Posted on 04/17/2011 7:06:12 PM PDT by Qbert
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner boldly predicted that Congress will vote to raise the debt ceiling next month, warning that failure to do so would bring "catastrophic" consequences for the U.S. and global economies.
Geithner, appearing on ABC's "This Week," said that if House Republicans were to push the vote to the brink or fail to raise the limit, it would "make the last [financial] crisis look like a tame, modest crisis."
Geithner said that Republicans have told President Obama they "recognize we have to do this, and we're not going to play around with it."
"There's no alternative, and they recognize that," Geithner said. Geithner said the Republican leadership assured Obama in a meeting at the White House on Wednesday that they understand the gravity of the debt ceiling vote and that they will vote to raise it.
"The responsible people up there understand that," Geithner said.
But Republicans appearing on the Sunday talk shows demonstrated how tough a fight the White House might be facing just weeks after a near-shutdown of the government spurred by debates over fiscal 2011 spending.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said on CBS's "Face the Nation' that he has not been informed of any communication from House GOP leaders that they will back a raising of the debt ceiling no matter what.
Ryan said that, as he understands it, GOP leaders have told the White House: In addition to raising the debt limit, we want financial controls, we want cuts in spending accompanying the raising of the debt ceiling.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a member of the Senate Gang of Six negotiations, and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, (D-Md.), newly named to the Biden budget talks by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), previewed the battle to come with Coburn making clear that he and other Republicans will not vote to raise the debt ceiling without an agreement on cuts.
Coburn made plain that he will not accept an increase in the nation's $14.3 trillion debt limit in the coming weeks without agreement on a debt reduction package.
What do I need? I need absolute certainty that we've made the critical changes that are necessary to put this country back where it needs to go. And unless we do that, there is no way I support it, he said.
We are going to have a debt crisis either this or soon thereafter if we don't come together, so its time to come together, he said.
Van Hollen, ranking member of the Budget Committee, said President Obama has laid out a two-track process whereby a "clean" debt ceiling bill is passed, and a deficit package is developed separately.
Freshman Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on CNN's "State of the Union" that he is unsure of how he will vote on raising the debt limit or whether he might filibuster an attempt to do so.
"I think we haven't yet determined what our strategy is going to be," the Tea Party favorite said, "but I can tell you that the people of Kentucky elected me to shake things up."
Geithner said that failing to raise the debt limit would result first in the U.S. stopping payments and benefits to seniors and veterans before risking default on interest loans.
Default, Geithner said, would have a "permanent devastating effect" on the nation's credit-worthiness.
"No responsible person" would play politics with the debt ceiling, Geithner said.
The White House has sent mixed signals about what Obama will accept in the debt ceiling debate.
From the beginning, White House officials made a push for a "clean" bill raising the ceiling, but Obama has suggested in recent days that he would be open to coupling the debt ceiling with more spending cuts in an effort to mollify the cutting appetites of House Republicans.
Geithner said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that the White House will work parallel to the debt ceiling debate to find other ways to cut spending, but "if we haven't worked all that out, we're still going to have to raise the debt limit."
On "This Week," Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fla.) previewed the challenge the White House and House Speaker John Boehner will face in persuading Tea Party lawmakers to sign on to raising the debt ceiling.
Southerland and other conservative Republican lawmakers warned that before they will sign on to raising the debt ceiling, they want to see spending caps and other dramatic steps taken to cut spending.
"We've got to have some guarantees," Southerland said.
Geithner was also asked Sunday if he will stay on for a second term with Obama.
The Treasury Secretary demurred but indicated that he was enjoying the job.
"I've got a lot on my plate still. We've got a lot of challenges ahead," Geithner said. "I'm going to keep at trying to fix what's broken here."
-- Erik Wasson contributed.
This story was updated at 11:45 a.m.
Was Boehner crying when he said this or just cowering??
Clue:
Democrat tricks 101:
Say you cut a deal and watch the right freak out.
I’ll believe it when I see it..
You will be safe forever more.
“I wonder how many folks commenting on this thread actually read the article vs how many just read and reacted to the headline.
They seem to be two different things...”
Yeah, well, we’ve been through this so many times before, and it always seems to have the same outcome.
Even reading between the lines in the article, Geithner says the leadership says yes, but Ryan only says...that he wasn’t informed of any such thing. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it didn’t happen.
Just cancle the national debt, Germany did it and survived!
What exactly is the point of an artificial debt ceiling anyway. It does nothing tho control spending...congress has already approved the debt. Defaulting will do nothing but cause chaos. This thing is too dangerous to be in the hands of idiot congressmen.
More correctly: Profiles in Cowardice. The GOP continues to be the Stupid Party.
I think that this lad Geithner should be compelled to wear his Cub Scout uniform and his Macro Economics Merit Badge to all TV interviews.
Were I a betting man, I'd wager that Ryan was telling the truth.
And Geithner probably wasn't...
Republicans are bound and determined to LOSE in 2012. They want to be a minority party, because they’ve shown that they don’t want power.
