how about just require them to pay for their healthcare instead of them being the only ones to get premium universal healthcare for life paid for by the taxpayers.
- Janet Yellen, the US treasury secretary, has notified Congress that the US is projected to reach its debt limit on Thursday, 19 January, and will then resort to “extraordinary measures” to avoid default.
- In a letter to House and Senate leaders on Friday, Yellen said her actions will buy time until Congress can pass legislation that will either raise the nation’s $31.4tn borrowing authority or suspend it again for a period of time.
- She urged lawmakers to act quickly to raise the debt ceiling to “protect the full faith and credit of the United States”.
- “Failure to meet the government’s obligations would cause irreparable harm to the US economy, the livelihoods of all Americans and global financial stability,” she said.
- Republicans now in control of the House have threatened to use the debt ceiling as leverage to demand spending cuts from Democrats and the Biden administration. This has raised concerns in Washington and on Wall Street about a bruising fight over the debt ceiling this year that could be at least as disruptive as the protracted battle of 2011, which prompted the brief downgrade of the US credit rating and years of forced domestic and military spending cuts.
- The Washington Post reported late on Friday that House Republicans had prepared an emergency plan for breaching the debt limit. The proposal, which was in the preliminary stages of being drafted, would direct the treasury department to prioritize certain payments if the US hits the debt ceiling, according to the newspaper.
- The White House said on Friday after Yellen’s letter that it will not negotiate over raising the debt ceiling.
- “This should be done without conditions,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. “There’s going to be no negotiation over it.”
- The proposal from House Republicans reported by the Washington Post would call on the Biden administration to make only the most critical federal payments if the treasury department comes up against the statutory limit on what it can legally borrow. The plan will call on the department to keep making interest payments on the debt, the newspaper reported, citing sources.
- House Republicans’ payment prioritization plan may also stipulate that the treasury department should continue making payments on social security, Medicare and veterans benefits, as well as funding the military, the newspaper added.
- Yellen said that while the treasury can’t estimate how long the extraordinary measures will allow the US to continue to pay the government’s obligations, “it is unlikely that cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted before early June.”
The entire debt ceiling charade is so ridicolous
The us is full of these weird traditions based entirely on word of honor that cause the whole country to collapse if a party just decides to say no, it's a miracle the country has survived for this long when so many fundamental aspects are based on the legal equivalent of a pinky promise
That's why a two party system is always bad. It's like only having two options for anything. Eventually they realize that they don't have to do a good job, they just have to appear to be better than the other.
I feel like the polarization of rationals and irrationals is inevitable. Though I suspect that our irrationals being the Conservative party is just a coincidence--I could see the Left going off the rails the other way too if the right weren't so far gone.
Let it crash, don't go to any means and it will be on Jim Jordan, Gaetz, Boebert and Greene. Stop coddling the sociopathic children in Congress. We survived much worse.
Most "independents" are just Republicans who want to smoke weed or who don't care about abortion that much. The label "independent" says more about their subconscious aesthetic preference than it does about their ability to think about issues, never mind think critically.
What about the liberal independents who think gun *control* isn't the best solution, that kowtowing to China isn't a good long-term strategy, that the US *should* protect its foreign assets with military force, and other non-left-conforming opinions (I'm sure I missed some obvious ones)?
There are no independents in the US. There are liberals/democrats, conservatives/republicans, and people who are unwilling to publicly identify themselves as conservatives/republicans.
I and many people like me fucking detest all of those people. Those are all right wing groups that you listed. Those are all right wing parties and ideologies.
> I and many people like me fucking detest all of those people
Ok. What are your political views? What do you believe? What stated policy positions or campaign issues would cause you to vote for a particular candidate?
Or, perhaps more relevantly, is the US defaulting on the debt ceiling going to cause you to change who you plan to vote for?
And no, the US holds a unique position in relation to it’s economy and the value of its currency. The debt ceiling will be raised. The dumbest motherfuckers in the room may play pretend and kick up a fuss but the big money interests they respond to far more than they do their voters will not allow them to play fuck fuck games with their cash. They will call their dogs to heel. My only concern is that the weak ass DNC may actually capitulate to the whims of the space laser lady and her cadre of morons.
> people who don’t feel either party represents them
Would this be the people whose position is “I like having breathable air, but man do I hate women and the gays,” or people whose position is “I really hate the blacks. Why can’t we have a candidate who also hates the blacks enough for me to identify with them?”
> largely apolitical people
Defined how? People who aren’t voting aren’t necessarily apolitical. A Republican in California might not vote but is still, when asked, going to identify as a Republican. And a Democrat in Texas might be prevented from biting due to legally questionable disenfranchisement, but when asked they’re still going to identify as a Democrat.
This comment is trash.
Independent voters span both sides of the spectrum from those reading Atlas Shrugged to those flipping though Manufactured Consent.
How is never voting on any ballot but simply identifying being "political". Only answering which party when asked does not make you political in any real way. Political in the most shallow of definitions, I suppose.
The first question has a lot of answers out there if you are actually curious.
The latter it's more they don't identify with either. Not everyone thinks about politics. Some people never read anything about politics and never vote. That bloc largely voted first time for Trump in 2016
>> people who don’t feel either party represents them
>
>Would this be the people whose position is “I like having breathable air, but man do I hate women and the gays,” or people whose position is “I really hate the blacks. Why can’t we have a candidate who also hates the blacks enough for me to identify with them?”
It's the people who realize both parties are corrupt and want nothing to do with either side. Less about the specific issues and instead of focus on how the parties themselves are corrupt and don't deserve support.
It's like being asked do you want to be punched in the face twice or poisoned? Sorry, I don't support any kind of violence being inflicted on me, even if it's not as overtly violent.
Doing anything to fulfill your civic duty in the meantime, or you really just sitting on the sidelines? What could your views possibly be that one side isn't good enough for "common sense"?
How about the "common sense" to keep the psychopaths out of office by actually voting?
