DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Obama solves the debt ceiling problem

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Well, according to your buddies at HuffPo, it hasn't ruled it out.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/09/platinum-coin-white-house_n_2442073.html

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Pretty sure it's coming down the pipeline with instituting Sharia Law, banning the American flag, revealing that he's actually gay, and is going to take away guns.

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The White House hasn't endorsed the idea, but they hadn't ruled it out either.

It's so ludicrous on the face of it but they hadn't outright rejected the notion. It was actually discussed as a real solution by defenders of this administration's economic policies.

Did they explicitly say that they endorsed the idea? No. But again, they hadn't rejected it either, which leaves the door open to them endorsing it at a future point.

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Figured that's where you were going with this.



As DC, said, there's plenty of real things to be upset about. This stuff just comes off as foolish.

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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama demanded on Monday that lawmakers raise the nation's $16.4 trillion federal debt limit quickly, warning that "Social Security benefits and veterans' checks will be delayed" if they don't and cautioning Republicans not to insist on cuts to government spending in exchange.

"They will not collect a ransom in exchange for not crashing the economy," he said at the 21st and final news conference of his first term. "The full faith and credit of the United States of America is not a bargaining chip. And they better decide quickly because time is running short."

Answering questions for about an hour, Obama also said he will soon ask Congress to enact new gun control legislation in the wake of the shootings that left 20 elementary students dead at a Newtown, Conn., school a little more than a month ago.

Among the proposals under consideration are a ban on assault-style weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines. Obama said he would unveil his proposals next week. He was meeting after his news conference with Vice President Joe Biden, his point man in producing gun control measures to present to Congress.

Facing stiff opposition from the National Rifle Association, he conceded lawmakers may not approve everything he asks for.

Obama joked about perhaps inviting more members of Congress to the White House for social functions. With his daughters growing older and less inclined to spend their time with him and his wife, Michelle, he said, "I'm getting kind of lonely in this big house."

But the risk of a default once the debt ceiling is reached dominated the news conference, and Obama treated it as anything but a laughing matter.

"We are not a deadbeat nation," he declared, less than a week away from taking the oath of office for a second term.

Within minutes, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the president and his allies in Congress need to get serious about spending, and the debt-limit debate is the perfect time for it.

"I do know that the most important issue confronting the future of our country is our deficit and debt," McConnell said. "So we are hoping for a new seriousness on the part of the president with regard to the single biggest issue confronting the country, and we look forward to working with him to do something about this huge, huge problem."

House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement, "The American people do not support raising the debt ceiling without reducing government spending at the same time. ... The House will do its job and pass responsible legislation that controls spending, meets our nation's obligations and keeps the government running, and we will insist that the Democratic majority in Washington do the same."

While most of the questions focused on the economy and gun control, Obama also urged critics not to "rush to judgment" in evaluating his second-term team for diversity.

He turned aside a question of whether his record with Congress would be better if he invited more lawmakers to the White House in off-hours. When guests from Congress make the trip to the executive mansion, "I promise you, Michelle and I are very nice to them. We have a wonderful time. But it doesn't stop them from going on the floor of the House and blasting me for being a big spending Socialist," he said.

Obama made his remarks as a new Congress was settling in for its own new term, Republicans in control of the House and Democrats in the Senate.

Lawmakers face three distinct deadlines before April 1. The debt limit must be raised to prevent a default, a series of across-the-board spending cuts is to kick in on March 1, and funding for most government programs will run out on March 27.

Obama virtually dared Republicans to let the government shut down rather than renew funding beyond March 27. "It will hurt the economy," he said emphatically.

The president opened his news conference with a statement by saying that a vote to increase the debt limit "does not authorize more spending. It simply allows the country to pay for spending that Congress has already agreed to. These are bills we've already racked up and we need to pay them."

Jabbing at Republicans, he quoted House Speaker John Boehner's remarks of two years ago that allowing a default on U.S. obligations — the practical effect of failing to raise the debt limit — would be a disaster.

Obama said he was willing to consider future deficit cuts, but only if they are done independently from a vote to raise the $16.4 trillion debt limit.

