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Lock Congress Up Until They Deal
Townhall.com ^ | December 28, 2012 | Mike Shedlock

Posted on 12/28/2012 12:03:52 PM PST by Kaslin

Stocks staged a late day rally because the Senate is prepared to kick the can down the road, avoiding any chance of fiscal sanity this year or next.

Whether or not the House will go along is another matter, but unfortunately Speaker Boehner calls House back to Washington on Sunday

The House of Representatives will reconvene on Sunday evening, just less than 30 hours before the United States reaches the fiscal cliff.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, notified lawmakers that the House would come to order at 6:30 p.m. ET on Sunday in hopes of averting the end-of-year combination of tax hikes and spending cuts that constitute the fiscal cliff.

The lawmaker on Thursday's call told NBC News that any Senate plan Boehner puts on the House floor (of which there is no guarantee) would only receive as few as 40 Republican votes, making Democratic help necessary.

"If the Senate will not approve these bills and send them to the president to be signed into law in their current form, they must be amended and returned to the House," Boehner told Republicans Thursday, according to a source on the call. "Once this has occurred, the House will then consider whether to accept the bills as amended, or to send them back to the Senate with additional amendments. The House will take this action on whatever the Senate can pass -- but the Senate must act."
Flagpole Rally S&P 500 Futures



The moment I saw that second green candle and volume spike on the S&P 500 futures I knew a deal was in the works even though I could not find any news for a half hour.

Magic Number is 60

MarketWatch reports Senate Republicans open to new cliff deal

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said late Thursday that Senate Republicans are open to any White House proposal to avert the fiscal cliff.

Reid urged the House to pass a Senate bill extending Bush-era tax cuts for those earning $250,000 a year or less. The Nevada Democrat said the House is being operated under “a dictatorship of the speaker.”

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said in response: “Senator Reid should talk less and legislate more.”

Even in the Democratic-controlled Senate, Obama’s preferred bill faces an obstacle: Sixty senators are required to break a filibuster, and Democrats control 53 seats.
Easy Escape for Senate Republicans

The magic number may be 60, but I do not expect any filibusters in the Senate.

The easy escape route is to pass the buck. In this case the Senate is likely to pass anything, hoping to avoid the blame, while placing a burden on the House to do something fiscally responsible.

Let's hope the House rejects whatever watered-down proposal that comes out of the Senate.

Lock Congress Up Until They Deal?

MarketWatch Columnist Rex Nutting says On fiscal cliff: Don’t negotiate, let’s legislate.

The United States doesn’t have a fiscal problem. Or an economic problem. It has a political problem. The workings of the government are so gummed up that we’re in danger of falling into a recession that’s completely avoidable.

I think it’s high time we locked the members of Congress in a room and told them that we’ll let them out when they reach a deal.
Economic Folly of Recession Avoidance

The idea the US does not have a fiscal problem or an economic problem is of course total nonsense.

That said, I am of course totally sympathetic towards the idea the US also has a political problem. Indeed, I am even willing to say the political problem is largely responsible for the economic and fiscal problems.

Where Nutting crosses the line into economic folly is the idea Congress needs to avoid a recession. Quite frankly, that is a nut case proposal, and no solution at all.

The US is in this mess because every step of the way, the Fed and Congress acted to avoid recessions. Greenspan in particular fueled a housing bubble holding interest rates too low too long to "help" the economy out of a dot-com bubble bust largely of the Fed's making.

Now, Nutting wants to lock Congress in a room until they come up with a deal to avoid a recession.

Instead, I propose fiscal sanity. I propose we lock Congress in a room until they come up with a proposal that will balance the budget within five years.

Either Nutting is wrong or I am. And here's a hint, if I'm wrong about anything, it's that five years is too long.

Nutting proposed nothing more than another can-kicking exercise that will never end. I suggest it's time for an honest economic discussion on what the country can or cannot afford.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial; Government
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To: hummingbird

I didn’t hear about any substantive tax cuts but if the Hoyse has done this already then Beohner should just let the reps go home for the holidays and tell the media that Rthe budget bill is in the Senate so go find out what Reid’s doing with it.


21 posted on 12/28/2012 1:20:46 PM PST by faithhopecharity
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To: alloysteel
The House of Representatives is not, and has not been, the problem.

Concur, Boehner and the House are the only thing standing between us and a third world dictatorship.

22 posted on 12/28/2012 1:28:40 PM PST by af_vet_1981 (The bus came by and I got on, That's when it all began,)
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To: Kaslin

Dumbest idea of the year. I’d rather they go home and just leave us alone. They are our “representatives”, not our overlords.


23 posted on 12/28/2012 1:42:09 PM PST by Fledermaus (The Republic is Dead: Collapse the system. Let the Dems destroy the economy!)
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To: af_vet_1981

That’s not very reassuring.


24 posted on 12/28/2012 1:43:18 PM PST by Fledermaus (The Republic is Dead: Collapse the system. Let the Dems destroy the economy!)
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To: crosshairs
Lock Congress Up

Appropriate fix. Both sides are like 2 wolves deciding which sheeple to slaughter.

535 current and former members of Congress get no pay, no retirement, no medical, no perks until the debt clock becomes a surplus clock (without raising taxes or fees). When the surplus clock ticks into positive territory, current taxes are reduced drastically.

Socialism Is Legal Plunder - Bastiat...(how could a French economist from 160+ years ago describe our socialist-induced fiasco to a tee?)

25 posted on 12/28/2012 1:45:33 PM PST by PGalt
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To: Kaslin

I’ve advocated the conversion of the U.S. Capitol Building into a maximum security prison for years.