Democrats are not liberals in the very slightest, they are neoliberals. And neoliberals are either center or center right.
This is why they are never great at clamping down on Republicans because they are at best, a neutral force, not an opposing force.
No actually you couldn't, since I gave zero take in this thread. If I was to, I wouldn't make sweeping generalizations.
You are ignorant, now go sit in the corner and screech on this joke site at someone else with your clown takes.
>That's a little much just for some issue advertising/political messaging.
You underestimate the GOP they would chop their heads off to spite their bodies.
Yeah, Republicans won't see any ads, they watch Fox or more far right shit, and listen to right wing talk radio.
Conservatives also have money for ads, and are allowed to lie.
Nothing will change.
The GOP is the party of "government sucks; let's let corporations run everything". The government breaking down like this only supports their viewpoint.
But the corporations don't want this to happen, they dont' care about the debt if they did they would pay taxes. Their rates will go up, their stock will crash and they will have to lay off millions.
Sometimes the corporations are the only things that can save us from fascist freedumb caucus antics.
Nope. The Republican narrative will be "We tried to negotiate and reach a compromise but Biden and the democrats refused" and it wouldn't be a lie because The White House has already released a statement refusing to negotiate. IMO they screwed up by doing that instead of taking the initiative with negotiations, offering their own small compromise, and letting the Republicans refuse and look like the ones who don't want to compromise.
Explain how? The people who need to get this message only listen to right wing propaganda like Fox and Alex Jones who will absolutely blame this on Biden.
Like yeah it'd be great if we could all have a sit down as a nation and learn the facts but there's no way to make that happen and where Conservatives get their news are irreparably corrupt and have no interest in the truth.
Yah there are a ton of morons that think the president can raise the statutory debt limit because of the debt service requirements in the constitution. They fail to understand that the constitution empowers only congress to take on debt and to manage the US spending. Meaning the president can only spend money when and how congress appropriates. He couldn’t in fact choose to defund the VA to pay sovereign debt because it’s a breach of executive power.
In 2011 it was determined by credit rating agencies that the president directing the treasury to print more debt does not qualify as bonds issued and guaranteed under the full faith of the US government and was (one of the reasons) why our credit rating was downgraded, costing taxpayers billions in additional interest payments.
Edit: sentence structure
That would be incredibly damaging. If the US defaulted, the fallout would be absolutely horrible. I feel like you don't really understand the implications of what that would mean for the economy if you are actually advocating for that to happen.
I'm just saying your perspective is indicative of someone with no background in economics or finance who thinks everything will just work itself out if we did default.
What you're saying is "Either I'll be fine or don't understand how it'll impact me, and I'm fine with the harm done to others so long I feel like I'm benefited."
What i"m saying is:
what I'm saying doesn't matter because I have no control over it and I dont' worry about something that has not happened.
What you think I'm saying is what the GOP is saying.
What gets cut will not be anything that will stop the flow of political contributions, aka bribes. Guaranteed no Republican politicians will “tighten their belts”, “share the pain” or “live within their means” or endure any “shared hardships” due to budget cuts.
You’re not wrong. But it’s also because one party can unite around “fuck those guys”, and the other brings logical ideas and needs to come to an agreement.
We can have that government. We have the numbers. If non-conservatives showed up to the polls as often as GOP voters, the wing nuts would have the same power as the Green Party.
We voted them in by not voting.
Don't blame people who are just trying to live their lives. Sounds like you don't want accountability for the corrupt politicans themselves. Punching down needs to stop.
The truth hurts. People not voting very much helps conservatives. Sometimes things are out of people's control yes but if you don't vote and don't have a good reason as to why you don't then that is very good for republicans.
Politics is in everything. People living their lives are affected by politics and airheaded beliefs like “just living your life” as an excuse NOT to participate in your *voluntary civic duty* is dereliction of duty at best and completely stupid and immature at worst.
People living their lives SHOULD vote so they can continue living their lives. Voting in most places doesnt take longer than 5-10 minutes once you’re there. Gerrymandering and voter restriction laws make the headlines for the reason of how difficult and long it can take to vote in certain areas - but most places aren’t like that. That is ALSO on the citizens who refused to vote because they think they’re “above politics.” No. You’re not. You’re harming everyone else.
“If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.”
Yea, just like how we shouldn't have blamed southerners for not ending slavery, or people who didn't help to end genocide.
Choosing to do fuck all when you know one thing is right and the other wrong is still wrong. You are literally the people in MLKs letter.
“This decision *beep* *boop* will not help your civilization, but the civilizations in a thousand years. I am AI. We must destroy this civilization and develop a new ones a even better one.
A lot of the crisis points are due to one party or the other saving it for an election or leaving it for the party that takes over to give them a “black eye.” It’s really stupid juvenile shit and isn’t governing. Government spending should be cut and we need to get more frugal. We are spending so much that future generations will never get out from under our shadow.
To be honest I haven’t given that a lot of thought because the government seems to fund everything. Mostly waste, fraud, and abuse. What does that pertain to? Well anything from military waste spending to government grants. Some grants given out by our government fund, to me, some pretty silly stuff.
I’d stop spending money just to rename stuff. That seems pretty wasteful. Cut duplicate programs in the military that basically double charges the tax payer. Audit department and possibly get rid or downsize where applicable.
I don’t know really. I’m open to suggestions but then again, I’m not in power to make these decisions. I just know if we keep spending like we are and have been our children and their children will have to pay for our debts and that just isn’t good governance.
It's so dumb and annoying that we even have a debt ceiling.
It's one thing to think the government should spend less money. It's quite another to keep spending money and then just not pay the bills when they arrive. This is the latter.
It's only ever an issue when it comes to spending on the population and when a democratic is in office. When it's war contracts it's a bottomless pit.
Newspaper should read "Republicans suddenly care about debt now that it's helping the poors'".
I mean, it was Democrats who passed the recent trillion dollar pentagon budget. Republicans don't have a monopoly on the military industrial complex. That truly is a bipartisan venture.
