A Look At The News
Sep 12, 2017 General, Political
Debt Limit Surpasses 20 TRILLION!
The US debt limit (debt ceiling) has exceeded 20 TRILLION dollars (debt counter in right sidebar). The claim is that the debt jumped 317.6 Billion dollars in one day but that is only due to the funny math and accounting procedures used by the federal government. You see, the debt limit was reached months ago. In March we hit the statutory limit and the federal government has been using what it calls extraordinary measures to keep paying the bills. This involves taking money from the government funds in pension plans, stopping government contributions to pension plans and other methods of manipulating money the government does not own but controls (one day they will just confiscate it and pay the bills and dare you to do anything about it).
The reason there was a spike in the debt which had held at the same number since March is that President Trump and Congressional Democrats agreed to a plan to extend the debt ceiling and pass a continuing resolution moving the time to 15 December at which time the government will need to come to an agreement on the budget. Republicans wanted to kick this can down the road and Trump wanted to accomplish it by the end of the fiscal year (30 Sept) but the two hurricanes pummeled Texas and Florida and money is needed for disaster relief. Remember, Trump was ready to shut down the government if he did not get what he wanted but doing so now that people are suffering would be a stupid move so he agreed to increase debt, a CR and disaster relief until 15 December.
If he is smart (he keeps saying he is) he will use the holidays to hold Congress hostage and not let them adjourn until he gets what he wants or he can let the government shut down through the holidays. If he goes to the public now explaining what he expects and what will happen if he does not get it he might be able to get what he wants. Time will tell if he is a deal maker or a deal faker.
Rand Paul Has A Better Plan
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky said that the disaster relief for Texas, Florida and other states affected by the hurricanes should come out of the foreign aid budget. He introduced the America First Amendment that would do just that. It would take billions of dollars from the foreign aid we send to other nations and use it instead for disaster relief. This is a wonderful idea. Who could not get on board of actually taking money that we usually give to nations that tolerate us, hate us or want to kill us and use it HERE in our own country instead? Who cannot get behind the idea of using American tax dollars to help Americans in America rather than letting it go to help people in foreign nations?
Evidently most of the Senate can’t because they voted against the Amendment 87-10. That means 87 US Senators thought it would be a better idea to send US tax dollars to other nations rather than spending them here to help our own people. One of those who voted against is a Senator from Texas. Sad, very sad indeed.
Remember this when these jackasses ask for your vote.
More Of The Police State
The Miami Herald is reporting that many folks who live in the Florida Keys and followed the mandatory evacuation orders are not being allowed back into the Keys. The police have blocked the road and tensions are high as people try to get back to their properties to see what their losses are. The police claim there is debris and live wires (even though all the power is out) across the roadway. The indications are it might be a week before these folks are allowed back in. They are being told to go to a shelter (26 miles away) and wait to be told they can enter.
People are not happy at this police state. The claim that public safety is a priority can only go so far. Emergency vehicles and certain others who live in specific areas of the Keys (the outraged claim it is the rich people who live there) are crossing the roads and making it in. There is no reason that the people who live there can’t get in to survey their properties and determine if they can stay or if they need to pack belongings and bug out until repairs are made. This is government making a bad situation worse by flexing its muscles.
Many folks interviewed are letting the police and elected officials know that the next time they will ignore the mandatory evacuation orders and stay home. They claim this is why most people do not follow those orders. They say getting back home is the problem and officials are only making it a certainty that more people will be placed in harm’s way the next time.
Gouging Bad Unless Government Does It
Remember not that long ago as Harvey was approaching and people were told to evacuate? Remember how the news was filled with stories of disgusted people who were faced with eight and nine dollar a gallon gas and water ranging from forty-eight to seventy-two dollars a case? Does anyone remember government officials claiming gouging will not be tolerated and businesses that price gouge should be ashamed and will be held accountable? I seem to remember a lot of bluster from government stooges who claimed they would tramp down hard on people found to be gouging.
[note]It is amazing that people in Florida will go to Disney and spend three dollars for a bottle of water (which is seventy-two dollars a case) and not bat an eye but when they have to pay a dollar and a half or two dollars a bottle they scream bloody murder.[/note]
Well now, it seems those very anti price gouging politicians who would come down hard on the price gougers are guilty of the very same thing. The Mayor of Houston has proposed a 9% increase in property tax to pay for some of the cleanup from hurricane Harvey. Yes, the very officials who were talking about how immoral it was to gouge for water and gas are now gouging for taxes.
