Posted on 12/16/2009 1:59:39 PM PST by mikelets456
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House on Wednesday passed legislation giving the federal government the ability to borrow a whopping $290 billion to finance its operations for just six additional weeks.
The 218-214 vote sends the must-pass bill to the Senate, which is expected to approve it as its last act before adjourning for the year. The alternative would be a market-rattling, first-ever default on U.S. obligations.
The measure is needed as a result of the out-of-control budget deficit, which registered $1.4 trillion for the budget year that ended in September. The current debt ceiling is $12.1 trillion and is set to be reached by Dec. 31.
Democrats had hoped to pass a far larger increase of almost $2 trillion to avoid another vote before next year's midterm elections—and to wrap the increase into the popular defense appropriations bill to give some political cover.
But that plan fell apart amid opposition from about a dozen Senate Democratic moderates, who say they will refuse to vote for a debt limit increase unless it is accompanied by legislation to establish a new bipartisan task force to come up with a plan to curb the deficit. That idea is opposed by Democratic leaders such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Wednesday's bill delays the showdown in February.
Another complicating factor is moderate "Blue Dog" Democrats, who are demanding a "pay-as-you-go" budget law aimed at ensuring that new tax cuts or new spending programs don't increase deficits. Otherwise, they won't vote for the next debt increase.
The Senate is generally opposed to the idea, even though it was the law of the land for more than a decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
You will need a bigger toilet and bucket...
The easiest way to cut a deficit is to shut down the Congress.
If they stopped giving away money and passing bills that cost billions of dolars the cost would go down tremendously.
Let’s throw this Health care atrocity in the toilet along with Cap and Trade, money for Copenhagens giveaway, foreign aid,Millions to ACORN,Millions to Green technology,Millions to AIDs patients in foreign countries, Billions in pork, just going to capitol Hill and firing half the sycophantic staffs would save a ton of money.
These is just ‘one’ of the bucket ready jobs ‘Zero’ is creating for us. ;-)
Ok, WTF? Why in the hell do we need a “new bipartisan task force to come up with a plan to curb the deficit” ?
Idiots, all you have to do is this: take every single line-item on the federal budget and roll it back to what it was in 2000. If it didn’t exist in 2000, get rid of it altogether.
In 2000, the budget was $1.8 trillion - HALF of what it is now and if I recall correctly, we were in better shape then than we are now.
There. Was that so hard?
This frenetic House activity is much ado about nothing. Nanzi and Company don’t realize they’re irrelevent: BHO is pouring fiat money out all over the world without a backward glance at the silly old debt limit.
One good thing: we won’t need to hunt down 535 legislators. We can just offer them retirement... maybe in a refurbished alcatraz... near home for Nanzi....
irrelevant; sorry.
Bullcrap. They give lip service to "pay-as-you-go", but they reliably keep passing debt limit hikes every time their masters tell them to. The whole "blue dog" thing is a scam.
Did any Republicans vote ‘yes’?
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