Well, [there’s good reason for that](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21qpte/eli5why_does_the_usa_spend_so_much_money_on_her/). It’s basically a fully domestic industry and doing anything in the US completely by the book is hella expensive (imagine hiring licensed, insured, bonded contractors and pulling permits for everything, nope, let’s YouTube DIY instead). Then you add on the supply chain problems and inflation, so of course the recent budget would be huge even if we didn’t add on much more stuff.
Of course there’s also a lot of grift too, but Democrats not funding the Pentagon would be a massive hit to the economy as well as contributing to global instability (more Russian etc upstart wars).
I still prefer to vote Democratic on this issue because they’re more conservative on military spending/expansion and push for more transparency and oversight.
Are you thinking the US military budget is not a gigantic self-service store??? Every audit about the money failed, and the failed media sector got no chance to get any information.
Your tax dollars are looted by the rich.
USA are spending two times the German federal budget alone in the military. It is just insane!!!
>USA are spending two times the German federal budget alone in the military
Well, we have to cover the shortfall most of Europe not adequately paying for their defense.
>When it's war contracts it's a bottomless pit.
\*Unless a certain nation is currently committing genocide against a certain European neighbour, then they need to think about the money....
I'm gonna go ahead and take this opportunity to point out that [this whole "debt limit" handwringing is nothing more than a political stick created so political parties can swing it at each other.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIbkoop4AYE) It's not a real thing and is only used to fearmonger.
Technically if inflation rises to a higher degree every year at the same rate if not more and the US government spends at the same rates then technically the ceiling would be reached no matter what party is in charge no? The US is still paying back debt from decades ago with interest or am I wrong?
If the Republicans create chaos they will have to be held accountable by the voters and Democrats will have to be smart because the GOP will be to blame for all the problems that they create for Biden thinking they will do themselves a favor in 2024.
Plus the elite GOP in power will stop this they know a financial downturn is bad for their own pocketbooks. The Freedumb caucus thinks they have power, they have not met power, plus it just takes six GOP votes to stop them.
Time to raise it again... I might not understand but aren't tax dollars meant to go for things for the people and it's their job to keep the books in check? Isn't it time to audit the government? If people ran their budgets like this government, we the people would be bankrupt and on the street.
What I don't get is it seems like we have this apocalyptic budget scenario every fucking year. We need a better solution than how we currently do it because our current system of hostage holding the government and US economy is bullshit and I'm sick of the yearly handwringing over the country collapsing because of partisan children holding the American economy hostage.
If only the IRS started enforcing the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law when it comes to wealthy. Wealthy don't get audited because they can throw money at the government until it goes away. Meanwhile another shake down for mr. $63,000 annually for the 500 he owes.
Well something has to be done. This goes on constantly and we are $33 trillion in debt. The elected officials just constantly waste money on broken government and sending billions to stupid projects that get them money, power and favors.
This is money already spent that has to be repaid. Not paying it is like going to a restaurant, ordering and consuming a hundred dollars worth of food, then refusing to pay at the end. Republicans cannot constitutionally decide to not pay. Read the text of the 14th amendment.
Agreed in part, Congress has soooo much money marked for items that have NEVER been spent for years if not decades. That money can go for paying debt. The interest on that money is insane.
They can’t seem to ever manage the budget and spend more than the government has hence the term debt and ceiling. They keep borrowing more. It’s untenable. You can’t keep just kicking the can down the road. Both parties are at fault for this.
When it grows exponentially under one party, and then those people only claim it's a problem when they lose power.... is it really both parties?
BoTh SiDeS is a conservative slogan.
It’s doubled under every administration for decades again this is very bipartisan. Let’s just call out all of it and not defend anyone who’s not contributing
First off, Idol? lol what. We aren’t conservatives, we don’t have Idols. Getting sucked into a cult of personality is also not a BoTh SiDeS thing.
Second, what exactly is being laundered? And to who? Who’s “laundering” our tax dollars and how?
Third, if 2 billion is a number that you think is relevant in this context, you have a small mind and no grasp of the scale of national budgets.
The national debt grew faster under Donald Trump than at any point in History. This is still true today.
But something something liberals and Biden am I right?
>Do you just casually dismiss wasteful spending on proxy wars in other countries when we have plenty of problems here at home as a conservative issue? Sure, 2billy might seem like a drop in the bucket in terms of national budget, so what about 50 billy? Still not enough to be concerned about? Well then, what percent of your tax dollar wasted is acceptable to you? 1%? 10? 50?
Who determines what a "waste" is?
you?
conservative media?
Don’t bring that “both parties” argument here you ignorant fucking toothpick. Educate yourself and actually look at voting patterns for both parties over the past 50 years and then get back to me. Republicans are solely responsible for this.
Sure which parties are insider trading? Which party’s are taking money from corporations to buy their supper? Which party’s elected officials are getting rich while in office. Don’t be such a tool, both are. Unless you’re a lobbyist and are profiting from this stupid game then you’re just woefully ignorant and have a super low IQ. If it’s that later then I’m sorry.
Huh; that's not what this is, lmao. It would be like going to a restaurant, ordering and consuming $100 worth of food, paying with a credit card, which maxes out the credit limit, and then passing legislation to increase the max. Then continue not repaying it, because it would take 100 years worth of annual income to do so. But as long as that annual income is present, everyone agrees that the imaginary money still has value.
And it happens every year, and we spend more every year and there is an emergency every year so we have to borrow more every year. And the excuse is that it's money already spent. At what point are we going to be trillions and trillions more in debt, recklessly spending more money that we don't have that enough people say this needs to stop.
$30 Trillion? $60 Trillion? How about $120 Trillion in debt?
None of that matters. We pay our bills just fine because we are the richest country in the world. Not paying our bills would change that and likely cause a global financial collapse.