The tax increase would be temporary (they always start that way) and would be in the tax bill due the first part of 2018. Isn’t it amazing that a gas station that will be shut down raises its prices and charges more for water to curb hoarding and make up for future loss is condemned by the very government that thinks it is OK to raise taxes on people who have suffered huge financial losses and who will have trouble making ends meet and rebuilding?
I think if I lived there and Houston politicians wanted to increase my property tax I would force them to come reassess my property so I could pay taxes on the lower value now that it is damaged.
In any event, politicians are all the same. They think people are ATMs and that money can be withdrawn at any time for any reason.
Remember these jackasses when they ask for your vote.
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: debt limit, hurricane, lies, police state, proice gouging and taxes, rand paul
Obama And Reid Holding Gun To Our Heads
Oct 15, 2013 Political
The mantra from Obama and his minions has been that the Republicans are holding a gun to their heads and they [Democrats] will not negotiate. They want a clean continuing resolution and a clean debt ceiling increase (by clean they mean without condition). The Republicans want a delay in the Obamacare individual mandate so that bugs in the system can be fixed and people will have a year before they are taxed for not having health insurance. This is particularly necessary now that the Obamacare roll out has been a huge failure.
Make no mistake; Republicans also want to delay this so they can work on defunding or repealing. A delay would also push Obamacare up against the 2014 midterm elections. Everything Obama has done to delay has pushed things past that election. He wants the votes before the bad stuff hits.
When Ted Cruz filibustered for 21 hours he made the comment that unions were trying to get a delay in Obamacare and that delay had been rejected but he (Cruz) suspected that once the budget was taken care of the delay for unions would not be far behind. Obama wants to help his union buddies but he does not want to do so until after he gets what he wants.
Funny thing because the clean CR the Democrats scream for is not so clean now and the gun being held is in their hands and against our heads.
When Harry Reid said he would not pass anything but a clean CR he only meant clean by Democrat standards. That means he gets to add what he wants, he gets to set the terms and he expects the Republicans to just do it. The newest deal calls for a delay for unions.
Say it isn’t so! The clean CR would actually be dirtied with a provision that would help the unions out. Reid and Obama REFUSED to delay the individual mandate for everyone else so much so that they shut the government down.
Yes folks, contrary to what the liberal media are telling you, Obama and Reid shut down the government. Harry Reid rejected a CR that delayed the individual mandate and then he rejected a CR that removed all waivers and forced Obamacare to be implemented as passed.
They rejected the first because they do not care about the individual and they rejected the second because Democrats do not want to have to fall under Obamacare like everyone else is required to do. Get that? Obamacare is good enough for you but not for members of Congress and the special groups Obama has granted waivers to.
[note]I know members of Congress are required to sign up under the exchanges. The issue is that they were required to do it based on the subsidy (which none would be eligible for) and not receive the employer contribution. This is the law as they passed it. Obama had the rules changed to allow the taxpayer to foot 75% of the bill for members of Congress and their staff. This is why government shut down. Democrats do not want to follow the law they are forcing on the rest of us.[/note]
So the CR is not so clean and the union exemption is not the only thing the Democrats are pushing. They want to do away with the sequester cuts and increase the debt limit another 1.2 TRILLION dollars. That’s right folks, King B. Hussein Obama is not content with accumulating more debt than nearly all other presidents combined, he wants to make sure he has spent more in his tenure than in the entire history of this nation.
This tactic will undo the things Obama agreed to the last time the debt ceiling was raised. The sequester was an axe over the heads of Congress to come up with a plan. This was a deal struck in order to raise the debt ceiling the last time. Congress failed to act and the sequester cuts took place. Now Obama and his Democrats want to undo all that in this go round.
So the clean CR and clean debt ceiling increase is not so clean after all.
Never trust a Democrat. They lie and they will screw you every chance they get.
If the Republicans cave and allow this without getting AT LEAST the delay in the individual mandate then there needs to be a new Speaker of the House.
And a lot of Republicans need to have primary opponents.
