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Mr. President, What Are Your Priorities?

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  July 12th, 2011 at 04:30 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

!!Raise My Debt Ceiling or Grandpa Gets It!!


“I cannot guarantee that those checks (Social Security Payments) go out on August 3rd if we haven’t resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it,”

– President Barack Obama, CBS News

President Barack Obama has announced that he may not be able to mail Social Security checks out on 3 August if he has not been given an increased debt ceiling to borrow more money for the government. The blackmail attempts have officially begun. Give us more money now, or watch the entitlement recipients in YOUR Congressional District start to get it.

According to James Pethokoukis, the US Treasury is not precluded from specifically making the next Social Security payment by actual liquidity. “Social Security payments Treasury needs to make on Aug 3. $22 billion. Treasury cash balance on Aug. 3: $74 billion.”

This implies these payments would be stopped as a result of fiscal priorities greater than making Social Security payments that totaled an amount greater than the $52Bn that the Treasury would have on its books as of 3 August 2011. As concerned American citizens, we are owed a dutiful and factual accountings of what those specific priorities happen to be. This is, after all, the most honest and open administration in the history of terrestrial democracy. Isn’t it?

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COMMENTS

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  • Tbone

    and start defunding the White House, EPA, the UN, NLRB, Education, etc, etc, etc. and every other dime that is going to some bunch of bums and perverts, TOMORROW morning.

    The Republican Leadership needs to call Obama the cheap, scaremongering crook that he is and assure the American people that Obama is not a dictator and that they will take whatever steps are necessary to keep him from becoming one.

    • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

      that I have to post on a blog and do it for them….

      • conservativecurmudgeon

        This is probably the most cynical, diabolical, manipulative thing I’ve ever witnessed from the Leninist wing of the Statist Democrats– and yet, the Republican Leadership (???) in the Senate is acting like it is a victim of Beaten Wife Syndrome, and is crouching in the corner with it’s collective forearms over their heads, evidently expecting another blow from the guy with the big ears.

        McConnell needs to take over every microphone he can find and explain to the American people it’s the President’s job to prioritize the outlays when crunch time comes… not the Congress. If Our Dear Leader chooses not to send out the Social Security checks, it’s HIS doing… not the Republicans in Congress.

        Get Out In Front of this — NOW, Mr. McConnell.

        • Kyle-MI

          While he didn’t cut off social security checks, Clinton pulled the same kind of stunt during his government shutdown. He closed the popular and visible federal government services like the national parks. This gave the MSM plenty of visual ammo to shoot at the GOP.

          The MN governor is doing the same thing right now during their shutdown. He closed the rest stops, not just locked up the bathrooms, but barricaded off the entrance and exit roads. He also closed the state parks.

          This is standard Democratic executive ploy 101. Shut down what affects people most, not what would affect them least. The media will always blame the GOP and give the Dem cover.

    • Sheila_Frush

      The current occupant of the WH can do whatever he pleases, if he doesn’t get his precious debt ceiling hike. He could purposely make people suffer in order to hang it around the republican’s necks.

      This is a man who cannot be trusted. We are not dealing with someone who cares about the constitution or playing by the rules, or telling the truth, for that matter.

      He will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. If he wants to remake America in his marxist image he will default and create mayhem.

      No one can say for sure what this man will do.

      • davesinsanantonio

        And pretty well, too!

  • YnotNOW

    Obama needs his own words turned on him (yet again).

  • apocomilitiaman

    Just found some money under the couch cushion Senator Mitch McConnell!

    Take his whole salary and every financial asset he has to pay down debt. Obviously, he no longer wants them. 3-steps is his 3 strikes!

    Primary this Mitch McConnell

  • Jim Tomasik

    If Congress truly holds the purse strings, the Republicans who control the house need to ram a quick short and simple bill through that will ensure the SS checks go out. Then let the Democrats try to stop it.

    Republicans will be the ones seen as protecting S.S. from the threats by the democrats. If the Senate Dems don’t block it, Obama will be exposed for the blackmailing a-hole he is.

    • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

      But then again, he does occasionally speak the truth just to torque people’s heads. If HOR did as you suggested, he and the Dems would be in a rhetorical bind to say the least.

      • Jim Tomasik

        start watching UFC.

    • ihateliberals

      budget deal about shutting down the government. It worke don boehnere that time I guess they figure it will work again. But why do they need Boehner when they have McConnell on their side. with republicans like this who eeds liberals?

    • littlehouse18

      ..