LOL, if you think that silly budget is going to pass you have been smoking left hand tobacco. First words out of boners mouth, we did the best we could do, but the democrats wanted to buy ten pencils, we convinced them that was to many , so we agreed we would buy 9.9 .
“Were I a betting man, I’d wager that Ryan was telling the truth.
And Geithner probably wasn’t...”
As I said, I’m not casting any doubt on what Ryan said- he may have simply been not informed by the leadership before going on the Sunday shows.
Regardless of whether Geithner is being dishonest here or not, is the leadership really going to go all out here, or will they cave again (for some meaningless quid pro quo from Obama)?
No it was never in doubt especially when Boehner stood up and announced they would vote to raise the debt ceiling weeks ago.
Only the tin foil hats doubted.
Kind of similar to the budget “deal”? You know, those “cuts” that were not really cuts at all? That kind of deal? I think we used to call it a “raw deal” ... or “turning Judas,” or something like that.
If John Boehner has something to do with the “deal,” then you might as well lower the flag and turn off the lights, friends, because we are all but gone, and the “fat lady” does not care to waste her breath on a lost cause.
I have learned not to expect much in the way of integrity from anything that slithers through the halls of Congress. And, as of late, the so-called “Republicans” just keep hammering that truth home. Oh, yest we have some true-blue conservatives in the mix... but they have been gang-raped by John Boehner and his establishment butt buddies.
Integrity. A word that the Democrats do not even know from where to find the meaning. However, while the GOP may know the meaning, they still have not a clue on know how to keep it, nor do they seem to care all that much if we take notice when they divest themselves of what little they manage to scrape together. Except, of course, when they want the base vote. Then they are all fire-breathing “conservatives,” down to the last man.
Oh, shucks! Did I say “man”? Sorry about that. I forgot there are no longer “men” serving in our Congress, but plenty of pantywaist weasels, each ready to make a deal with the devil, if they can go home early—and lie to their constituents about how they are defending our interests.
People still like to insist that there is a difference between the conniving Democrats, and their cowardly Republican cousins... Yeah? And I have some swampland in Florida for you to buy. At least the Dems are up front about screwing America into the ground so deep that soon we’ll all be speaking Chinese. The GOP? Well, friends, they just hope to screw us into the ground a little more slowly—one turn at a time. It is supposed to be less “painful” that way.
I will believe in the Republicans when they find their spines—and their pea-sized nut sacks—and then actually FOLLOW THROUGH ON A THREAT to stop the “transformation” of America. When I see Republicans KEEP THEIR WORD TO THOSE OF US WHO PUT THEM IN OFFICE—rather than surrender their virtue like a bunch of hard-up, squat-n-pee schoolgirls on their first prom date.
However, I will not bet on that horse ever crossing the finish line. This latest crop of Republican “leaders” could not keep their word if the nation’s continued existence depended on them doing so... Oh, but wait ... It does! Epic FAIL coming soon to a town near you.
Unless the entire Republican party is suddenly going to undergo a sex change, so to each become a Michele Bachman clone, then I guess America is sunk ... But at least we can all pretend there is a dime’s worth of difference between our GOP schoolgirls and their Socialist “dates” across the aisle.
This is not a new idea - Asimov had been anticipated, some 25 years earlier, by the "morphology of history" of Oswald Spengler, whose Der Untergang des Abendlandes I have also been re-reading.
Anyway, the early novels are structured around the plot device of a "Seldon Crisis". A crisis is a problem that must be solved, and usually there are several solutions with advantages and disadvantages. A Seldon Crisis is when there are multiple critical problems, but almost every solution to one problem makes other problems worse.
That's where we are, I think. We have economic problems that could be solved by government spending, but a debt trap that makes such spending insane (though not, alas, impossible). We have a need to rebuild our industry, but an education system that cannot turn out people able to do industrial age work, and a tax system that penalises production and rewards speculation. We have multiple enemies overseas, and a military industrial complex that makes out armed forces both ineffective and unaffordable.
I won't go on. In Asimov's contrived plots, there is exactly one solution to a Seldon Crisis, and eventually some convenient clear-sighted person implements it. In Spengler's terms, we are faced with a crisis where our choice is "to do the necessary, or to do nothing".
History does not have a plot, but I do see one way - only one way - out of this Crisis. The debt ceiling must not be raised. I will go further: The debt ceiling must never, ever again be raised. Once that is set in stone, the necessary reforms become inevitable and inescapable. Once the reforms are seen to work, the return path to sound money and limited government is open.
Thanks for listening.
>>Geithner said that failing to raise the debt limit would result first in the U.S. stopping payments and benefits to seniors and veterans before risking default on interest loans.<<
Go ahead, I dare you. It would make all the sense in the world to cut off the best armed segment of the population.
It should be abundantly clear to everyone that the underlying premise of all the regime’s policies is to kill the seniors as fast as possible. Well, this senior says, “Read my tagline”.
***** would result first in the U.S. stopping payments and benefits to seniors and veterans before risking default on interest loans *****
Fascist prioritization under who’s authority ?
1. Nothing, sit on it, until we know who the Undocumented Puppet Spammer is, and allegiance origins are.
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