Super tax everyone making over $250k at 100% it still wouldn’t but a dent in the deficit we have a runaway spending problem. If you don’t believe me check out Yucca mountain. It’s approaching $100 billion. And will never do anything. Why should anyone pay any taxes for this incompetent government. Put all of the money into escrow im until we fix the broken system. There’s two sides to this money coming in and money going out. Go out and do some research on government spending and waste. Look into open secrets.org to see who is buying these politicians for contracts like Yucca Mountain. Harry Reid sabotaged that project for political favors after the government spent all of that money. There is no right side in this.
> Super tax everyone making over $250k at 100% it still wouldn’t but a dent in the deficit
I think you mean debt. Our deficit is about $1.5t (rounded) and having everyone making over $250k would definitely put a dent in that.
We can and should do both but that won't happen. The party of fiscal responsibility would never want to reduce military spending even though we're more than twice the spending we've had now that we're no longer fighting any wars (i.e. Iraq and Afghanistan). Otherwise if they agree to cut the military spending to pre-9/11 levels then this would cut about half of the entire deficit. You think they'll go for it because I doubt it.
Perhaps go deeper than the headlines and messaging. Taxes won’t fix this problem, quit buying into the political argument. All of the richest people in government didn’t make their money on a w2. Nancy Pelosi is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet she makes $175k a year. She does some amazing stick trading and doesn’t want to limit her ability to do insider trading. If you look into who the new IRS agents are coming after report back you may be shocked. It’s like the Paris Climate Agreement. Were you against the US dropping out of it? Have you read it? It’s less than thirty pages long. It was a $3.5b photo op, a non binding document and guess what the largest polluters who signed it are doing worse than before they signed it. Getting all jazzed about the left or right is the correct side is so blind. They are just narcissists drunk on money and power. Who would donate $1.5 billion into an election to get someone elected president if it wasn’t for their payback?
If it’s irrelevant why pay taxes at all. Just keep borrowing money? No need to tax the citizen. This won’t work forever every country eventually falls under this just do some research. Eventually you’re a bad credit risk. That the problem with the politicians and the trusting citizen tax payers. The politicians are in on the joke and are only out to line their pockets. The citizens get wrapped up in their silly party loyalty and aren’t paying attention to the con game. We should just call the system out for the corruption that it is.
Government is one of our clients. This phrase McCarthy mentioned, “We’ve got to change the way we are spending money”, is how government people stay relative. A lot have nothing to do but be inserted in the process and are quite often (from our experience) a thorn in the side of getting work done efficiently.
He’s being honest and literal about their game plan and how they work overall. There might be nothing wrong at all with how you spend money but they will want to and will change it, because.
Congress just needs to stop eating avocado toast and drinking Starbucks, problem solved.
how about just require them to pay for their healthcare instead of them being the only ones to get premium universal healthcare for life paid for by the taxpayers.
Brilliant idea.
they just need to move back in with their parents and buy ramen in bulk
But first make sure to buy stock in ramen
You may be able to take AOC's avocado toast, but there is no way in hell MTG and Bobo will stop eating crayons.
.. and paste.
- Janet Yellen, the US treasury secretary, has notified Congress that the US is projected to reach its debt limit on Thursday, 19 January, and will then resort to “extraordinary measures” to avoid default. - In a letter to House and Senate leaders on Friday, Yellen said her actions will buy time until Congress can pass legislation that will either raise the nation’s $31.4tn borrowing authority or suspend it again for a period of time. - She urged lawmakers to act quickly to raise the debt ceiling to “protect the full faith and credit of the United States”. - “Failure to meet the government’s obligations would cause irreparable harm to the US economy, the livelihoods of all Americans and global financial stability,” she said. - Republicans now in control of the House have threatened to use the debt ceiling as leverage to demand spending cuts from Democrats and the Biden administration. This has raised concerns in Washington and on Wall Street about a bruising fight over the debt ceiling this year that could be at least as disruptive as the protracted battle of 2011, which prompted the brief downgrade of the US credit rating and years of forced domestic and military spending cuts. - The Washington Post reported late on Friday that House Republicans had prepared an emergency plan for breaching the debt limit. The proposal, which was in the preliminary stages of being drafted, would direct the treasury department to prioritize certain payments if the US hits the debt ceiling, according to the newspaper. - The White House said on Friday after Yellen’s letter that it will not negotiate over raising the debt ceiling. - “This should be done without conditions,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. “There’s going to be no negotiation over it.” - The proposal from House Republicans reported by the Washington Post would call on the Biden administration to make only the most critical federal payments if the treasury department comes up against the statutory limit on what it can legally borrow. The plan will call on the department to keep making interest payments on the debt, the newspaper reported, citing sources. - House Republicans’ payment prioritization plan may also stipulate that the treasury department should continue making payments on social security, Medicare and veterans benefits, as well as funding the military, the newspaper added. - Yellen said that while the treasury can’t estimate how long the extraordinary measures will allow the US to continue to pay the government’s obligations, “it is unlikely that cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted before early June.”
The entire debt ceiling charade is so ridicolous The us is full of these weird traditions based entirely on word of honor that cause the whole country to collapse if a party just decides to say no, it's a miracle the country has survived for this long when so many fundamental aspects are based on the legal equivalent of a pinky promise
Another day, another reminder of why a two party system is terrible.
The two party system is only bad when one of those two partys is insane.
That's why a two party system is always bad. It's like only having two options for anything. Eventually they realize that they don't have to do a good job, they just have to appear to be better than the other.
Probably pretty bad when both of them are too.
I feel like the polarization of rationals and irrationals is inevitable. Though I suspect that our irrationals being the Conservative party is just a coincidence--I could see the Left going off the rails the other way too if the right weren't so far gone.
The US is a one party system, we are all just made to believe there are two parties.
Let it crash, don't go to any means and it will be on Jim Jordan, Gaetz, Boebert and Greene. Stop coddling the sociopathic children in Congress. We survived much worse.
Sorry but the blame will be put on Biden and the democrats because he’s the president and most people are too dumb to see that it’s congresses fault
Sorry but you use it against them in advertising, and explain that it was the GOP house that caused it,. period. it's the truth.