  • ihateliberals

    boy I didn’t see this one coming. McConnell needs to be run out of office right now. t least make him move to the other side of teh Senate and stop calling himself a Republican. this has to be the most (Ass)inine thing I have heard lately and I have heard some big ones. Why shouldn’t we just get rid of the Debt ceiling altogether and end this fight oce and for all. Just give Obama one big blank check and let him go we re already bankrupt anyway just let China come on in and take receivership like the Progressives want them to. I got sick to the stomach when i first heard this from the traitor McConnell. head of the RINO’s he gives it a whole new meaning now.

  • rightwardmarch

    Is your point that the Treasury could manage the next SS check? If so, fine, how about the next one?

    There is no question that without a debt limit increase that significant cuts would have to be made in SS payments going forward. You could lay off every non-military Federal employee, shutter every non-military department and end all foreign aid and we still wouldn’t be able to meet SS payments given our current level of revenue.

    • acat

      Because it’s exactly that kind of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt that’s being spread by .. Team Obama.

      The fact is, there’s still plenty of revenue coming in to make good on every spending item that existed in the last Federal Budget without a default nor breaking the debt ceiling.

      Mew

      • rightwardmarch

        Does the US Budget work as a citation?

        I realize that’s hard work to sift through, so let me point you to a couple of telling pie charts from the 2010 budget: Revenue and Spending.

        Go ahead and zero out the discretionary part of that spending chart (of course impossible as that shuts down the FAA/DHS/VA/funding of ongoing military operations etc.). Now zero out “Other mandatory” as well – so no more food stamps/unemployment benefits. All that is left is Medicare/SS/Defense/Interest. And that number is STILL HIGHER than the federal revenue. This year is even worse when you factor in the major temporary cut in the SS tax.

        The debt ceiling is not a magic wand. It is a blunt crude instrument that can’t be swung without clocking SS upside the head. That’s not FUD, that’s fact.

        • acat

          Total revenue, from *your* links, is $2162B.
          Total SS expenditure is $701B.

          Last time I checked, the latter is greater than the former, so .. we can still pay SS just fine. And most of Medicare ($793B) and DoD ($689B).

          Yes, we will have to cut *somewhere* – but there is no reason – other than Obama wishes to scare seniors – to cut specifically SS.

          It’s FUD. Period.

          Mew

      • rightwardmarch

        The fact is, there?s still plenty of revenue coming in to make good on every spending item that existed in the last Federal Budget without a default nor breaking the debt ceiling.

        How can that statement possibly be squared with reality? If that was true we wouldn’t have a budget deficit!

        • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

          .

        • jiminga

          was before Obama got the checkbook.

    • skorrent1

      R Hoven at today’s Am Thinker has laid out a proposal for FY12 that starts with the (unnecessary, IMO) assumption that the ceiling would not be raised and that Interest, SS, Medicare, and Military salaries would be paid in full. If the “SS Trust Fund” means anything, it means that the SS checks should be paid on a FIFO basis. That covers all but a pittance this year and next. If we could get BHO to admit that he’s taking SS Trust Fund monies to pay for GE windmills and Disneyland to Vegas trains instead of SS checks, he might not make it to next November.

      • rightwardmarch

        The SS trust fund consists of IOU’s from the Federal govt to the SS Fund. SS has been used for years now to cover the huge deficits in the part of the government that should be paid for by income tax (primarily).

        Freeze the debt limit and you have frozen the SS trust fund right along with all other federal spending. That’s just how it is.

        • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

          It has failed. Let it wreck like the Andrea Dora.

        • keysconservative

          Our beloved President has made an alarming confession: “Social Security is broke!” I say this is alarming because just a few short years ago, when W was President, the Democrats all insisted that Social Security was fine; no need for reform. Remember the jeers from the Democrats during the 2005 State of the Union speech when W said we need to get serious about Social Security reform. I do. So Social Security was fine under W but now under Obama it’s not only broke, it’s so broke that we have to borrow money just to cut the checks next month. So my question to our Professor in Chief is this: Did you piss away ALL the money in the Social Security lock box?
          On a side note, I’d love to see a video of all the Democrats from the 2005 State of the Union speech who jeered W. Was Obama there? What a campaign ad that would make…

          • keysconservative

            Dems applaud their own obstructionism at 2005 SOTU

            http://youtu.be/6mqSXsNJzRM

            Bush gets booed for pushing SS reform

            http://youtu.be/RBxmEGG71PM

    • steve010

      Let me see if I can get this liberal talking point right. Social Security is off the table because Social Security is not contributing to the deficit. Social Security is solvent until 2036 and no tinkering needs to be done with this program.

