Debt Limit: The Other Fiscal Cliff

Politico ^ | 11/27/12 4:33 AM EST | By CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN and JAKE SHERMAN

[ExxonPatrolUs]

[Nothing raises the ire of Republicans in Congress like the specter of Obama taking matters into his own hands. If the White House goes that route and raises the debt ceiling by executive order, Boehner and his leadership team would likely take immediate legal action to halt the debt ceiling increase, sources familiar with his thinking said.]

-Snip-

President Barack Obama made a demand of House Speaker John Boehner near the end of their first White House meeting on the fiscal cliff: Raise the debt limit before year’s end.

Boehner responded: “There is a price for everything.”

And with that exchange, described by sources familiar with the Nov. 16 session, an issue that has been overshadowed by the fiscal cliff showdown moved to the forefront of already complicated negotiations to avert more than $500 billion in spending cuts and tax increases by the new year. With bitter memories of the 2011 debt-limit standoff still fresh, both sides are engaged in another aggressive round of hardball.

[andyk]

So don't raise the limit, Boehner. Too bad the US population is so politically illiterate that it doesn't understand the debt limit made it easier for the government to borrow money.

[bruinbirdman]

"So don't raise the limit"

Not many know that entitlement payments are on auto pilot legislation like congresional raises. They need no appropriations, no debate, no nothing. They are automatic.

The only way to stop entitlement payments, other than new legislation, is to fail to raise the debt limit.

Even then, entitlements get priority, after government operations and employees, for any income received by the federal government.

yitbos

[VideoPaul]

This doesn’t need to be this difficult.

The message that needs to go to the president is simple: Here’s the only deal...every dollar in new revenue from taxes is matched ONE FOR ONE by a dollar in spending cuts, and the timing must also be identical. If the taxes happen now, then the matching spending cuts happen NOW, not ten and 20 years from now as is being reported. If the spending cuts don’t happen for 10 years, neither do the tax increases.

That will definitely get the left to look a lot more seriously at the tax increases they are demanding.

[reefdiver]

How could Boehner even consider saying yes to that request? zer0 has NO mandate, start cutting now

[Graewoulf]

No Democrat wants to take responsibility for their own actions.

As then Spkr. Rep. Nancy Pelosi once said: “We have to pass Obama’care’ to see what is in it.”

And now Benghazi-Coward Obama’s Democrats are saying: ‘We have to go over Obama’s Fiscal Cliff to see how far we fall financially.’

[TurboZamboni]

The entire debate revolves around the fact that future Congresses are not bound by any spending mandates done by prior congresses.Only taxes transcend new congresses.
 
 No agreement to bind a future Congress to cutting is enforceable. But any tax increase continues until a future congress passes a bill through both houses, and the President signs. Similarly, debt incurred today will need to be paid in the future.

A Constitutional Amendment IS binding (more binding than one Congress “promising” to cut future spending,as if that’ll ever happen)  They should try again to pass the “Cut Cap Balance Act” .