26 posted on 12/28/2012 1:50:16 PM PST by windsorknot
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To: All
Great thread! Thanks to EVERY poster. Concrete solutions BUMP! (finishing my thought from above)

535 current and former members of Congress get no pay, no retirement, no medical, no perks until the debt clock becomes a surplus clock (without raising taxes or fees). When the surplus clock ticks into positive territory, current taxes are reduced drastically.

--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

27 posted on 12/28/2012 1:52:03 PM PST by PGalt
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To: alloysteel; af_vet_1981; All

“But Harry Reid and Bronco Bama seem to be afflicted with some mental disorder bordering on psychosis”...

Socialists (”we’re all socialists now”) are criminals...(Socialism Is Legal Plunder - Bastiat). We’ve been overtaken.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/140004619X/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=17081909288&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9008172821557097432&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&ref=pd_sl_3xni5pkt2d_b

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tro2U-cezqo


28 posted on 12/28/2012 2:01:55 PM PST by PGalt
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To: PGalt

Bo just ORDERED a raise for them.


29 posted on 12/28/2012 2:12:15 PM PST by MomofMarine
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To: Kaslin

When I read the title I thought it said “Lock Congress Up Until They Are Dead”


30 posted on 12/28/2012 2:17:02 PM PST by Sir Lurks Alot
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To: MomofMarine

Thanks MomofAmericasfinest. God bless your family, your friends and your marine’s friends. I saw. I read. I commented...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2973008/posts


31 posted on 12/28/2012 2:20:53 PM PST by PGalt
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To: Kaslin

Sorry, but MY choice is to send them — and Obozo and his buds — HOME.

A number of years ago, Walter Williams suggested we should send congess home and keep them year all year and pay them a million bucks a year. At 535 million, it would he a BARGAIN!


32 posted on 12/28/2012 2:29:25 PM PST by Dick Bachert (An ARMED society is a POLITE society!)
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To: faithhopecharity
"... if the House has done this already then Beohner should just let the reps go home for the holidays and tell the media that the budget bill is in the Senate so go find out what Reid’s doing with it."

Indeed, "go find out what Reid's doing with" any of the bills submitted by the House.

33 posted on 12/28/2012 2:47:22 PM PST by hummingbird (Support Hummingbird Migration!)
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To: windsorknot

Me too, we don’t need all those folks in DC so insulated from their constituents. Telecommuting seems to work well for many companies, companies that actually make a profit by the way. Elected officials need to be kept close by where they can be properly disciplined by their constituents when necessary.


34 posted on 12/28/2012 2:50:47 PM PST by pepperdog ( I still get a thrill up my leg when spell check doesn't recognize the name/word Obama!)
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To: hummingbird

Yes indeed. Reed belongs in gaol. He’s hidden where our last $6 Trillion went by refusing to even pass budgets for the last 4 years. This helps hide all the theft as there’s no beginning point for any eventual audit we may someday be able to secure


35 posted on 12/28/2012 2:52:41 PM PST by faithhopecharity
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To: Kaslin

How about until they starve to death.


36 posted on 12/28/2012 2:57:10 PM PST by bmwcyle (We have gone over the cliff and we are about to hit the bottom)
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To: Gaffer

I don’t want a deal, either. I want all those idiot middle class liberals that believed the liberal media repeating, “Bush tax cuts for the rich”, to get their taxes increased so I can laugh at them for being so stupid and gullible.


37 posted on 12/28/2012 3:09:05 PM PST by CodeToad (Liberals are bloodsucking ticks. We need to light the matchstick to burn them off.)
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To: Kaslin

At this point, the only people who don’t want the federal government to go off the fiscal cliff is the Republican leadership.

Obama is all in favor of going off the cliff, because through some convoluted schemes he hopes it will give him more power.

The conservatives in congress are of mixed minds, because they do not want to hurt the country or its people, but at the same time they know that the longer this mess lasts, the worse it is going to get.

But Obama and Reid seem to be determined to both drive the country off the cliff and blame the Republicans for doing it.

Ironically, even if the Republicans agreed to everything Obama wanted, he would still refuse, because he uses Adolf Hitler’s technique of negotiation: demand everything and offer nothing; and if the other side offers anything, take it and demand even more.

Hitler used technique this to get entire countries given to him by the weak willed Chamberlain, and by those who were terrified of “causing war by saying ‘no’”. It would not have been their fault, and they did not cause the war, even if Goebbles insisted that they had.

Negotiation doesn’t work when your opponent *wants* war.

About the only thing the Republicans could do to effect at this point is, the minute the government goes over the cliff, to impeach Obama on charges of dereliction of duty.

Only that would so rattle the Democrats and their media allies that typical Americans just might see that this is all Obama’s fault.

Granted, the senate would never try Obama, but that is not the purpose of the exercise. The purpose is to drag out the impeachment, subpoena cabinet officers and “Czars”, and create a gaudy show trial. A daily grind of accusations against Obama and his toadies, along with citations for contempt of congress to a bunch of them.

Call witnesses of government oppression to testify, dozens of them. Take over the news with a daily Watergate-style attack against Obama. The effect this had on Nixon was palpable. And Nixon had a hell of a lot more character than Obama.


38 posted on 12/28/2012 4:06:05 PM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy (Pennies and Nickels will NO LONGER be Minted as of 1/1/13 - Tim Geithner, US Treasury Sect)
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To: Kaslin

I want the good people of this nation to show up on the capitol steps and drag congress from both its houses and hang them from the lamp posts. Them move on to OUR White House.


39 posted on 12/28/2012 4:56:16 PM PST by Newbomb Turk (Hey Newbomb, where's your brothers ElCamino ?)
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To: alloysteel

CONGRESS CONTROLS SPENDING

Just lock them up


40 posted on 12/28/2012 5:04:53 PM PST by Mr. K (There are lies, dammed lies, statistics, and democrap talking points.)
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