Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And you didn't respond to any of mine. McConnell is doing what's necessary to rein in irresponsible spending so that the debt ceiling won't need to be raised by an amount we can't possibly pay back. Cut the spending and you could see some GOP votes. Continue to ram through spending and other legislation on a party line vote, you'll get more of the same.

You can complain all you want, but even Democrats are wondering why Biden, Pelosi and Schumer can't get things done. Blame your own party, not the GOP.

Right now, the dbate is over covering the spending done as a result of the tax cuts fostered when the GOP controlled the House, Senate and White House - when, ironically, McConnell presided over the Senate. Laughable the bolded. You have been conned by right wing media.

Fact: GOP accumulated $9T of new debt under Trump's leadership.
Fact: GOP has been worse for the economy under each of its admininstrations going back to Reagan.
Fact: GOP has left the country in economic recession, or worse after its last three presidents: Bush, Bush and Trump.
Fact: the Dems have left the economy in better shape after its last two presidents: Clinton and Obama.

Can we dispense of the whole "GOP = Fiscal responsibility" please? It is just a trope and a lie.

THIS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if we don't pay our credit card bill on time?

Expect some vivid descriptions after this meeting today:

McConnell is 79. Something tells me he cares more about the here and now than the future of the country.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if we don't pay our credit card bill on time?

Expect some vivid descriptions after this meeting today:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if we don't pay our credit card bill on time?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if we don't pay our credit card bill on time?

Expect some vivid descriptions after this meeting today:

McConnell is 79. Something tells me he cares more about the here and now than the future of the country.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if we don't pay our credit card bill on time?

Expect some vivid descriptions after this meeting today:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if we don't pay our credit card bill on time?

Anonymous wrote:What happens if we don't pay our credit card bill on time?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And you didn't respond to any of mine. McConnell is doing what's necessary to rein in irresponsible spending so that the debt ceiling won't need to be raised by an amount we can't possibly pay back. Cut the spending and you could see some GOP votes. Continue to ram through spending and other legislation on a party line vote, you'll get more of the same.

You can complain all you want, but even Democrats are wondering why Biden, Pelosi and Schumer can't get things done. Blame your own party, not the GOP.

Right now, the dbate is over covering the spending done as a result of the tax cuts fostered when the GOP controlled the House, Senate and White House - when, ironically, McConnell presided over the Senate. Laughable the bolded. You have been conned by right wing media.

Fact: GOP accumulated $9T of new debt under Trump's leadership.
Fact: GOP has been worse for the economy under each of its admininstrations going back to Reagan.
Fact: GOP has left the country in economic recession, or worse after its last three presidents: Bush, Bush and Trump.
Fact: the Dems have left the economy in better shape after its last two presidents: Clinton and Obama.

Can we dispense of the whole "GOP = Fiscal responsibility" please? It is just a trope and a lie.

Anonymous wrote:
And you didn't respond to any of mine. McConnell is doing what's necessary to rein in irresponsible spending so that the debt ceiling won't need to be raised by an amount we can't possibly pay back. Cut the spending and you could see some GOP votes. Continue to ram through spending and other legislation on a party line vote, you'll get more of the same.

You can complain all you want, but even Democrats are wondering why Biden, Pelosi and Schumer can't get things done. Blame your own party, not the GOP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question- why do we even have a debt ceiling? It's been raised multiple times now. Clearly nobody takes it seriously as far as spending is concerned, so maybe they should just get rid of it altogether?

There’s no debt ceiling in the Constitution, it’s statutory. Congress established the debt ceiling after WWI to encourage fiscal discipline. It didn’t work.

It wasn't done for fiscal discipline reasons. It was done to make it easier to pay.

How does establishing a debt ceiling make it easier to pay? It makes it harder to pay.

Back in the day there needed to be a vote to authorize each tranche of treasuries. The debt ceiling allowed Treasury to sell them on their own.

Wrong. The debt ceiling was meant to enforce fiscal discipline.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/debt-ceiling.asp

Investopedia is good for a lot of things. Century old historical intent is not one. It's wrong.

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/181258

History News Network is not good for many things at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_debt_ceiling

"Prior to 1917, the United States had no debt ceiling. Congress either authorized specific loans or allowed Treasury to issue certain debt instruments and individual debt issues for specific purposes."

“Before the debt ceiling was created, Congress had free reign over the country’s finances. In 1917, the debt ceiling was created during World War I to hold the federal government fiscally responsible.”

That's your investopwsia statement. It's also an unsupported conjecture. My quote was from YOUR wikipedia entry and is a simple statement of fact.

Prior to the debt ceiling Congress authorized each specific tranche of debt. After the debt ceiling Treasury was allowed to issue debt as needed up to a certain dollar amount. If you look further, the initial debt issued under the new authority was only 1/3 of the authorized amount. The logic is inescapble. The debt ceiling was originally created to make the issuanxe of debt less cumbersome and easier. This makes complete sense since it was done in 1917, during a World War!, a time at which it would be insanely stupid to artificially limit spending.

You’re cherry picking. This is what Wikipedia says:

“Prior to 1917, the United States had no debt ceiling. Congress either authorized specific loans or allowed Treasury to issue certain debt instruments and individual debt instruments for specific purposes. Sometimes Congress gave Treasury discretion over which type of debt would be issued. The United States first instituted a statutory debt limit with the Secondary Liberty Bond Act of 1917. This legislation set limits on the aggregate amount of debt that could be accumulated through individual categories of debt (such as bonds and bills). In 1939, Congress instituted the first limit on total accumulated debt over all kinds of instruments.”

That's exactly what I said. It was a means of giving Treasury discretion and not having to vote every single time.

You’re completely missing the point. The debt ceiling was meant to reign in Congress, not Treasury.

Lordy. I understand that you want history to suppport your current partisan position but it just doesn't do that. It is nothing but a procedural quirk. Writing the check to pay the credit card charges we have already incurred.

Partisan? What does partisanship have to do with it? I’m merely pointing out the truth. There’s nothing partisan about it. We all know that raising the debt ceiling is to pay for debts Congress has already incurred. The debt ceiling was meant to stop Congress from incurring more debt.

So let's raise the debt ceiling to cover just our past bills and be done with it.

This is a game of brinkmanship, and if you don't think Pelosi and Schumer wouldn't do the exact same thing if the roles were reversed, you're lying to yourself. Btw, the tax cuts aren't comparable. They did, in fact, pay for themselves. The $3.5T is partisan spending. If Democrats think the tax cuts were so bad, they're free to cut a check to the Treasury for what they would have paid. For many UMC W-2 earners, it actually was a tax increase (no SALT deduction).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What on Earth are you babbling about? I was arguing an historical fact. I wasn’t saying anything about whose fault the present crisis is. Whose fault the present crisis is has nothing to do with anything I was talking about.

And you didn't respond to any of mine. McConnell is doing what's necessary to rein in irresponsible spending so that the debt ceiling won't need to be raised by an amount we can't possibly pay back. Cut the spending and you could see some GOP votes. Continue to ram through spending and other legislation on a party line vote, you'll get more of the same.

You can complain all you want, but even Democrats are wondering why Biden, Pelosi and Schumer can't get things done. Blame your own party, not the GOP.