unless President Biden and D Congresspeople do their dirty work for them.

She then noted that all 213 House D's have signed a discharge petition to vote on a clean debt-ceiling increase, and that all they need is 5 House R's. She then noted that the R's will present themselves as strong and united, and she then said that the news media will act like a stenographer and write all that down. She noted that there are some 18 R's who won seats in districts that President Biden carried in 2020, sometimes by double digits.

She then mentioned Rep. Mike Lawler of NY-17 in Westchester County, formerly represented by Mondaire Jones.

Then she recommended for people to call in about that discharge petition. She said that such mobilizations can be an influence on legislators in swing seats, that she has seen that happen to D's in R-leaning districts.

She said that 6 of these 18 are in New York State.

 

[lpetrich]

From account RepAOC is this clip of AOC on the House floor:
Republicans Skip Town Instead of Addressing Debt Ceiling - YouTube

She says that Republicans have done lots of military spending and tax cuts, and that they are trying to avoid paying for their spending spree, complete with claiming that Democrats spend too much. She then asks whoever says that the government does too much for them, like giving them too big Social Security checks or paying teachers too much.

I'd add to that whoever says that government has been protecting them too much.

Kaipo 808 commented

"When you raise the debt ceiling that's paying for money that's already been spent." -- Kevin McCarthy, (R-Ca.), 2017, voting to raise the debt ceiling three times during Trump Administration

"Why do you want raise the debt ceiling. It's to spend more money." -- Kevin McCarthy, (R-Ca.), 2022, objection to raising the debt ceiling

and

"My party is very interested in deficits when there is a Democrat in the White House. The worst thing in the whole world is deficits when Barack Obama was the president. Then Donald Trump became president, and we're a lot less interested as a party."
-- Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s Office of Management and Budget Director, February 19, 2020

 

[lpetrich]

The Debt Ceiling: One of America’s Six Worst Traditions - "Believe it or not, the debt ceiling is an improvement on what the United States used to do."

Micromanagement.

Congress once required the executive branch to get its permission to do any borrowing whatsoever and in fact, often specified all the details — i.e., how long the bonds would take to mature, what interest rate it would pay, etc.

This was a terrible way to run a country and to its credit Congress over the decades after World War I changed this awful system into another, slightly less awful one. Now Congress just limits the total borrowing by the government and lets the Treasury Department take care of the details.

But it still makes no sense. Congress has already ordered the executive branch to spend money on certain activities and also levy certain taxes. It’s contradictory and silly for Congress to also say that the government can only borrow a certain amount of money to make up whatever difference between the spending and taxes it itself has required.

It’s also dangerous. No one knows exactly what will happen if the debt limit is breached, and the Biden administration then fails to use the various options it has to keep paying the bills. But it definitely would be extremely unpleasant.

Then the list:

1. The Debt Limit
2. The Electoral College
3. The Senate
4. The Filibuster
5. “First Past the Post” Voting
6. The Florida Panhandle

Geographically and culturally, the Florida Panhandle makes no sense. On any sensible map, it would belong to Alabama. But it’s part of Florida thanks to ancient colonial struggles between the United Kingdom, Spain, and France — struggles that happened before there even was a United States.

If Florida didn’t have its conservative panhandle, Al Gore would have easily beaten George W. Bush in Florida in the 2000 election and become president.

One can point to lots of other oddities in state boundaries, including the splitting of the Dakota Territory in two to make North and South Dakota.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So all things being equal, McCarthy got very little out of this... or should I say the "Freedom" Caucus did... and we are seemingly left with a close to status quo. After all of this... almost a complete status quo.

The "Freedom" Caucus is crying foul, but unless they actually force McCarthy out, it is just hot air... which I'm fine with it being hot air... though McCarthy needing to give in to something else to get Democrat votes for his speakership could be nice.

But to ride this damn close... again... for nothing?! I guess the ball is in Gaetz's corner now. Hopefully he fumbles in all his mixed metaphor glory.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Reading Da Nooz, angry right winger congress turds are very upset that Kevvy McCarthy didn't manage to gut the discretionary part of the budget. Biden seems to have smoked the GOP. Now lots of angry sputtering and threats to boot McCarthy as Speaker Of The House. This is going to be a real political Punch and Judy show. Who is going to be The Freakdom Caucus candidate I wonder? Gentlemen and Ladies, place your bets now.