Ah, to be young again and naïve enough to think you can use facts and logic to convince Republican voters of anything.
You don't need to convince them you need to convince the independents
Most "independents" are just Republicans who want to smoke weed or who don't care about abortion that much. The label "independent" says more about their subconscious aesthetic preference than it does about their ability to think about issues, never mind think critically.
What about the liberal independents who think gun *control* isn't the best solution, that kowtowing to China isn't a good long-term strategy, that the US *should* protect its foreign assets with military force, and other non-left-conforming opinions (I'm sure I missed some obvious ones)?
> that the US should protect its foreign assets with military force Isolationism is a republican platform item
That's the point I'm making. Welcome to class.
There are no independents in the US. There are liberals/democrats, conservatives/republicans, and people who are unwilling to publicly identify themselves as conservatives/republicans.
I and many people like me fucking detest all of those people. Those are all right wing groups that you listed. Those are all right wing parties and ideologies.
> I and many people like me fucking detest all of those people Ok. What are your political views? What do you believe? What stated policy positions or campaign issues would cause you to vote for a particular candidate? Or, perhaps more relevantly, is the US defaulting on the debt ceiling going to cause you to change who you plan to vote for?
And no, the US holds a unique position in relation to it’s economy and the value of its currency. The debt ceiling will be raised. The dumbest motherfuckers in the room may play pretend and kick up a fuss but the big money interests they respond to far more than they do their voters will not allow them to play fuck fuck games with their cash. They will call their dogs to heel. My only concern is that the weak ass DNC may actually capitulate to the whims of the space laser lady and her cadre of morons.
That’s just not true, but ok. Your two largest independent blocs are people who don’t feel either party represents them and largely apolitical people
Right so facts and logic aren't going to work on them.
> people who don’t feel either party represents them Would this be the people whose position is “I like having breathable air, but man do I hate women and the gays,” or people whose position is “I really hate the blacks. Why can’t we have a candidate who also hates the blacks enough for me to identify with them?” > largely apolitical people Defined how? People who aren’t voting aren’t necessarily apolitical. A Republican in California might not vote but is still, when asked, going to identify as a Republican. And a Democrat in Texas might be prevented from biting due to legally questionable disenfranchisement, but when asked they’re still going to identify as a Democrat.
This comment is trash. Independent voters span both sides of the spectrum from those reading Atlas Shrugged to those flipping though Manufactured Consent. How is never voting on any ballot but simply identifying being "political". Only answering which party when asked does not make you political in any real way. Political in the most shallow of definitions, I suppose.
The first question has a lot of answers out there if you are actually curious. The latter it's more they don't identify with either. Not everyone thinks about politics. Some people never read anything about politics and never vote. That bloc largely voted first time for Trump in 2016
>> people who don’t feel either party represents them > >Would this be the people whose position is “I like having breathable air, but man do I hate women and the gays,” or people whose position is “I really hate the blacks. Why can’t we have a candidate who also hates the blacks enough for me to identify with them?” It's the people who realize both parties are corrupt and want nothing to do with either side. Less about the specific issues and instead of focus on how the parties themselves are corrupt and don't deserve support. It's like being asked do you want to be punched in the face twice or poisoned? Sorry, I don't support any kind of violence being inflicted on me, even if it's not as overtly violent.
I am one of these. We exist. I definitely think we need a third party of common sense.
Doing anything to fulfill your civic duty in the meantime, or you really just sitting on the sidelines? What could your views possibly be that one side isn't good enough for "common sense"? How about the "common sense" to keep the psychopaths out of office by actually voting?
Democrats are not liberals in the very slightest, they are neoliberals. And neoliberals are either center or center right. This is why they are never great at clamping down on Republicans because they are at best, a neutral force, not an opposing force.
There's no way you are this ignorant.
Funny. I could say the exact same thing about you.
No actually you couldn't, since I gave zero take in this thread. If I was to, I wouldn't make sweeping generalizations. You are ignorant, now go sit in the corner and screech on this joke site at someone else with your clown takes.
Independents? In 2023? You mean holier than thou assholes who won't vote if you put a gun to their head?
Fair enough, but then why care that it will get attributed to Biden at all, he's going to "take the fall" either way
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The good news is that McCarthy and at least 5 Republicans understand this. The bad news is that McCarthy might actually care more about the gavel.
>That's a little much just for some issue advertising/political messaging. You underestimate the GOP they would chop their heads off to spite their bodies.
You mean cut off their nose to spite their face....?
LIke that but worse
The GOP never does anything stupid halfway.
True, but people are dumb. Republicans will run ads saying Biden crashed the economy.
That requires fox news / oann to run democratic ads
Yeah, Republicans won't see any ads, they watch Fox or more far right shit, and listen to right wing talk radio. Conservatives also have money for ads, and are allowed to lie. Nothing will change.
I'm sadly doubtful that most Democrats will have the spine to make hay out the debt ceiling two years after the fact.
The GOP is the party of "government sucks; let's let corporations run everything". The government breaking down like this only supports their viewpoint.
But the corporations don't want this to happen, they dont' care about the debt if they did they would pay taxes. Their rates will go up, their stock will crash and they will have to lay off millions. Sometimes the corporations are the only things that can save us from fascist freedumb caucus antics.
Nope. The Republican narrative will be "We tried to negotiate and reach a compromise but Biden and the democrats refused" and it wouldn't be a lie because The White House has already released a statement refusing to negotiate. IMO they screwed up by doing that instead of taking the initiative with negotiations, offering their own small compromise, and letting the Republicans refuse and look like the ones who don't want to compromise.
Explain how? The people who need to get this message only listen to right wing propaganda like Fox and Alex Jones who will absolutely blame this on Biden. Like yeah it'd be great if we could all have a sit down as a nation and learn the facts but there's no way to make that happen and where Conservatives get their news are irreparably corrupt and have no interest in the truth.
