Posted on 07/13/2011 9:22:40 AM PDT by yoe
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Wednesday that his party is united in opposing any effort to raise the debt ceiling, even as he maintained that the country will not default on its debt obligations.
“I bet there won’t be a single Republican vote to raise the debt ceiling at the end of the day,” the Senate’s top Republican said in a radio interview Wednesday morning with conservative commentator Laura Ingraham.
McConnell’s remarks come one day after the Kentucky Republican (sketched out a “back-up plan”) that would shift the political burden of raising the debt ceiling to President Obama and congressional Democrats, allowing for the borrowing limit to be raised without any Republican votes.
McConnell’s “Plan B” would first need to be approved by both chambers and signed into law by Obama in order to take effect – a prospect that was uncertain at best Tuesday evening, as some lawmakers of both parties balked at the idea.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
What it means is:
Most of them all on both sides are incapable of solving this crisis, because forr decades, both parties have created the crisis.
Only a complete turnover of these hacks can save this country
Thanks sickoflibs.
You want “means testing” ??? Then you are a socialist and you are advocating raising taxes for all of us who have paid into SS in good faith for years expecting a certain outcome no matter what our “means,” and for cementing social security into a welfare program that encourages people to spend all their retirement money so they too can be favored by the Feds. You also advocate stealing.
If you are going to do that, then you also need to advocate cutting social security benefits (and “disability”) to third world levels that are just BARELY enough to live on as a safety-net welfare program. If you do not advocate that, then you become just another advocate for “progressive” income taxes and SOCIALISTIC redistribution of the wealth, just like the Obama wants. But even that would be advocating unconsitutional acts.
And it is also unconstitutional to "let the president decide what gets cut." Congress is supposed to hold control funding.
No Freepers should use that suggested letter.
/flame off
Since of course we all doubt that any Freeper is a socialist, you should just revise your advocacy and remove “means testing” and simply phase out social security. And stop advocating that the executive branch gets to decide what gets funded.
And if you want a welfare program for poor elderly people, then you should advocate that your STATE does it legally, instead of advocating that the FEDS do it illegally, since it is not an enumerated power of the federal government under our US Constitution.
Your analogy is good. Actually the real NYC bankers are doing very well on our trillions. When the government and Fed wanted to give the bankers our money in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 the people said HELL NO, but both the Republicans and Democrats said sure we'll bail the bankers out. The bankers warmed that they would take a tantrum if we didn't.
The Icelanders were faced with a similar controversy except they told the politicians and the bankers that the people would not be held responsible for the debt of private bankers and they weren't. In America we can just stomp our feet and the politicians get in bed with whomever they want to all at our expense. We need the right of public referendum.
Bernanke said today he might give the banks even more (QE3) if the stock market falters. I'll wager Goldman already knew what he was going to say and they bet on the market going up yesterday and they sold today. We're all puppets to these politicians and players who use our credit and then put it all at risk.
DeMint would be a terrific Senate Leader. Unfortunately for us, he's pretty set on leaving the Senate when his term is up. A bunch of his fans, including me, would like to see him run for President. He's poured cold water all over that plan.
I really think he just wants to go home.
“People who scrimped and saved and did without during their entire working lives so that they could accumulate a nest egg and enjoy retirement should be hosed out of their social security so SS money is available for the partiers who lived high on the hog and spent beyond their means, and didn’t save jack squat for their own retirement?”
You’re right.
We should cut if for all of them, not just those who saved.
Did no one tell you?
They spent all your money.
It’s gone.
“If we go into default he [Obama] will say that Republicans are making the economy worse and try to convince the public, maybe with some merit, if people start not getting their Social Security checks, military families start not getting letters saying that service people overseas don’t get paid, you know that’s an argument he would have a good chance of winning and all of a sudden we are co-ownership, we have co-ownership of a bad economy. That is very bad positioning going into election.”
So there you go.
McConnell believes that if Obama blames Republicans he will be doing it “maybe with some merit”.
This is clearly incorrect. If Obama chooses to withhold social security checks, he will have prioritized in that way, and blaming Republicans will not be an argument with merit.