Remember what Obama said when he was a Senator and George Bush wanted the debt ceiling raised:
Mr. President, I rise today to talk about America’s debt problem.
The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.
Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is “trillion” with a “T.” That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion. Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.
And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on. Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities. Instead, interest payments are a significant tax on all Americans — a debt tax that Washington doesn’t want to talk about. If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we would see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.
But we are not doing that. Despite repeated efforts by Senators Conrad and Feingold, the Senate continues to reject a return to the commonsense Pay-go rules that used to apply. Previously, Pay-go rules applied both to increases in mandatory spending and to tax cuts. The Senate had to abide by the commonsense budgeting principle of balancing expenses and revenues. Unfortunately, the principle was abandoned, and now the demands of budget discipline apply only to spending. As a result, tax breaks have not been paid for by reductions in Federal spending, and thus the only way to pay for them has been to increase our deficit to historically high levels and borrow more and more money. Now we have to pay for those tax breaks plus the cost of borrowing for them. Instead of reducing the deficit, as some people claimed, the fiscal policies of this administration and its allies in Congress will add more than $600 million in debt for each of the next 5 years. That is why I will once again cosponsor the Pay-go amendment and continue to hope that my colleagues will return to a smart rule that has worked in the past and can work again.
Our debt also matters internationally. My friend, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, likes to remind us that it took 42 Presidents 224 years to run up only $1 trillion of foreign-held debt. This administration did more than that in just 5 years. Now, there is nothing wrong with borrowing from foreign countries. But we must remember that the more we depend on foreign nations to lend us money, the more our economic security is tied to the whims of foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours.
Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that “the buck stops here.” Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.
I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.
Obama opens by telling us that the need to raise the debt limit is a failure of leadership and he closes by telling us that we are saddling our children and grandchildren with debt. The middle part describes the evils of the money problem. I will point out that all the things he paints as an evil picture with regard to Bush are much worse under him.
We do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem and a lot of it involves welfare. The food stamp program went off line this weekend and millions panicked. They then were able to shop without any limit so they spent much more than they had on their cards. We paid for that.
There is a woman who has 15 children by a bunch of baby daddies and she says somebody needs to be held accountable and pay for her children. You get that? She says it is the responsibility of society to pay for the 15 kids she has. Newsflash, if you can’t support them don’t have them. If she had a job she would be too tired to open her legs when she went to bed.
A single mother in Pennsylvania is eligible for $80,000 in government “benefits”. That means she gets more in welfare than a lot of people make working.
We do not have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem and most of it is in the form of welfare. You know, modern slavery led by the taskmasters in the Democrat Party.
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: budget, continuing resolution, debt limit, extortion, Obama, obamacare, Terrorism
Obama Then And Now
Sep 21, 2013 Political
Barack Obama is working hard to get the debt ceiling of the nation raised. We are already at 17 TRILLION dollars but Obama wants more. The asinine statements that raising the debt ceiling does not give us more debt are an insult to people with brains. Raising the debt ceiling allows government to borrow more money which leads to greater debt. If there will be no increase in our debt then there is no need to raise the ceiling.
But Obama wants more. He has already added 8 TRILLION dollars and he is not yet satisfied. He is out saying that Republicans are holding the nation hostage because they want cuts to go with any debt ceiling increase.
We must cut our spending. There is no other way around it and raising the debt ceiling is not a way to do that. Force Congress to live with what it gets and keep the ceiling where it currently sits.
We can do that with cuts.
But to Obama the Republicans are doing things that have never been done. Why, we must raise the debt ceiling as a matter of good business and those mean Republicans are preventing us from doing this and it has never happened before, all this hostage taking to get what one party wants. After talking about how it has never been done before Obama then discussed the dangers of not allowing a president, any president, to raise the debt ceiling so we can ensure our bills are paid:
“George [Stephanopoulos], here’s the problem. If we continue to set a precedent in which a president, any president, a Republican president, a Democratic president, where the opposing party controls the House of Representatives, if that president is in a situation in which each time the United States is called upon to pay its bills, the other party can simply sit there and say, ‘Well, we’re not gonna pay the bills unless you give us what we want,’ that changes the constitutional structure of this government entirely.” Maddow Blog
Barack Obama is a typical liberal and those who support him are mindless drones with short memories. Nancy Pelosi says Obama is wonderful and has been non partisan. It is all those evil Republicans and Nancy has not seen anything like this in her entire 26 years in office. A real journalist would have asked her to submit to a drug test because this is how she treated George Bush. Democrats run roughshod over everything when they are in charge and Pelosi was no different as Speaker. Can you be any more of a mind numbed drone with a short memory?