      A few days later, the President comes out and says that his administration can?t pay Social Security checks unless they can borrow the money for it because the money is not in ?the coffers?. I think that a coffer is somewhat synonymous to a lockbox. Actually a coffer is a small chest for holding valuables. So when his party told us for years and years that the Social Security trust funds were in a ?lockbox?, I guess they were lying because now the leader of the free world is telling us that he has to borrow the money on August 2nd to make the payments on August 3rd because somebody must have broken into the coffers. Surprise, Surprise, I opened the coffer and the money wasn?t there.

      • keysconservative

        “Let me be clear, the lock box was flush with cash from America’s hardest working generation-our seniors, until my predecessor picked the lock and stole the funds. I hate to sound like a broken Jay Z CD or a malfunctioning iPod but this problem we face with Social Security is no different than the problems we faced when I first took office-a war we can’t win, a broken economy, skyrocketing unemployment, our allies standing against us. The fact is the problem we face now with Social Security could have been avoided if my predecessor had listened to the warnings of my Democratic colleagues and instituted reforms before it was too late. I was one of the most vocal proponents of Social Security reform during my tenure in the Senate and the message we sent the American people was clear: If we don’t do something now the day is coming soon when we won’t be able to write the checks that so many of our seniors rely on for food and other basic life’s necessities. But as you know the Republicans in the house and senate and our Republican president at the time, refused to take the necessary steps to protect America’s most precious citizens-our seniors.”

  • johnt

    an olympian liar. There is a cash flow, so if this beast is serious he, or it, would in fact be stealing. Frankly, for this he doesn’t have the balls.
    I may add that such as he does have, it is only with the media covering his back, as well his front and sides. Doubt his creators could help him on this one.

  • http://jhpruitt.blogtownhall.com/ kipling

    If Chrissy Matthews can say such things, so can we.

    Is this lie not a terror threat designed to provoke a panic among our most vulnerable citizens?

  • sharp

    … who cannot guarantee SS checks should resign.

    Where are the candidates? What a perfect opportunity for Bachmann – or Perry – or Palin – to make the “guarantee.”

    Obama should resign.

    McConnell obviously doesn’t want to be leader anymore. Can he be replaced?

  • trutexan

    He said “I don’t support is if I am able to keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income that I don’t need, while, uh, a parent out there who is struggling to figure out how to send their kid to college suddenly finds, uh, that they’ve got a couple thousand dollars less in grants or student loans.?

    Now who on God’s green earth has a couple of hundred thousand dollars laying around that they don’t need???? This is wealth redistribution plain and simple. And any candidate who ignors this statement is a fool. Really? So Dear Leader Obama not only wants to regulate what you earn, but also what you can keep??? He has shown us his hand – AGAIN. He told Joe the Plumber the exact same thing but nobody believed it. Maybe he can get that couple extra hunnert-grand from Oprah or Brad Pitt or Leftist ad infinitum. Or maybe he can get it back from one of the federally funded universities that spit out these leftists.

    I wish the Fox media would stop repeating the progressive line that the military, Medicare and Social Security won’t be funded. Instead, why don’t they try, “If we don’t raise the debt ceiling, how will we fund the billions we are giving to foreign countries that hate us and we have to pay the interest on?”

    I’m so tired of conservatives playing nice. The Left has played mean and dirty for years. Time to get it Right and get even.

  • Common_Cents

    What a dirty pool liar Obama is to threaten SS rather than actually demonstrate real leadership in cutting government spending all over the board.

  • http://aposematic.wordpress.com aposematic

    SS is funded separately; but the kicker is, there is still, today, more taken in than goes out. So, if Obama doesn’t pay SS to seniors, it his by his choice only, nothing else. This lie–may not be enough in the coffers to pay SS–is outright pants on fire lies from our liar in chief, Obama. If there isn’t enough money in the coffers, its simply because the politicians have wasted the SS money on their pet projects that amount to nothing less than getting themselves reelected. Meanwhile, America and its people continue to get burned by the flaming political pants.

  • 1stRichard

    Republicans need to take advantage of this, Obama and the democrats spent your money on everything from a Nancy Pelosi mouse to a billion dollar car battery and now they are begging for a loan to rob your children by holding you hostage?

    What will it take for the majority of Republicans to stand up and fight?

  • averagevoterdotcom

    great points.
    screw this scumbag.
    call his bluff.
    I often mute video to read face and body language.
    try it on his cbs threat.
    he is bluffing.
    it is time to screw him to a wall, boehner!