Only if Republicans fail to make the case why this is the fault of Democrats who would not agree to cuts will the public not see that this argument has no merit.
Clearly McConnell has already decided that he is unwilling or unable to make the argument that this thing is the fault of Democrats, so he is either incompetent or afraid, both of which are unacceptable in a leader of the Senate.
Plan B just shows how tin of an ear this “leader” has.
As a voter I am envious of the good hearing of Prime Minister David Cameron, he correctly heard the public disdain for Murdoch and reacted correctly in regards to BksyB. Listen Boehner and McConnell, stop the cutesy political Plan B blame-game.
Don’t raise the debt ceiling, period.
That’s McConnell’s position today, tommorrow the old switcheroo let’s give President power to set the new limit.
No telling what Obammy and the Czars will do. Probably default just for spite, and blame it all on the Republicans.
“Creditors of the car companies did not get paid in the order they were supposed to. The unions were put ahead of them, and he got away with it.”
I’m fine with that. I am a proponent of, you do the work you get paid for the work. All the creditors put up was money.
We need to start valuing work in this country again.
Yo Mitch, what part of don’t raise the debt ceiling is it you don’t understand? I would call you simplistic, stupid, caving, rino, SOB, but I won’t.
As to your point, if a law is wrong, change it, don't just ignore it and do whatever the h_ll you feel like. That is my problem with what Obama and the Dems do.
Besides, in the long run, if stuff like this happens, people will just take their dollars elsewhere, which also hurts the company and the economy.
In addition, it may be just dollars to you, but lots of hardworking people had their pensions, 401k’s, etc. invested in stocks and bonds.
I guess those who still have jobs, and are young enough, may be able to adjust, but the others are just SOL. So I feel just as sorry for them as I do for the car workers.
When you invest money, it is a risk. When you work for a living, you get paid.
When capitalism was at is best, risk takers and hard workers lived in unison. Now risk taking is viewed as “hard work,” I call it a keyboard-economy. It is no wonder why we are now having our bridges built by China.
I honestly don’t disagree with your rule of law point; in a just world. We haven’t been in a just world since the end of the Cold War.
Cold War (looking back) kept us grounded in capitalism.
Someone explain this to me....
If a there are cuts....why does the debt ceiling have to be raised?
>If we make the cuts, we don’t NEED to raise the ceiling.
Bravo. - I find it curious, to say the least, that this simple fact goes mostly unnoticed by the posters here.
Or by the people of America.
Its like looking down the rabbit hole where nothing is seen for what it really is.
The country is largely stupid and wants to live in blissful ignorance.
Ever read about the building of the first Transcontinental Railroad?
Go to Mitch McConnell’s Facebook page and tell him your opinion:
http://www.facebook.com/mitchmcconnell
McConnell’s plan includes the authority for Obama to ask for a hike in the debt ceiling, if he does it in three increments and includes cuts in his request. We won’t get into what he could do to screw this up, such as the cuts are phony accounting gimmicks or are far into the future etc.
McConnell’s plan includes a second part, which will explain how the debt increase could pass even though no Republican votes for it. Under the plan, it would take a two thirds vote of both Senate and House to reject Obama’s request. Repubs don’t have nearly enough votes for that. So, every Republican, House and Senate, could vote against it, but it could still pass with only Democrat votes.
Looks like McConnell has thrown in the towel on the actual issue of stopping the debt ceiling increase unless Obama agrees to sufficient cuts. Looks like he is positioning the GOP to “appear” a certain way when this thing shakes out. To appear like they weren’t to blame for whatever they are going to be blamed for by dems and the media. At the same time, he can show the base GOP that no Republican voted to increase the debt ceiling. (But show the other side and the financial markets that neither did they obstruct it.) He is trying to put all accountability for whatever happens in Obama’s and dem’s laps, while satisfying the base.
These machinations are pretty worthless, no matter their intentions. People aren’t interested in these machinations, they want the real deal to address the real issues. McConnell should either shut up or he should coordinate a strategy with the House to send legislation up with cuts, to insure we fund social security, veterans etc and other essentials, either with a debt ceiling increase or without one - depending on what could pass.
A number of GOP are against a debt ceiling increase no matter what. No matter what.
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