In a blunt rebuttal to Republicans who say they will not agree to any more tax increases, the president said taxes and spending both must be on the table.

He said he is "open to making modest adjustments to programs like Medicare to protect them for future generations," and wants to close tax loopholes at the same time.

Obama spoke less than a week before his inauguration for a second term, and several days after he signed legislation that narrowly averted a "fiscal cliff" of automatic spending cuts and across-the-board tax increases.

Combined with other bills he signed earlier in the term, he said he and Congress have reduced deficits by about $2.5 trillion over a decade, somewhat less than the $4 trillion he said is necessary to get them down to a manageable size.

"I'm happy to have a conversation about how we reduce our deficits in a sensible way," he said, but added repeatedly he wasn't willing to let congressional Republicans use the debt limit as leverage in negotiations over spending cuts.

Failure to raise the debt limit would put the United States into a first-ever default, a step that Obama said could "blow up the economy."

Congressional Democrats have recently urged the president to lift the debt limit unilaterally. He said — as he has before — that he won't do it, that Congress had voted for the spending that resulted in federal borrowing, and should now agree to pay the bill.

When it came to gun legislation, the president sought to reassure sportsmen and hunters that they have nothing for worry about.

"The issue here is not whether or not we believe in the 2nd Amendment. The issue is whether there are sensible steps we can take so that the individual in Newtown can't walk into a school and gun down a bunch of children in a shockingly rapid fashion. Certainly we can do something about that," he said.

Short of legislation, the president said there were administrative actions he could take. Asked to provide an example, he said, "How we are gathering data, for example, on guns that fall into the hands of criminals and how we track that more effectively."


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However, he can scare old people with such a tactic ..... which is, unfortunately, standard Democrat fare. (and not even the most partisan Democrat can debate that. Democrats always try to scare old people telling them that the evil Republicans are going to take their checks away ...... shove them off a cliff ....... and so on)

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Both parties do that at a pretty consistent rate.

Remember when the evil Democrats were going to have panels that would decide to kill grandma under Obamacare?

Always baffling, laughable and sad that folks pretend there's a difference between R and D.

And then we wonder why we're in the mess we are.

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Exactly.

How can you have any serious discussion about the national debt and the federal deficit when you have no budget at all?

It's no wonder this country is in such dire financial straits.

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Exactly.

How can you have any serious discussion about the national debt and the federal deficit when you have no budget at all?

It's no wonder this country is in such dire financial straits.

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Because without a budget, asking for more money is easy.

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Exactly.

How can you have any serious discussion about the national debt and the federal deficit when you have no budget at all?

It's no wonder this country is in such dire financial straits.

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Because without a budget, asking for more money is easy.

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Do you even have to ask for more money?

I'm serious.

If there is no budget, then how do departments know what they can spend, and what they have spent?

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What the average company pays for something the government pays a price many times higher. They can't do anything within a reasonable amount of money.

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I remember reading somewhere that there are 3-5 governmental employees to do the same job 1 person does in the private sector.

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And therein lies the problem. When you hear that the government pays $6000 for a hammer, this is where it starts. If private contractor wants a hammer, they send Joe down to Lowes to get one and the cost of the hammer is, $40 for the hammer, 2 hours of Joe's time at $25/hour, mileage on the company truck, accounting to pay for the hammer when the bill comes in and probably a couple other minor things so in the end, the $40 hammer costs the contractor $100 or so, assuming he's so inefficient that he sends a guy to the store every time he needs one tool...

With the government, 40 people get involved in that process of deciding they need a hammer, picking a hammer, signing off all of the paperwork required in buying the hammer, paying for the hammer, etc.. so in the end, they will write lowes a check for $40 for the hammer but the hammer will cost the tax payers a whole lot more than the private contractor... The government has created systems and added layer upon layer of approvals in an effort to save a dime, that they end up spending $20 to save a dime on the actual purchase price... If John Q Public looked at the governments books and saw that they wrote a check for $100 for a $40 hammer, he would be upset.. instead he looks at the books and sees that we paid $40 for a $40 hammer and he's happy... he doesn't see the $1700 in office people and paperwork we spent to make sure we only paid $40 and not a penny more...