Posted on 07/15/2011 9:33:33 AM PDT by JohnRLott
If Congress and the president don't raise the debt ceiling, the consequences will be disastrous, politicians and pundits tell us, -- the equivalent of an economic Armageddon. And President Obama warns that the consequences are so dire that he cannot possibly tolerate any delay in making an agreement. He announced yesterday that any debt deal must be completed by today, July 15th.
According to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, failure to raise the debt ceiling limit will cause the United States to default and "cause a financial crisis potentially more severe than the crisis from which we are only now starting to recover.”
On Thursday, he renewed these warnings. And President Obama alarmed retired Americans this week: "I cannot guarantee that those [Social Security] checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it."
But the list of terrible things to come, if the government is stopped from continued deficit spending, goes on. Failure to raise the ceiling, it is warned, will dramatically raise mortgage interest rates, cause housing sales to plunge, create panic on world financial markets, and destroy the value of the dollar. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Niiizzze...
One thing that this whole process proves is that SS taxes collected from the public needs to be taken out of the general fund. When you collect, approx, $50 Billion in SS taxes and only pay out, approx, $29 Billion but can’t meet SS payments........something is totally wrong and the people are being lied to.
If this is true..why do we have a debt limit? If Congress must always increase it..or else..it is meaningless.
Great article, as always!
How’s that hopey changey working out, huh?
Someone got the key to Algore’s lock box.
Obama’s refusal to cut spending should backfire on his plans to blame the Republicans for any fallo9ut if raising the debt ceiling does not occur. Congress has been working diligently to come to a solution, all of which is being completely ignored by our illustrious Saul Alinsky follower President, as well as his mainstream media.
"I cannot guarantee that those [Social Security] checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it."
Does anyone know whether federal retirees will get their checks absent a deal? Yesterday Karl Rove had a column in the WSJ saying they would not.
We can survive for a while without our check but a lot of people cant.
Federal budget for 2011 - just one year:
Revenue: $2,173.7 billion
Expense: $3,818.8 billion
The Federal government is projected to owe well over $15,500 billion, or $15.5 trillion, in total at the end of 2011.
The entire U.S. economy is only around $14 trillion in created goods and services per year.
The debt ceiling increases will enable the debt to go higher to the point where the Treasury debt becomes junk paper, much the same as Greece.
If the debt ceiling is not increased, the short term looks painful for holders of Treasury debt, like the major banks, investment houses and pension funds, as they worry that interest payments might be delayed in order to pay people on the government dole. The long term, however, would look very rosy, as it will show a real commitment towards being able to always make interest payments. The higher the debt ceiling goes, the more painful the bursting of the government gravy train bubble will be (i.e., all the Federal employees and contractors who must be laid off).
Americans oppose increasing the debt ceiling, by a 69 to 24 percent margin...
3) Obama doesn’t know if there is money to send off Social Security checks on August 3.
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