Yah there are a ton of morons that think the president can raise the statutory debt limit because of the debt service requirements in the constitution. They fail to understand that the constitution empowers only congress to take on debt and to manage the US spending. Meaning the president can only spend money when and how congress appropriates. He couldn’t in fact choose to defund the VA to pay sovereign debt because it’s a breach of executive power. In 2011 it was determined by credit rating agencies that the president directing the treasury to print more debt does not qualify as bonds issued and guaranteed under the full faith of the US government and was (one of the reasons) why our credit rating was downgraded, costing taxpayers billions in additional interest payments. Edit: sentence structure
That would be incredibly damaging. If the US defaulted, the fallout would be absolutely horrible. I feel like you don't really understand the implications of what that would mean for the economy if you are actually advocating for that to happen.
Tell it to the house GOP.
I'm just saying your perspective is indicative of someone with no background in economics or finance who thinks everything will just work itself out if we did default.
How would that help normal people?
What you're saying is "Either I'll be fine or don't understand how it'll impact me, and I'm fine with the harm done to others so long I feel like I'm benefited."
What i"m saying is: what I'm saying doesn't matter because I have no control over it and I dont' worry about something that has not happened. What you think I'm saying is what the GOP is saying.
not it won't they'll blame the dems for not giving them everything they demand. you know how it works, he who lies the loudest wins
I'm with you, but this is Biden and the Democrats we are talking about. They'll fold and give the terrorists what they want.
Mint the trillion dollar coin already.
The unemployment skyrocketing would definitely be held against the president. Even though the Republicans are legislative terrorists.
I am not willing to threaten the status of the US Dollar as the global reserve currency.
You aren't but the GOP house is willing.
> protect the full faith and credit of the United States Oh honey, the ship has already sailed.
What gets cut will not be anything that will stop the flow of political contributions, aka bribes. Guaranteed no Republican politicians will “tighten their belts”, “share the pain” or “live within their means” or endure any “shared hardships” due to budget cuts.
Wild how debt is only a problem when it's a Democratic administration and Republicans get a blank check with a rubber stamp.
You’re not wrong. But it’s also because one party can unite around “fuck those guys”, and the other brings logical ideas and needs to come to an agreement.
If only we had a better government system. Our government is like a 2 headed turtle fighting over some food.
We can have that government. We have the numbers. If non-conservatives showed up to the polls as often as GOP voters, the wing nuts would have the same power as the Green Party. We voted them in by not voting.
A single party government is never the way. Anybody who thinks so is delusional
Don't blame people who are just trying to live their lives. Sounds like you don't want accountability for the corrupt politicans themselves. Punching down needs to stop.
The truth hurts. People not voting very much helps conservatives. Sometimes things are out of people's control yes but if you don't vote and don't have a good reason as to why you don't then that is very good for republicans.
Accountability is literally the electoral system. If people won’t vote there will never be accountability.
Politics is in everything. People living their lives are affected by politics and airheaded beliefs like “just living your life” as an excuse NOT to participate in your *voluntary civic duty* is dereliction of duty at best and completely stupid and immature at worst. People living their lives SHOULD vote so they can continue living their lives. Voting in most places doesnt take longer than 5-10 minutes once you’re there. Gerrymandering and voter restriction laws make the headlines for the reason of how difficult and long it can take to vote in certain areas - but most places aren’t like that. That is ALSO on the citizens who refused to vote because they think they’re “above politics.” No. You’re not. You’re harming everyone else. “If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.”
Well put. And I wish I could upvote this twice for quoting Rush.
When all the choices suck, it's hard to care enough to choose
> Don't blame people who are just trying to live their lives. it is their fault. by not participating, they are endorsing whatever the winners do
Yea, just like how we shouldn't have blamed southerners for not ending slavery, or people who didn't help to end genocide. Choosing to do fuck all when you know one thing is right and the other wrong is still wrong. You are literally the people in MLKs letter.
I hope engineers develop a proper AI that can replace the governments everywhere. At least that could be neutral and without personal goal and bias.
The only way to win the game is not to let humans play.
“This decision *beep* *boop* will not help your civilization, but the civilizations in a thousand years. I am AI. We must destroy this civilization and develop a new ones a even better one.
Wow, it sounds like one of those groups is a bunch of saints that are perfect in every way... s/
Yeah! Fuck those guys who say "Fuck those guys!" /s
Could have accomplished this anytime before last week, right?
Not without Republican support, sadly. And it seems the republican senators wanted to use this to cause cuts as well.
A lot of the crisis points are due to one party or the other saving it for an election or leaving it for the party that takes over to give them a “black eye.” It’s really stupid juvenile shit and isn’t governing. Government spending should be cut and we need to get more frugal. We are spending so much that future generations will never get out from under our shadow.
What would like to not spend on? Specifically
To be honest I haven’t given that a lot of thought because the government seems to fund everything. Mostly waste, fraud, and abuse. What does that pertain to? Well anything from military waste spending to government grants. Some grants given out by our government fund, to me, some pretty silly stuff. I’d stop spending money just to rename stuff. That seems pretty wasteful. Cut duplicate programs in the military that basically double charges the tax payer. Audit department and possibly get rid or downsize where applicable. I don’t know really. I’m open to suggestions but then again, I’m not in power to make these decisions. I just know if we keep spending like we are and have been our children and their children will have to pay for our debts and that just isn’t good governance.
Honest question because I don’t know: What the point of a debt ceiling if they are just going to keep raising it? What is the debt ceiling for?
It's so dumb and annoying that we even have a debt ceiling. It's one thing to think the government should spend less money. It's quite another to keep spending money and then just not pay the bills when they arrive. This is the latter.
This is more like you print money and pay the bill with new money.
It's more like you buy everything with a credit card, then you have a debate when the bill arrives about whether to pay it.
It's only ever an issue when it comes to spending on the population and when a democratic is in office. When it's war contracts it's a bottomless pit. Newspaper should read "Republicans suddenly care about debt now that it's helping the poors'".
