I can see both sides. That’s all you need to do. Just say it once and you’ll feel better. )

Give us one reason to believe in Boehner. I think it is you who should question your sanity. Boehner is a vindictive liar who has no spine. How Bout you prove otherwise or stop whining?

I saw the writing on the wall the day after election day. The fiscal cliff is coming. Obama wants it. He wants to use it for new spending and no doubt to grow the welfare class as a result of higher unemployment and a horrible economy as a result. Gear up, folks. Check what your tax rates and credit and deductibles will be for 2013 because the only thing you can be sure of is that they will not be the same. Prepare so you don’t have to be caught in Obama’s welfare net.
Yup, there’s nothing the GOP can do to avoid being blamed so they might as well not tear up their ‘brand’ trying to be liked. I do approve, however, of the House passing the requisite bills so now it’s the Senate’s responsbility to do something about it. At least they’re trying to put some of the blame where it belongs, not that the media will report it as such.
I also understand all the points of view expressed here. I think it’s probably best understood as people’s way of coming to grips with a new reality. We’re grieving in our own ways, fighting in our minds against the inevitable. At different stages of the grieving process, we’re bound to disagree with each other.

Save your fingers (breath didn’t work out too well). Anyone who is a self-proclaimed “common sense observer” isn’t about to change his mind.

This debate is at the same time boring me and driving me insane.

1) Democrats ran on raising taxes and increasing spending. Period.
2) Obama and Reid were returned to their respective positions of power by the voters.
3) Current spending is unsustainable without some major changes.
4) Democrats do not want to cut spending. By a dime. Ever.
5) The citizens who feed at the trough of government, and by that I mean every single one of us, need to understand that the party is over and it’s time to pay the tab.
6) The tax increases to support a fraction of the spending hit us all. They should.
7) The GOP needs to walk away from the fiscal cliff negotiations and tell Obama the debt ceiling will not be raised. He and Harry Reid will need to make some hard choices and the GOP will be ready to listen whenever Obama gets off the golf course and Harry Reid gets done gossiping about Mitt Romney.

The issue is spending. There was a bill passed to handle the situation. BARACK OBAMA SIGNED THE BILL.

This is easy. Really.

Sure the Democrats feel that way. So what? The way our system is supposed to work is the House passes a bill, the Senate passes a bill, and then they go to conference to work out the differences. THAT’s where negotiations are supposed to happen, not before a bill is even introduced.

“No matter what the GOP is going to be blamed.” I think that is right– but only because they chose to play the game with rules stacked against them. If, on the other hand, the Speaker and Senator McConnoll had reminded the President of his promise to hold negotiations on CSPAN and then refused any other venue, we might have been able to defeat the spin and lies, and demonstrate actual fiscal competence. Let the public witness the debate, and even call in– and then the blame game is minimized. Governing is what is called for here–not posturing and maneuvering.

Yes, no matter what, the Republican’s are going to be blamed.

The Bush Tax Cuts will fully expire and everyone’s taxes go up.

We all know a new deal is going to be made in 2013 and that Obama is going to get the credit for it.

Heck, the ‘new’ plan will probably be referred to as The Obama Tax Cuts.

i assume you have got medical insurance and car insurane (collision). Will you pay in what you get out of those?

Some will, some will not. Overall, those who pay in won’t get the same or more than they paid because if they got more than they paid in, the industry would go bankrupt. As for me personally – I will not get nearly what I paid in on auto, I will get more than I paid in with medical.

And that is the point with SS and Medicare / Medicaid. It’s going bankrupt because people aren’t paying in what they get out – the system was designed so a higher number of people later would pay the benefits of the people getting benefits now – a classic Ponzi scheme.

