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December 11, 2009
Obama and Dems To Lift Debt Ceiling By $1.8 TRILLION, They Fear 2010 Backlash
Dems to lift debt ceiling by $1.8 trillion, fear 2010 backlash
In a bold but risky year-end strategy, Democrats are preparing to raise the federal debt ceiling by as much as $1.8 trillion before New Year’s rather than have to face the issue again prior to the 2010 elections.
“We’ve incurred this debt. We have to pay our bills,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told POLITICO Wednesday. And the Maryland Democrat confirmed that the anticipated increase could be as high as $1.8 trillion — nearly twice what had been assumed in last spring’s budget resolution for the 2010 fiscal year.
The leadership is betting that it’s better for the party to take its lumps now rather than risk further votes over the coming year. But the enormity of the number could create its own dynamic, much as another debt ceiling fight in 1985 gave rise to the Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction act mandating across-the-board spending cuts nearly 25 years ago.
Already in the Senate, there is growing pressure in both parties for the creation of a novel bipartisan task force empowered to force expedited votes in the next Congress on deficit reduction steps now shunned by lawmakers.
As introduced Wednesday, the legislation sets no specific targets for deficit reduction, but its 18-member task force — 16 of whom would come from Congress — is promised immense leverage to force change if they can first come together behind a plan.
“This is a defining moment,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), one of the lead sponsors, and New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, the panel’s ranking Republican, is already maneuvering to try to add the legislation as an amendment to any bill tapped to carry the debt increase.
As explained by Hoyer and other Democrats, that will almost certainly be a pending $636.4 billion Pentagon appropriations bill that includes $128.3 in contingency funds for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The House leadership has held back the bill for weeks, saving it for this moment, but now appropriations clerks have been instructed to have a final package ready to go by Monday.
Leadership staff stressed that nothing was yet final in what has become a year-end negotiation between top Democrats in the House and Senate. But the Senate appears to have been the first to put the $1.8 trillion number on the table. And Hoyer’s comments are the clearest yet on the scale of the increase and the expectation that it will be part of a larger year-end legislative train pulled along by the must-pass military bill.
Were broke. Americas broke. All year long, our friends on the other side of the aisle have been on a massive spending spree that our nation cant afford.
We had a trillion-dollar stimulus bill that was supposed to created jobs immediately, and yet unemployment is now at ten percent in America and three million people have lost their jobs since it was signed into law.
Weve got a budget thats going to double the national debt in five years, triple it in ten years. Weve got a $12 trillion national debt.
We brought a national energy tax bill to the floor thats going to cost a trillion dollars passed it.
We had a health care bill here several weeks ago another trillion dollars passed it.
When are we going to say, enough is enough?
Here we are today wrapping six appropriations bills together. Were going to spend half atrillion dollars. And its got over 5,000 earmarks in it. Things like: $292,200 for the elimination of slum and blight in Scranton, Pennsylvania; $300,000 for music and education programs at New York Citys Carnegie Hall, where they pay the employee who oversees the props more than $530,000 in salary and benefits; and theres plenty in here for Washington as well: $150,000 for the National Building Museum and $250,000 for the Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts, a concert venue.
Listen, I dont know how worthy any of these projects are, but I do have to ask a question: are they more important than our kids and grandkids, who are going to have the pay the debt because we dont have the money to spend on this? Its our kids and grandkids who are going to pay for it, and yet we cant find ways to cut spending.
Before taking office, the President said he would go through the budget and these bills line-by-line, page-by-page. After Congress passed the $410 billion omnibus spending bill with more than 9,000 earmarks, the President signed it, and said, well that was last years business. Now the President says reducing the deficit is next years business that we need to spend our way out of this economic recession were in.
Well I think the President ought to go through this bill line-by-line and page-by-page, all 2,500 pages of it. And then maybe hell figure out, we dont need to be spending this money that we dont have and piling more and more debt on the backs of our kids and grandkids. Instead, our bond rating, our AAA bond rating is in jeopardy and our Democrat friends want to raise the debt limit next week by $1.8 trillion. Instead, lets stop the madness and vote no.
Wild Thing's comment..............
Robbing Peter to pay Paul, guess what Peter is getting pissed off!
This is the largest ever increase ever.. Wow. When Dems drink from the well , they drink from it deeply. Too bad we couldn’t just boot ‘em in the butt into the well and cap it.
Steny say’s we have to pay our debts. LOL As if borrowing more will pay them.
"The leadership is betting that it’s better for the party to take its lumps now rather than risk further votes over the coming year."
So...they think we’ll forget about it? What nimrods!
AND they are tacking this onto a military spending bill as an amendment. That’s exactly how they got the hate crimes “bill” through. Sneaky slimy insufferable weasels.
Thank you John Boehner for saying this. I just wish the lefties would listen to what he had to say.
Obama is running our country into the ground and he has only himself and his left run Congress to blame.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at December 11, 2009 04:48 AM
Comments
Have our elected officials learned nothing from the tea party mentality? Stop spending our future!
Posted by: ahrcanum at December 11, 2009 06:55 AM
Crank up the presses, Weimar is in business.
Posted by: Jack at December 11, 2009 09:42 AM
Devaluation of the $US and inflation are ahead. Just like under Jimmy Carter but on a grander scale. At least during Carter's presidency America still had a manufacturing base.
The Democrts have a clear road ahead for the next year to spend us to the poor house and they are not bashful with their spending programs and earmarks.
We are so screwed. America is so wounded. Our only hope is the 2010 and 2012 elections. Especially the 2010 election. We need more conservatives to stop this spending jugernaut of the Dems/socialists.
Posted by: TomR at December 11, 2009 11:51 AM
As it stands now our Grandchildren will inherit a mortgage of $344,000.00 without the house. This what the Unfunded Liabilities are going to cost us, well our Grandchildren. That is sum legacy we are leaving them.
At years end 12.1 trillion(Current National Debt) + 1.8 Trillion(new ceiling) + 1.3 Trillion (current deficit) = 15.2 Trillion dollars before next years budget is even presented.
We cannot survive this.
Posted by: Mark at December 11, 2009 12:53 PM
Tom, that is it and it breaks my heart.
America is wounded like you said.
Thank you everyone so very much.
Posted by: Wild Thing at December 12, 2009 12:12 AM