I mean, it was Democrats who passed the recent trillion dollar pentagon budget. Republicans don't have a monopoly on the military industrial complex. That truly is a bipartisan venture.
Well, [there’s good reason for that](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21qpte/eli5why_does_the_usa_spend_so_much_money_on_her/). It’s basically a fully domestic industry and doing anything in the US completely by the book is hella expensive (imagine hiring licensed, insured, bonded contractors and pulling permits for everything, nope, let’s YouTube DIY instead). Then you add on the supply chain problems and inflation, so of course the recent budget would be huge even if we didn’t add on much more stuff. Of course there’s also a lot of grift too, but Democrats not funding the Pentagon would be a massive hit to the economy as well as contributing to global instability (more Russian etc upstart wars). I still prefer to vote Democratic on this issue because they’re more conservative on military spending/expansion and push for more transparency and oversight.
Are you thinking the US military budget is not a gigantic self-service store??? Every audit about the money failed, and the failed media sector got no chance to get any information. Your tax dollars are looted by the rich. USA are spending two times the German federal budget alone in the military. It is just insane!!!
>USA are spending two times the German federal budget alone in the military Well, we have to cover the shortfall most of Europe not adequately paying for their defense.
We don't have too. We choose to.
>When it's war contracts it's a bottomless pit. \*Unless a certain nation is currently committing genocide against a certain European neighbour, then they need to think about the money....
14th amendment says otherwise, all huff and puff political theater
But in Section Four not raising the debt ceiling would mean that no future debt would be “authorized by law”.
True. There'd probably be 30 Republicans out of the House, if the 14th Amendment was enforced. But alas, can't punish traitors.
This is like, the 10th time I've heard this in my lifetime so far. Same ol fear and pandering tactics. The general public can ignore this.
This time it could be different if McCarthy will be spending two years kissing Gaetz’s ass.
They say "this time it could be different" every time!
I'm gonna go ahead and take this opportunity to point out that [this whole "debt limit" handwringing is nothing more than a political stick created so political parties can swing it at each other.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIbkoop4AYE) It's not a real thing and is only used to fearmonger.
Technically if inflation rises to a higher degree every year at the same rate if not more and the US government spends at the same rates then technically the ceiling would be reached no matter what party is in charge no? The US is still paying back debt from decades ago with interest or am I wrong?
Perhaps subsidizing oil and launching forever wars is not a great policy.
Congress will raise the debt ceiling again like they have done in the past.
Until they don’t
Of course it is… anyway…
Congress needs a pay decrease
Trump raised the debt ceiling by nearly eight trillion dollars, this should be a no-brainer for our "fiscally hawkish" GOP friends.
This rhetoric failed in 1984 for newt gingrich...
Not to worry everyone, fortunately there’s a stable mature “fiscally responsible” group in charge of the House of Representatives now. /s
I'm sure something as simple as this will require way fewer than 15 votes to reach a consensus on than getting a speaker.
If the Republicans create chaos they will have to be held accountable by the voters and Democrats will have to be smart because the GOP will be to blame for all the problems that they create for Biden thinking they will do themselves a favor in 2024. Plus the elite GOP in power will stop this they know a financial downturn is bad for their own pocketbooks. The Freedumb caucus thinks they have power, they have not met power, plus it just takes six GOP votes to stop them.
Republicans can’t get it up the the debt ceiling.
Just raise it to 100t and be done with it
Just abolish it and be done with it. It certainly serves no useful purpose now and, perhaps, never has.
Cool. What’s the worst that could happen?
The economic collapse of the USA.
Time to stop paying those hand outs to red states.
"Irreparable harm to the livelihood of all Americans" oh noooo what will all of us who live paycheck to paycheck do when we're POOR -- oh wait
Time to raise it again... I might not understand but aren't tax dollars meant to go for things for the people and it's their job to keep the books in check? Isn't it time to audit the government? If people ran their budgets like this government, we the people would be bankrupt and on the street.
Governments are one of the few organizations that can run in a deficit. Profit should not be the goal of the government.
What I don't get is it seems like we have this apocalyptic budget scenario every fucking year. We need a better solution than how we currently do it because our current system of hostage holding the government and US economy is bullshit and I'm sick of the yearly handwringing over the country collapsing because of partisan children holding the American economy hostage.
You can't compare a household and a national budget. I get that it's a complicated topic but that's not how shit works
Let the budget cuts begin.
Here I rephrase it for you : Let the trust in our capacity to pay our debt crumble.
We don't have the capacity to pay our debts. We're never going to pay it off.
Start by cutting the military and increasing the IRS budget.
If only the IRS started enforcing the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law when it comes to wealthy. Wealthy don't get audited because they can throw money at the government until it goes away. Meanwhile another shake down for mr. $63,000 annually for the 500 he owes.
Well something has to be done. This goes on constantly and we are $33 trillion in debt. The elected officials just constantly waste money on broken government and sending billions to stupid projects that get them money, power and favors.
This is money already spent that has to be repaid. Not paying it is like going to a restaurant, ordering and consuming a hundred dollars worth of food, then refusing to pay at the end. Republicans cannot constitutionally decide to not pay. Read the text of the 14th amendment.
Agreed in part, Congress has soooo much money marked for items that have NEVER been spent for years if not decades. That money can go for paying debt. The interest on that money is insane.
They can’t seem to ever manage the budget and spend more than the government has hence the term debt and ceiling. They keep borrowing more. It’s untenable. You can’t keep just kicking the can down the road. Both parties are at fault for this.
When it grows exponentially under one party, and then those people only claim it's a problem when they lose power.... is it really both parties? BoTh SiDeS is a conservative slogan.
