Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire debt ceiling update

I love the Mack plan because of how easy it would be to sell to the PEOPLE. Anyone can understand it and it is VERY smoke and mirror proof. My biggest fear is the balanced budget amendment though. As you know, we would need a 2/3 vote in Congress before that would go to the states. I am confident the states would pass it. Most of the hard core libs are concentrated in a few states which gives us the edge. But even if we had the Senate and the White House, I'm not confident we can get a 2/3 vote on it. Without that amendment, the Mack plan could do great for 8 years and then there's nothing to HOLD the gains it would make.

Typical Keynesian BS, coming from one who survives on government cheese. Paying off debt with more debt, yeah, that makes total sense.

Forget the government cheese stuff and think how it affects you. If Moody's and S&P lower the US credit rating, it will add $100 billion to the interest paid each year by the taxpayer. Why heck, $100 billion would buy a fleet of 100 B-2 bombers or, about 10 new carriers or, just add another &100 billion to the debt.

Do you really see no downside potential for the GOP? One could rationally see this as a subset of Republicans foisting budgetary issues on fiscal policy and in their intransigence risking at least a small fiscal meltdown. But then Democrats in the Senate are gaining no favor by failing to fairly negotiate, or at least come up with a conciliatory proposal, while Obama can be seen as bumbling along, providing no real leadership and hoping to claim victory by adopting a winning position after the fact.

So if the whole thing falls apart or if one side is seen to have caved someone is going to get bit hard, remains to be seen who. A good incentive to come up with something that allows face saving on all sides and save your chips for something with better odds, no? People I've talked to are pissed at all sides but more so Republicans for instigating this mess. Hard to tell nationally with dueling polls but perhaps not a unique view if you split the difference.

Mike762 - I agree that we need to reduce spending in order to cut the national debt, but where is the best place to do it? We can cut Social Security, Medicare, defense and, veterans benefits since these account for about 68% of the whole budget. These are the areas in which meaningful cuts can be made which will impact Federal spending (plus other areas need to take a hit).

Going after small stuff (like National Parks and Forests, and the EPA etc.) will not make a dent in the deficit and the interest

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dBoYYc1APr8[/video]

I think that you don't get it. Ratings agencies will do what they will do, and if it costs more to service debt, or decreases the likelihood of rolling debt over, it still avoids the reality that WE DON"T HAVE THE MONEY. Adding more debt to the already unpayable public debt and the unfunded entitlement debt only kicks the can down the road for a few months or a year, i.e. through the next election cycle. The capital markets will make the decision to stop lending at some point. When they do, I'm sure that the Fed stands ready to print the shortfall, as they always have. Hello Weimar.

We're screwed no matter if the ceiling is raised or not. The choices are, default now and kill your currency, or default later and kill your currency. The longer you wait the greater the pain will be. It's pretty simple arithmetic. We had the chance in 2000 and 2008 to take our medicine, and the choice was made on both occasions to kick the can down the road. Well, the can is more like a barrel now, and the distance it's able to be kicked is shorter and shorter.

Then Mike, you need to pray that Boehner and Co. kill the US credit rating!

Hello Watch4bear. I note you are from Alaska, the home of the late Senator Ted Stevens who managed to send more of other people's money home (per capita) than even Robert Byrd. Spenditrol - Ted Stevens certainly endorsed it and took 5 tablets per day!

Funny skit. But it's wrong. It isn't going to be for our kids to worry about, it is going to be for us. And our kids will deal with by simply refusing to pay the debt we've built up. And we, when we are in our old age, will be the ones to suffer the worst.

Cut spending? Yeah I should say so. The problem is how things in DC get "scored" using a baseline projection. We have sufficient revenues coming in. The problem is spending across the board. We need to cut everything in .gov across the board-including entitlements-by at least $6 Trillion and balance the budget tomorrow to have any chance of avoiding a total collapse of government, yet the pinheads in government keep "scoring" their cuts using the 7.5% increase in budget baseline to do so.

I don't call ObmCare "small stuff", or increasing pet bureaucracies like EPA 100% or better every year "small stuff". Add it all up and it gets beyond "small stuff".

Wasn't it Sam Rayburn who said, "a billion here and billion there and pretty soon you're talkin' real money." Now we're talking trillions with the same aplomb, and weaseling around the edges trying to maintain political viability.

If we do not cut in large amounts, across the board, it will be done for us. To quote The Terminator, "Judgement Day is inevitable". It's just a matter of when.

If you weren't so silly, you'd know we weren't a state until 1959. We even have bits of infrastructure now. Did you ever learn to crap in the woods? Some here still do. Heck, I still drive 80 miles a day, cause we have no bridge to shorten my drive to 20.

The US credit rating is toast regardless of what Boehner and Co. do. S&P has already stated that if they do not see at least $4 Trillion in cuts-real cuts, not just reduction in baseline increaases-then we will be downgraded. Try the boogety, boogety, scary BS somewhere else, because I can do math, and the numbers don't add up.

Edited to add, Egan-Jones has already downgraded US debt instruments. I expect Fitch-they are French after all-to be next, followed by Moody's and S&P last.

In other words, they're not addressing the problem. They're playing politics with it.

just got a blackberry message from the House floor....looks like the wheels are coming off:


"I�m watching the floor. This has all become so ridiculous.

As it stands right now, the Senate is going to vote this down. We�ll be here this weekend, and then�Debtmageddon.

Best,"

name withheld to protect sender

Let her buck.

Sorry Paddler, your head is up your azz. Some of your numbers are correct but you're completely off the mark on others.

The 1st thing you need to do is learn the difference between the national debt and federal deficit and maybe learn to read a chart and maybe,...maybe,... you won't sound like such a dumbazz.



Re-read your source and get a 'Chart Reading for Dummies' book and try again.

As far as the credit rating thing goes, I have no idea why anyone would hold a AAA rating on a debtor that refuses to balance it's budget. This August 2nd thing is a totally manufactured crisis in perfect Obama fashion. It is nearly impossible for us to default on our debt. The interest on the debt is roughly 12% of August's revenues. The only way a default would ever happen is if Obama wanted one to happen, regardless of whether any bill is passed.

The govt can afford to pay the interest on the debt, social security checks, medicare, medicaid, the military and the veterans administration without any problems at all. After those things, there is about $40 billion of revenues left. At that point, the govt would need to prioritize what gets paid and who gets laid off.

That is the big scam. This is not a DEBT DEFAULT crisis by ANY stretch of the imagination. It is a GOVT SHUTDOWN crisis, and it always has been. Obama doesn't want to make the tough decision about which govt departments go home without pay. So he and Geitner has completely fabricated this default crisis.

And the sad part is that everyone is jumping into the crisis mentality with both feet. He has won the crisis management war yet again on yet another farce.

Agree that it is ALL about Obm@'s re-election, and the crisis mode is what they use to sell the product, but there IS a very real debt/deficit problem, and it only requires a trigger to become a very real crisis. IMO, the D's have provided that trigger.

he's just a pathological liar...no point in even responding to such trolls. The deficits racked up by Tip O'Neill and the House democrats while Reagan was president ranged from 78 billion in 1981 to a high of 221 billion in 1986...while income to the treasury doubled, Tip and the boys spent it even faster.

Clinton didn't reduce the debt.....the republicans in control of Congress reduced the deficit by the end of his term to a brief surplus, if you use the usual accounting tricks and off budget items, although any company officer that used that accounting would go to jail.

Paddler, are you really that stupid or do you assume everyone else is?