Well, I’ll attack the idea of Social Security – not just the way it was set up. I have no need for, or faith in, the government to secure my future as my husband and I are quite capable of doing that for ourselves (and have done so with no expectation of receiving SS). The government has confiscated a portion of our earnings for over 30 years without my approval, and it has managed that money poorly, and again, has done so without my approval. If my son is fortunate enough to find a job upon his college graduation, the government intends to confiscate a portion of his earnings. Again, without his approval. No doubt it will continue to mismanage the confiscated money. This pattern either has to stop at some point or it will fail. Since the government will not willfully stop taking my earnings and managing SS poorly, it is going to fail. It’s only a question of when. If you believe there is a solvent SS trust fund, I have some land to sell you.

You should have read a little Krauthammer when you were writing your paper.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/10/AR2011031005932.html

or this…

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/22/the-social-security-trust-fund-will-start-going-bankrupt-in-2013/

I’m glad your parents are secure. Mine aren’t, and not because they lacked “brains” or because they “pissed away” their money

sheesh

the money collected by payroll taxes goes only to current retirees. there’s no “government managing” of the money.i read that Krauthammer piece and he is totally right – “Raise the retirement age, tweak the indexing formula (from wage inflation to price inflation) and means-test so that Warren Buffett’s check gets redirected to a senior in need.”

Its the 21st Century. If we and our leaders “die on the hill” some might think we are heros but we’re still dead. We need to have a strategy that works to reduce government size in the long term. As I have been trying to explain to fellow conservative friends -in the typical liberal mind the amount of money being taken in is not related at all to how much money can be spent. My core value has always been smaller government and that should be the conservative position. In our minds lower taxes equals smaller government but in the reality of today it only means higher deficits at best. Liberals have no awareness that deficts are bad; read any liberal blog. Give Obama his tax increase on the rich but demand an offsetting tax cut for the middle class. When the liberals complain about the deficit then we have the conversation back to something we want. The right course for the Republicans was to give Obama the tax increase in return for a separation of the deficit argument into 3 parts -Social Security, Medicare, and everthing else. On SS and Medicare require that the viablity of the programs be extended for a predetermined amount of time, say 40 years. This would require cuts in benefits, higher taxes or both in each case. If the sides can not agree within 8 months then allow each party to take ownwership for meeting the goals by unilateral action using a list by the OMB. Why do all this? Because we can control the conversation and the outcome. Libs want no entitlement reform and they want us to be the bad guys. In this case we only want to extent these program’s viability. On other spending simply require that the Senate pass a budget or an automatic freeze in spending would begin next fiscal year. This should give the Republicans room to intelligently negotiate other reforms. I am tried of conservatism being used as a barrier instead af an asset to improve our country. I am also tired of conservates acting dumb. Boehner must go.

I was instead flashing back to one of the recent live-action Scooby-Doo movies:

Shaggy: “We’re gonna die!”
Velma: “Be more optimistic!”
Shaggy: “We’re gonna die quickly!”

Unfortunately, most of our Republican representatives are not smart enough to negotiate this, and they don’t have the capital to make it happen. Instead, we get tax hikes with offsetting spending cuts spread out over ten year that then get removed down the line. Cuts that never materialize in exchange for terrible tax hikes.

I think I’m buying into the that this is the hill we need to make a stand on. Someone has to be the adult in the room, put their foot down, and say “Enough.” Wishy washy half measures like those Mitt Romney proposed will only get us the same result he got – sitting at home watching TV,

I see your point. In reality the fiscal cliff already gives both sides what they say they want. Less spending and higher tax rates.

Because once the legislative process has decided how much to spend and tax, the need to borrow is already determined. There is no imaginary third decision as to whether or not the government should borrow money. Once the spending and taxing decisions are codified into laws, passed by Congress and signed by the President, whether or not the government will have a surplus or a deficit, and thus whether it will need to borrow money, is no longer a decision that can be made.

If the debt limit is not increased, I predict Obama will direct the Treasury to continue selling bonds as necessary, and dare the House to take it to the Supreme Court. I predict the Supreme Court will find that the Government cannot choose to not pay its bills, as per the Constitution. It will affirm that the Treasury (part of the Executive Branch) has full authority, granted by Congress, to borrow as much money as necessary, so long as it is the direct consequence of the legislative process.

