The White House and its Democratic allies in Congress moved to shoot down an emerging House Republican budget proposal before it even left the ground, blasting the late-breaking plan as a "partisan" product that would imperil efforts to meet the looming debt-ceiling deadline.Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid turned a deaf ear, declaring categorically that it "won't pass the Senate."But Republicans, who say their counter-proposal is still being worked out, claimed the details of their plan are not so far off from a bipartisan approach being crafted in the Senate. Both plans would fund the government through mid-January and raise the debt ceiling through February -- a key difference is the House framework would delay a controversial medical device tax in ObamaCare. Republicans urged Democrats to give it a chance, and questioned why they would preemptively reject it.
A group formed from the ruins of ACORN is hard at work signing people up for ObamaCare, and may be collecting taxpayer cash for their work despite Congress' efforts to cut the organization and its affiliates off from government funding, a watchdog group charged.The United Labor Unions Council Local 100, a New Orleans-based nonprofit, announced last month it would take part in a multi-state "navigator" drive to help people enroll in President Obama's health care plan. The labor council was established by ACORN founder Wade Rathke after his larger group was broken up amid scandal in 2009 and banned from receiving taxpayer funds.“At a time when our government has ceased functioning due to an appropriations gap, it is ironic that America’s tax dollars are being doled out to an entity whose poor stewardship of our funds was well-established by Congress,” said Dan Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action, a nonpartisan watchdog group based in Washington.
Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama is ready to talk even on Republicans' terms, he insisted Tuesday, so long as Congress acts first to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling -- even for a short period.At a news conference, Obama indicated Republicans could essentially set the agenda for budget negotiations, but only if Congress agrees first to a short-term spending plan to fund the government and to raise the federal borrowing limit to avoid a possible first-ever U.S. default next week."I will talk about anything," the president said.House Speaker John Boehner, speaking Tuesday afternoon after what he called a "pleasant" but ineffectual phone call with Obama, promptly rejected the president's comments as nothing new."What the president said today was if there's unconditional surrender by Republicans, he'll sit down and talk to us," Boehner said. "That's not the way our government works."
The Chinese Vice Foreign Minister, Zhu Guangyao, told America’s deadlocked politicians on Monday that “the clock is ticking” and called on them to approve an extension of the national borrowing limit before the federal government is projected to run out of cash on 17 October.“We ask that the United States earnestly takes steps to resolve in a timely way the political issues around the debt ceiling and prevent a US debt default to ensure the safety of Chinese investments in the United States,” Mr Zhu told reporters in Beijing. “This is the United States’ responsibility,” he added.
"Now, this debt ceiling -- I just want to remind people in case you haven't been keeping up -- raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy. All it does is it says you got to pay the bills that you've already racked up, Congress. It's a basic function of making sure that the full faith and credit of the United States is preserved."Obama went on to suggest that "the average person" mistakenly thinks that raising the debt ceiling means the U.S. is racking up more debt:"It's always a tough vote because the average person thinks raising the debt ceiling must mean that we're running up our debt, so people don't like to vote on it, and, typically, there's some gamesmanship in terms of making the President's party shoulder the burden of raising the -- taking the vote."
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Exeter, N.H. (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney opposes the deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling.The former Massachusetts governor says the compromise, backed by President Barack Obama and congressional leaders in both parties, opens the door to higher taxes and defense cuts. Romney opposes anything other than the House Republican "cut, cap and balance" approach that required Congress to send a balanced budget amendment to the states.
Amidst this debt ceiling debate, this president and his Democratic minions’ arguments have descended from “straw men” to “bogeymen” in their attempts to scare Americans.Our seniors were told their hard-earned Social Security checks would be stopped. Our brave veterans were told the services our grateful nation provides them (never mind that there is much more we could do) could be stopped.Our entire citizenry was told America could face an economic Armageddon.But we Americans are more courageous than the president and Democrats credit us. Thus, we must tell President Obama and his minions to stop; join with Republicans to seize this moment to cut, cap and balance the federal budget; and start restructuring Washington Big Government into Main Street self-government.That this President and his fear mongers would willfully inflict doubt and fear in his citizenry is deplorable, but par for the course. They will do all they can to distract from the fact that they have not once provided a single concrete plan or for serious debt reduction; and that their failed, fiscally irresponsible, economy killing policies have teed up this debt mess and holed out our economy.