    • izoneguy

      These marxist/socialists are out in the open and it is time to show them up & crush them. Obama will use his left flank and the MSM to cover his rear to pull out every dirty trick in the book. Obama is giving us a ton of ammo for the 2012 season. Keep in Barack – these threats will come back to haunt you.

      • acat

        then we’ve completely misread the situation.

        Reagan won and rode a wave of conservatism and optimism into D.C. … and the wave receeded.

        Newt launched the Contract With America, and rode a wave of conservatism and frustration into D.C. … and the wave receeded.

        2010 was a good sized wave .. 2012 is shaping up to be bigger .. but we need to remember in 2014 and 2016 and 2018 that there’s still more work to do …

        No more declaring victory and going home, no more receeding.. When the next conservative wave hits D.C., we have to *stick*.

        Mew

  • jaykali

    We’ll see if it works, but there isn’t really a downside to it from his point of view.

    It will be interesting to see what can get done with only 1/2 of 1 branch of govt in republican hands. I like the idea of Boehner putting the ball in Obama’s court to say show me your deficit plan bc we know he doesn’t have one. Obama’s plan is to try to weasel out of doing anything significant and settle on smoke and mirrors and ‘promises’ in the future and maybe closing a few tax loopholes.

    The real chess match has now begun. The media of course the whole time is trying to persuade the public that the republicans are just being so darned unreasonable for not taxing a few more dollars to all those billionaires out there. Man if we only did that, we’d be in great shape!

    I would think the republicans best move is to get a short term deal (6 months or so) with some modest cuts and I think the public will be on their side. Having this discussion prolonged still hurts Obama’s agenda to try to do anything else which if you’re a conservative is great news.

    I am still overall pessimistic that we can ever get the genie back in the bottle again. If we had gotten a balanced budget amendment a long time ago maybe disaster would have been avoided but deficit spending has been going on now for decades and politically hasn’t really hurt politicians until recently. I mean we are 14 trillion in the hole and something like 1 point something deficit just for the year (and growing I suppose). You have to really go all out to trim a few billion here or there over years time, when exactly would we actually get the deficit to break even? I mean at this point I am wondering if we’ll see it balanced in our lifetime. To get out of a current 1.5 or whatever deficit that would take a TON of current spending cuts + revenue increases and not the democrat kind, the growing economy kind. We could be years away from really coming back so how bad is it going to get before it gets better? I am kind of thinking we are more or less screwed. When people figured out they code vote themselves money it was the beginning of the end.

    • littlehouse18

      both have plans to address this.

  • kestrel

    Marco Rubio knocked this out of the park on Rush’s show today. Here’s the relevant part of the transcript, Rubio speaking:

    “But let me tell you one thing, Rush, that no one said yet or maybe they have, the fact that payments on Social Security and Medicare may stop is a stinging indictment and a wake-up call. What Americans should realize, “Hold on a second, my Social Security check and my Medicare benefits are borrowed? The money that you’re using to pay for my Social Security are borrowed? I thought I paid into a trust fund. I thought I worked my whole life to pay into some system and now you’re paying my money back and you’re claiming that the money is being borrowed?” That’s what they’re basically conceding when they’re saying this.

    RUSH: Yeah. You know, that’s exactly right. We always thought Social Security was in a lockbox.

    SENATOR RUBIO: Well, maybe a Chinese lockbox because that’s what we’re borrowing the money from. The point is if that comes to pass or he’s threatening to do that, then the wake-up call and the message to Americans is, hey, your Social Security benefits, your Medicare benefits, what we’re paying soldiers in the field, all these things that are being cut off, this is borrowed money. This is not money we have or money we saved for you. This is money we are borrowing from your children and your grandchildren, and we have no way of paying it back, and that alone should send a chill up the spine of millions of Americans.”
    End of excerpt.

    And figure, too, what ridiculous things ARE we paying for, at the same time we’re withholding checks from seniors?

    This scare tactic is not going to work the way it has in the past, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, when the MSM was the only news source, we didn’t KNOW all the worthless things government is constantly spending our money on. If Dems really want to go here, we may just have a field day.

  • banzaibob

    Yeah right Democrat, tell grandma and the soldier who just returned from combat they are not getting paid while you still get yours. I can see them lining up to kick your butt.

    If the checks stop you better hide.

  • littlehouse18

    should voluntarily suspend their own paychecks (with much fanfare) as a symbolic gesture. That’s probably expecting too much.