[note]The Obama interview quote is from Rachael Maddow’s Blog and the title (GOP debt-ceiling hostage strategy takes shape) shows the writer [Steve Benen] is one of the mindless drones with a short memory.[/note]
Not long ago when Obama was a Senator he refused to vote to raise the debt ceiling. He did not think it was necessary for presidents to have a raised ceiling and he did not think it was important for America to pay her bills. In fact, Obama voted against raising the debt ceiling when George Bush was president as a protest to government spending too much of our money, or as he called it, reckless fiscal policies (what he really hated was that a Democrat was not spending too much of our money).
Here is what All Drama Obama had to say in 2006:
The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that “the buck stops here.” Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. National Review
Everything he said then is true with regard to now with the only difference being that the numbers are much larger. Obama has been a leadership failure. His policies and our debt increase are signs that we can’t pay our bills. We do rely on other countries to pay our bills and the bad choices made by Obama have passed debt onto the backs of our children and grandchildren.
By Obama’s own assessment he has been a leadership failure. We need to hold him to his word and remind him that the amount of debt passed on is grossly higher now than when he opposed doing what he now says we must.
The debt ceiling is not being held hostage the American taxpaying public is. We are held hostage to the shackles of debt amassed under an out of control government.
Obama is at the top of that mess and it all rests on him.
But I guess if Obama had to assign blame he would blame it on Bush…
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: debt limit, leadership, lies, Obama
A Guide To The Federal Debt Limit
Mar 27, 2012 Political
This is a guide to the federal debt limit made easy. So easy, in fact, that even a liberal should be able to understand it.
That was pretty simple, was it not? We are heading toward a cliff and the politicians are pushing the cart. In fact, they are joined by the unions and the entitlement crowd who are pushing us ever faster into a chasm.
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: bankrupt, debt limit, guide, liberals, spending
Buddy Can You Spare A Trillion?
Jan 13, 2012 Political
Barack Obama went to Congress with hat in hand and asked for another trillion dollars of debt. He wants the debt ceiling raised another trillion dollars so he can borrow and spend more. This will likely be done because Congress can do nothing to stop it.
Under the deal struck last year, Obama can ask for the increase and unless Congress votes not to allow it then it will happen. Since the Democrats control the Senate they will likely not vote to stop it and if they do (it is an election year) Obama can veto them and there are not enough votes to override the veto.
Obama and his policies have given us the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression and he is on track to borrow more than all the presidents from Washington to Clinton combined!
According to the Washington Post, Obama formally notified Congress on 12 January that he will raise the debt ceiling by 1.2 trillion dollars. The Congress has 15 days to say no or it will automatically happen. The House does not return until the 17th and the Senate the 23rd. So Congress will have very few days to actually work on this. This also brings up an off topic question.
Obama’s justice Department sided with him on his recess appointments saying that Obama is unable to communicate with the Senate because it is not in session. He, according to Justice, was able to make recess appointments because he can’t communicate with the Senate because they are not there. How is it then, he is able to communicate with Congress regarding his desire to raise the debt ceiling? How can he formally notify them of his desire to raise the debt and then claim he can’t formally notify them of nominations because they are not there?
OK, back on target. I think Obama will raise the ceiling because the cowards in Congress set it up so they do not have to deal with it. They can claim they never raised the ceiling even if they make a show of trying to stop it. They gave up their power on this issue just as they have done with many other powers they have.
I think that Obama is going to have a hard time convincing people that we need to keep borrowing to get out of debt. Borrowing money to put it into the economy does not stimulate anything and makes as much sense as taking water from the deep end of a pool and putting it in the shallow end and claiming that the shallow end is getting deeper while the deep end is getting shallower.
It simply does not work.
But it is an election year and Obama needs more seed money to pay off his base.
We need a do over on government. We need to get rid of them all and start over with the fresh minds of people who have not been corrupted by their position in office.
November is our revolution.
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: Congress, debt limit, lies, money, Obama, power, stimulus