Proponents of raising the debt ceiling claim that a default on Aug. 2 is unprecedented and will result in calamity (never mind that this is simply an arbitrary date, easily changed, marking a congressional recess). My expectations of such a scenario are more sanguine.The U.S. government defaulted at least three times on its obligations during the 20th century...It isn’t too late to return to fiscal sanity. We could start by canceling out the debt held by the Federal Reserve, which would clear $1.6 trillion under the debt ceiling. Or we could cut trillions of dollars in spending by bringing our troops home from overseas, making gradual reforms to Social Security and Medicare, and bringing the federal government back within the limits envisioned by the Constitution.Default will be painful, but it is all but inevitable for a country as heavily indebted as the U.S. Just as pumping money into the system to combat a recession only ensures an unsustainable economic boom and a future recession worse than the first, so too does continuously raising the debt ceiling only forestall the day of reckoning and ensure that, when it comes, it will be cataclysmic.We have a choice: default now and take our medicine, or put it off as long as possible, when the effects will be much worse.
Known for being a staunch fiscal conservative, it’s no surprise that Gov. Rick Perry has signed the “Cut, Cap and Balance Pledge.” Perry writes, “It calls for the kinds of budget cuts Washington needs now and for a hard cap on all future spending. And it finally moves us to a mandatory balanced budget that will end the era of national debt, raging deficits and failed ‘stimulus’ programs that have negatively affected so many aspects of American life.”
“This is one of those line-in-the-sand moments” for Republicans, Pawlenty said. “Now it’s time for our team to walk the walk. We need to get something, some real meaningful structural reform.”Pawlenty said that Obama offered a “false premise” by saying the government had no choice but to raise the debt ceiling or default on its payments. He said the government has the cash flow “for a while” to pay its bills in priority order, which would buy time to make actual spending cuts.“Eventually you run out of money, but what you do is you buy yourself a bunch of time to have the debate about real reform,” he said....Like many GOP presidential candidates, Pawlenty has said he supports the “cut, cap and balance” pledge, which calls for cutting federal spending, placing enforceable spending caps on the federal government and adopting a constitutional amendment that would require the government to balance its budget each year...“I’ve been in favor of this approach,” Pawlenty said. “I no longer believe in the people we send to Washington, D.C., to balance the budget.”
Presidential hopeful Herman Cain insists the debt ceiling can be held where it is and all the hand-wringing over the issue “is a charade,” Politico says.“They can hold the debt ceiling where it is,” Cain said on “Fox News Sunday.” “The problem is it’s all political posturing. They do not need to raise the debt ceiling."Cain claimed that if the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling isn’t raised, the Obama administration could make priorities to pay down interest on the debt, pay military families, and issue Social Security checks.
On Tuesday night, Ms. Bachmann was one of nine House Republicans to vote against a debt-ceiling package pushed by conservative Republicans. The measure, which passed the GOP-controlled House, would slash federal expenditures by more than $100 billion in fiscal 2012, limit federal spending to a percentage of GDP and start the process of passing a balanced budget amendment.The congresswoman’s take on the House bill: It’s not enough.“The motion does not go far enough in fundamentally restructuring the way Washington spends taxpayer dollars,” she said in a written statement Tuesday night. “Along with cutting spending, putting in place enforceable spending caps that put us on a path to balance and passing a balanced budget amendment, we must also repeal and defund ObamaCare.”
Tweeting Monday, Mr. Romney said the president’s prime-time address to the nation represented a lack of leadership that would lead to increased taxes.
“An historic failure of leadership from @BarackObama, not even @SenatorReid is still talking about tax increases,” Mr. Romney tweeted.
Mr. Romney’s latest comment on raising the debt ceiling comes just weeks after the Republican presidential candidate side-stepped a question regarding whether he supports a proposed debt plan put forth by House Republicans.
“I believe we will not raise the debt ceiling unless the president is finally, finally willing to be a leader on the issue the American people care about,” Mr. Romney said.
This is the same president who proposed an absurdly irresponsible budget that would increase our debt by trillions of dollars, and whose party failed to even put forward a budget in over 800 days! This is the same president who is pushing our country to the brink because of his reckless spending on things like the nearly trillion dollar “stimulus” boondoggle. This is the same president who ignored his own debt commission’s recommendations and demonized the voices of fiscal sanity who proposed responsible plans to reform our entitlement programs and rein in our dangerous debt trajectory. This is the same president who wanted to push through an increase in the debt ceiling that didn’t include any cuts in government spending! This is the same president who wants to slam Americans with tax hikes to cover his reckless spending, but has threatened to veto a bill proposing a balanced budget amendment. This is the same president who hasn’t put forward a responsible plan himself, but has rejected reasonable proposals that would tackle our debt. This is the same president who still refuses to understand that the American electorate rejected his big government agenda last November. As I said in Madison, Wisconsin, at the Tax Day Tea Party rally, “We don’t want it. We can’t afford it. And we are unwilling to pay for it.”
Now the President is outraged because the GOP House leadership called his bluff and ended discussions with him because they deemed him an obstruction to any real solution to the debt crisis.
He has been deemed a lame duck president. And he is angry now because he is being treated as such.