  • Tbone

    If the Republican Leadership can’t defend the Constitution, why should I vote for Republicans?

    If the Republican Leadership lets a wimpy neck, street pimp run them, why should I vote for them?

    • acat

      Their conservatives finally, after what seemed like decades of being split (and losing over and over and over to the libs) got back together… and are winning.

      And now, you’re calling this as an example of how the GOP is going to do exactly the same thing.

      While I don’t disagree with you, I’d hope the Tea Partiers are as shrewd as advertised and, instead of building a new party from the ground up, decide to stick to their plans and finish the job of fumigating and rehabing the GOP.

      Otherwise .. I’ll be a very old cat indeed before I see another conservative POTUS.

      Mew

  • BigRedConservative

    Are playing politics with the most important issue in our time. Shame on them.

    • simmy

      Benjamin Franklin once wrote:
      “He that lives upon Hope, dies farting”
      I guess he meant it takes some effort to get things done.

      Here’s a couple others you might enjoy…

      “The greatest monarch on the proudest throne, is oblig’d to sit upon his own arse.”…and in Obama’s case, smoke his own brand of tabbacco, while the First Lady munches fries contentedly at his side…

      “Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.” A good point for the argument of the day.

      And with it comes the challenging question, what are we truly willing to sacrifice in order to save our country?
      The founders were wise men.
      Are we, in our generation, just as willing to seek the advise they left for us? And to be guided by the words of wisdom they left for us?
      I think that these men were visionaries, who knew this day would come, and so they spoke to our generations in hope and faith of what they knew we could achieve and overcome as they had.
      I don’t believe that we will fail their expectations.

      “Happy that nation, fortunate that age, whose history is not diverting.” He wrote.
      Not a wonder the left has been working hard at NOT TEACHING HISTORY, for decades.

      “Beware of little Expenses, a small leak will sink a great ship.”
      May I add, !!!!! If these words would have been displayed, preserved, and protected throughout the years, we wouldn’t be in this financial mess! Now would we?

      But I have another thought to add to this one, and it is that no matter how small we may think we are, one can person can, and does make a huge difference. So keep imagining the power of us standing together on this.
      69% is a good sized number. Look what they’ve accomplished with far less….
      We just have to keep fighting the good fight.
      Together.

  • jiminga

    to pitchfork and torches time at the white house.

  • mutantone

    I am a firm believer that the Constitution limits the terms of the congress to years and not decades. They have interpreted it in their own way to assure their jobs over and over again. It is time to follow the Constitution as written, where it states how long they can hold the office. Far to many of them have made a career out of running for or holding office to the determent of the people.
    They have shown us what they want to cut benefits for the citizens, let them start with their own benefits and funding first. Remove their staff, make them work for their constituents. Take away all foreign donations to the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood, and any other nation that is against us. Stop funding 22% of the UN which has placed enemies to civility in positions of power. How in the world is North Korea going to be in a position to watch over weapons. How is Iran going to be in charge of human rights when most Muslims think that a woman that has been raped needs three male witnesses to prove her claim and if not is put in jail herself for being an adulteress?
    Stop supporting others until we can care for ourselves and the needs of our population. Eliminate funds to Unnecessary projects like how much booze does it take to make a monkey drunk, or the number of aids carriers in the prostitution field in Asia. There are far to many supercilious programs being funded by the tax payers.
    Time to change all that instead of cutting the necessary programs for the citizens of our nation remove the funds going to other programs first and if they do not come to the budget, freeze their pay all of it until they come to a balanced budget.
    ? the People of the United States are the rightful masters of both congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the constitution.? Abraham Lincoln

    • simmy

      And the rest of the points you make.
      I also want to see term limits. I think career politians have proved themselves a danger to the Constitution.
      Ted Kennedy was loved by many…I don’t have to elaborate.

  • donr

    Please help me out.
    I must have missed it,
    President Obama did say that he could not guarantee that he, YES HE, could send out the Welfare checks on August 3 2011, didn’t he.
    It would be immoral to stop the Social Security checks and not the Welfare checks.

    • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

      http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2011/07/12/the-issue-isnt-default-but-government-shutdown/

      Tax revenues keep them a good $50Bil over the line for default in Aug. In fact, revenues outstrip default-causing obligations by more int he end of the month, than int he beginning. It’s a question of priorities.

  • simmy

    What?
    Why, I like peas Mr. President, what else you got to offer?

    I don’t know … does the words, “Liar, liar pants on fire…” make me sound a little … what’s the word?…
    child-ish?