Posted on 01/14/2013 5:17:19 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Obama on Congress:‘They Order Me to Spend’ By Fred Lucas January 14, 2013
(CNSNews.com) – Explaining why he has no choice but to demand an increase in the legal limit on the national debt, President Barack Obama said at a Monday press conference that Congress orders him to spend money.
“This is a matter of Congress authorizes spending,” Obama said.
“They order me to spend," he said. "They tell me: ‘You need to fund our Defense Department at such-and-such a level. You need to send Social Security checks. You need to make sure that you are paying to care for our veterans.’ They lay all this out for me, and--because they have the spending power--and so I am required by law to go ahead and pay these bills.”
The current debt ceiling is $16.394 trillion, a number that President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner agreed to in August 2011, when they increased the previous limit by $2.4 trillion. The Constitution gives Congress the power to borrow money. So, the president cannot increase the debt of the United States unless Congress enacts legislation authorizing him to do so.
“Separately, they also have to authorize a raising of the debt ceiling in order to make sure that those bills are paid,” said Obama. “And so what Congress can’t do is tell me to spend X and then say, but we’re not going to give you the authority to go ahead and pay the bills.”
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
With all due respect, Obama is right. Nixon was almost impeached because he threatened to NOT spend all of the money appropriated by Congress.
Of course, this is a half truth - Obama threatened to veto any bill which did not have as much spending as he wanted.
I believe the correct fight is NOT the debt limit - it is the Continuing Resolution that orders Obama to spend money. The House should write a CR that fix the rest of this year’s spending at a the 2008 level, and attach a debt limit that matches it.
Reid is now in a box. If Reid will not bring up the CR, with or without amendments - the House can say - we did our job. If Reid brings up the bill with amendments, they go to conference, and increases will then be negotiated.
Obama then gets a bill with less spending - and if he doesn’t sign it, he shuts down the government.
The House then passes a budget for FY2014 with a freeze, and sends it to the Senate, and says -— no budget, CR will freeze anyhow.
Once voters restore law and order to the federal government, it won’t be necessary to listen to such windbaggery, regardless of the Age of Aquarius Media. Thanks Sub-Driver
Obama lies, as usual.
Congress, through required legislation from the House of Represntatives has been trying for three years to alter Mister Obama’s spending.
He and Harry Reid have refused to allow the Senate to follow the House in that Constitutional enterprise, bringing the government every year for three years to the necessity of stop gap one-off spending authority to avoid a shut down of government caused by the crisis that agenda of Reid and Obama creates.
The last full federal budget agreement anyone gave Obama was the last legislation approved by Pelosi and Reid before Pelosi lost control of the House.
The House has since legislated different spending demands for Obama and Reid has not allowed action on them in the Senate, nor sent an alternative full federal plan for the House to consider.
Obama and Reid have said: “screw you”; “we are going to keep spending as we have since 2009 and if you don’t raise the debt ceiling limit every year to accomodate that level of spending and the deficits it creates, we’ll create a crisis that we will blame on you”.
Are you listening John Boehner and the entire GOP elite? Are you paying attention when we try to help you communicate to the American people?
Between this and O saying that he wont negotiate, he is giving Rs a wealth of verbal ammunition to use against him in a shutdown confrontation, if only they were smart enough to use it effectively.
In 2006, Obama said that raising the debt limit was “a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies”.
But now he assures us that “spending isn’t the problem”. Check out his photo: the “president” of the USA. The guy even looks like a bum, a deadbeat.
Our country is in serious trouble ... thanks to the Democrats. And the GOP-establishment.
Oh, he is not right. We think of spending as entirely Congress’ matter, and the house’s primarily. And it’s true that the house comes first and the senate second. However, for a bill to become a law the president has to sign off. Unless Congress overrides his veto, which is moot point in these circumstances. So Obama ordered Obama to spend.
Nevermind all that. He us not required by law to pay according to the bills, hell or high water. You can’t pay if you have no money, and if you can’t borrow there are other ways, but none very popular or safe. The ceiling beats spending bills. Case closed.
Many have forgotten what today is. For a large percentage of people it will be their first taste of getting socked in the paycheck by Obama. Had many get upset in the last couple of weeks but this will be the first paycheck of the year for those on a every two weeks 15th and 30th pay schedule. It has to be a large group.
An outright lie.
He has approved every Congressional spending law.
Listening to some of the clips from that presser yesterday made me ill. Obama is the most arrogant and evil liar I have ever heard. He is a demon.
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