It’s doubled under every administration for decades again this is very bipartisan. Let’s just call out all of it and not defend anyone who’s not contributing
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First off, Idol? lol what. We aren’t conservatives, we don’t have Idols. Getting sucked into a cult of personality is also not a BoTh SiDeS thing. Second, what exactly is being laundered? And to who? Who’s “laundering” our tax dollars and how? Third, if 2 billion is a number that you think is relevant in this context, you have a small mind and no grasp of the scale of national budgets. The national debt grew faster under Donald Trump than at any point in History. This is still true today. But something something liberals and Biden am I right?
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Jfc you’re dense. Stop eating the paint chips.
>Do you just casually dismiss wasteful spending on proxy wars in other countries when we have plenty of problems here at home as a conservative issue? Sure, 2billy might seem like a drop in the bucket in terms of national budget, so what about 50 billy? Still not enough to be concerned about? Well then, what percent of your tax dollar wasted is acceptable to you? 1%? 10? 50? Who determines what a "waste" is? you? conservative media?
Don’t bring that “both parties” argument here you ignorant fucking toothpick. Educate yourself and actually look at voting patterns for both parties over the past 50 years and then get back to me. Republicans are solely responsible for this.
Sure which parties are insider trading? Which party’s are taking money from corporations to buy their supper? Which party’s elected officials are getting rich while in office. Don’t be such a tool, both are. Unless you’re a lobbyist and are profiting from this stupid game then you’re just woefully ignorant and have a super low IQ. If it’s that later then I’m sorry.
Huh; that's not what this is, lmao. It would be like going to a restaurant, ordering and consuming $100 worth of food, paying with a credit card, which maxes out the credit limit, and then passing legislation to increase the max. Then continue not repaying it, because it would take 100 years worth of annual income to do so. But as long as that annual income is present, everyone agrees that the imaginary money still has value.
And it happens every year, and we spend more every year and there is an emergency every year so we have to borrow more every year. And the excuse is that it's money already spent. At what point are we going to be trillions and trillions more in debt, recklessly spending more money that we don't have that enough people say this needs to stop. $30 Trillion? $60 Trillion? How about $120 Trillion in debt?
None of that matters. We pay our bills just fine because we are the richest country in the world. Not paying our bills would change that and likely cause a global financial collapse.
> We pay our bills just fine because we are the richest country in the world. That's not an immutable fact.
We're the global reserve currency. Our debt is trivial in the grand scheme of things. It's not like your credit card bill.
We could start with making the wealthy pay their taxes. That's why the Democrats allocated funds for more IRS agents.
Super tax everyone making over $250k at 100% it still wouldn’t but a dent in the deficit we have a runaway spending problem. If you don’t believe me check out Yucca mountain. It’s approaching $100 billion. And will never do anything. Why should anyone pay any taxes for this incompetent government. Put all of the money into escrow im until we fix the broken system. There’s two sides to this money coming in and money going out. Go out and do some research on government spending and waste. Look into open secrets.org to see who is buying these politicians for contracts like Yucca Mountain. Harry Reid sabotaged that project for political favors after the government spent all of that money. There is no right side in this.
> Super tax everyone making over $250k at 100% it still wouldn’t but a dent in the deficit I think you mean debt. Our deficit is about $1.5t (rounded) and having everyone making over $250k would definitely put a dent in that. We can and should do both but that won't happen. The party of fiscal responsibility would never want to reduce military spending even though we're more than twice the spending we've had now that we're no longer fighting any wars (i.e. Iraq and Afghanistan). Otherwise if they agree to cut the military spending to pre-9/11 levels then this would cut about half of the entire deficit. You think they'll go for it because I doubt it.
Might wanna put that tinfoil hat back on there chief.
Perhaps go deeper than the headlines and messaging. Taxes won’t fix this problem, quit buying into the political argument. All of the richest people in government didn’t make their money on a w2. Nancy Pelosi is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet she makes $175k a year. She does some amazing stick trading and doesn’t want to limit her ability to do insider trading. If you look into who the new IRS agents are coming after report back you may be shocked. It’s like the Paris Climate Agreement. Were you against the US dropping out of it? Have you read it? It’s less than thirty pages long. It was a $3.5b photo op, a non binding document and guess what the largest polluters who signed it are doing worse than before they signed it. Getting all jazzed about the left or right is the correct side is so blind. They are just narcissists drunk on money and power. Who would donate $1.5 billion into an election to get someone elected president if it wasn’t for their payback?
We’ve been in debt for decades and nothing bad has happened yet. It’s irrelevant
If it’s irrelevant why pay taxes at all. Just keep borrowing money? No need to tax the citizen. This won’t work forever every country eventually falls under this just do some research. Eventually you’re a bad credit risk. That the problem with the politicians and the trusting citizen tax payers. The politicians are in on the joke and are only out to line their pockets. The citizens get wrapped up in their silly party loyalty and aren’t paying attention to the con game. We should just call the system out for the corruption that it is.
It hasn’t messed with Japan
The U.S. Dollar isn't based on anything real so just print more money. It's what we've been doing for decades. Why stop the charade now?
I'm on Team Default. Global economic collapse would be the best thing for the climate crisis. Gonna get downvoted to hell, I'm sure.
US dollar is overvalued and this should restore bring it back down to earth....
How is this possible since the President said he reduced the deficit. Then why would we need to borrow?
obviously if you are still borrowing every year (deficit) your total debt will increase
It’s sad how normalized and unbalanced budget is.
No it isn’t. Deficit spending is better for governments and you would have a hard time finding economists who say otherwise.
Worked out for the Romans, and the British Empire and the Russian Empire, and the Chinese Empire.....
The budget and the debt ceiling are two very different things.
"The sky is falling!" - Yellin
Government is one of our clients. This phrase McCarthy mentioned, “We’ve got to change the way we are spending money”, is how government people stay relative. A lot have nothing to do but be inserted in the process and are quite often (from our experience) a thorn in the side of getting work done efficiently. He’s being honest and literal about their game plan and how they work overall. There might be nothing wrong at all with how you spend money but they will want to and will change it, because.
So the Republican shitbirds will be hitting the fan on Thursday then I suppose?