The debt limit is not unconstitutional, necessarily. I suspect SCOTUS would find that it is a legal means by which Congress can prevent the Treasury from borrowing more money than the law requires. But, I suspect SCOTUS would also find that Congress cannot pass a law that, in effect, forces the Treasury to borrow less money than the law requires, and consequently forces us to default on our obligations.

Simply put, Congress cannot force the country to default on obligations that are the consequences of laws passed by Congress.

The Treasury, on the behalf of the prez can not increase the ceiling- it must be Congress. If Congress doesn’t raise it, again, not saying it’s a good or bad idea, the prez and Timmy can’t raise the ceiling but they can decide what gets paid after the interest and entitilements like SS. See my references above.

I enjoyed the articles, thanks. I found this quote particularly instructive:

“When the 14th Amendment was passed, Senator Benjamin ‘Bluff’ Wade of Ohio, a proponent, set forth the rationale: ‘I believe that to do this will give great confidence to capitalists and will be of incalculable pecuniary benefit to the United States, for I have no doubt that every man who has property in the public funds will feel safer when he sees that the national debt is withdrawn from the power of a Congress to repudiate it and placed under the guardianship of the Constitution.’”

But, as a consequence, I reached a different conclusion than the article. The reference to “all capitalists” indicates to me that this limit was not designed to apply only to Treasury issued debt, but was intended to apply to all debts. Let me provide an example.

Suppose you are a defense contractor, and you sell your products to various branches of the armed forces. On Feb 1st, you deliver your latest batch of products and services, and invoice the Government on a net 30 day basis. The government now owes you money. Its debt. Of course, its a current liability on the government balance sheet, not long-term debt. No one has to ask Congress to approve a 30 day invoice.

But what happens if, this time, the government doesn’t pay. By the time March 1st arrives, the Government hit the debt ceiling, and stopped paying companies like you, as it must prioritize other debts first. It will pay you eventually, at least you hope, but it could be a long-time before you get paid. Now it becomes long-term debt, just like a t-bill, on the government’s balance sheet. Except in this case, you are not getting paid interest. Its an interest free loan that you are giving to the government, with no known maturity date, because your debt is lower priority than other people’s debt.

How does anyone prevent that from happening? They can’t. You delivered the products & services. The government is obligated to pay you. They didn’t. So now they owe you money. The Government’s debt has gone up, regardless of the debt ceiling.

That was my point above — the debt is a direct result of spending and taxing decisions. Once those decisions are made, the amount of debt that will be incurred is a foregone conclusion, regardless of whether or not there is a debt ceiling. Whether “the property in public funds” is an unpaid invoice, or a outstanding t-bill, the money will be borrowed one way or another. The only difference is the terms.

Additionally, perhaps as a consequence of not getting paid, you stop doing work for the government, or you increase your prices or take other actions that lead to a less favorable result. It would seem it was precisely this type of outcome that the 14th Amendment was designed to prevent.

If this quote exemplifies the thinking at the the 14th Amendment passed, its hard to see how the SCOTUS would conclude the notion of debt is limited only to Treasury issued debt. It seems to me the express purpose of the 14th Amendment is to broadly limit Congress’ power to disregard all forms of public debt. This applies not just to investors holding t-bills, but as it says, to all “capitalists” who enter into agreements with the US government that result in the debt obligations (such as the one in my little example).

I agree with checkmate below. Obama will have to decide which bills get paid, period. I say let him.

I am a LIBERAL : Let It Burn; Erect Real Answers Later.
Vote ‘Present’; let the Democrats own Obama’s proposal – the same way that they own ObamaCare.

Ed, as the days go by my faith diminishes more and more-just interacting with people on a daily basis confirms what you suggest-the intelligence and the sense that there is a brain at work behind the eyes just isn’t there when you look at people and what passes back to you is emptiness and self-absorption…