Posted on 07/17/2011 3:39:40 PM PDT by kristinn
Plan B is fast becoming Plan A for raising the debt ceiling and averting a fiscal crisis. With the White House’s push for a “grand bargain” fizzling and two weeks to go before the Aug. 2 debt default deadline set by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Senate leaders are negotiating a way to sidestep a default while providing maximum political cover for Members of Congress who believe they face a potentially career-ending vote.
Of course, the Senate plan would do little to put a dent in the deficit, and it falls well short of the $4 trillion deficit reduction package that Standard & Poor’s warned last week was needed to avoid a downgrade of the United States’ first-rate AAA bond rating.
For now, both chambers are moving forward this week with votes on a tea-party-backed Cut, Cap and Balance plan that would tie a debt ceiling increase to passage of a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget and deep spending cuts. “We have to check the boxes,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “One of them is to engage in this debate,” even though he said there’s no chance the GOP effort would succeed.
The votes in both chambers appear to be designed to give Members a face-saving way to eventually vote for the Plan B proposal.
“Everyone gets to vote on their Plan A before they go to Plan B,” a Senate GOP aide said.
The proposal being written by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) builds on McConnell’s fallback plan to give President Barack Obama the authority to raise the debt ceiling by $2.5 trillion in three installments. It would also kick the broader budget fight over that elusive $4 trillion grand bargain to a new...
(Excerpt) Read more at rollcall.com ...
I suspect you are totally unaware that it's not until FY 2012 starting in October that the Republicans in the House have the voting power to SET the legislative agenda.
You will notice that as we get closer and closer and closer to October all this stuff gets more and more tense.
At the moment the deal is Obama wants two things ~ a tax increase and an increase in the debt limits ~ for the purpose of paying for appropriations set in motion BACK when Pelosi ran the House.
Pelosi doesn't run the House anymore. She is irrelevant. The only way she could influence a vote is to wear a suicide belt into the House and blow herself up or something.
Such are the fortunes of politics eh!
Obama and his running dog lackeys have to face up to the problem they created for themselves when they wasted the national patrimony ~ that is, once you use it up it's gone. You can't spend it twice.
The House has passed a budget for 2012. That's the amount that can be spent next year. The House is preparing to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. For the moment they are making the claim that there will be NO increase in the debt limit until that amendment is passed in the House, and the Senate and sent to the states (and maybe they are demanding it be passed by the states as well but I don't think anyone has been that clear on that particular detail).
That is BALLZ.
The House takes up the bill (which is entirely up to Boehner and he may well NOT take up the bill). If they take it up, they amend it until it looks like the 2012 budget, various financial finageling and a resolution for a Balanced Budget Amendment.
They send that back to the Senate. They can vote for or against their own bill ~ which still has the same title they gave it ~
Again, doesn't matter what the Senators think they are doing, the Constitution requires the House to act, and that's what you get ~ what the House wants.
The traditional reconciliation process will probably not be used in this case since EVERYBODY wants to blame Obama and avoid electoral defeat.
Took words out of my mouth.
Why did they bother paying those guys? They had three hots and a cot ~ there was no need of them to have money.
Now, what are those gub'mnt jobs that pay FOUR TIMES as much as their civilian counterparts?
The Democrats took those districts easily.
In 2010 Republicans made their gains with NEW candidates up against real Democrats.
You may not realize just how much that affected the House but it created a functioning majority inside the Republican coalition that is simply not Leftwingtard in any sense of the word.
Your TEA Party folks are a minority within the "functioning majority" but they go along with the Regular Republicans.
There are so few Leftwingtard Republicans left I don't think any of them are in charge of anything except maybe that guy who used to be the Lightbulb Fascist Grandmaster. He's still there but the House voted to get rid of the lightbulb ban the other day ~ so much for Leftwingtard voting strength eh!.
Why are you using that 2004 display on Food Stamps?
Do not concur. What you are talking about is Plan A.
Which is already D.O.A. It will not become law.
Pelosi is hardly irrelevant - her ideology became the Law of the Land.
She will become irrelevant if - and only if - the following occurs in January 2013:
1. House retains its majority.
2. GOP obtains 60 senator filibuster proof majority
3. Conservative GOP candidate is inaugurated President
4. Even with the power to do so, the GOP then has to have the balls to revert to FY 2008, pre-Obama, pre-TARP, pre-stimulus spending levels - the next mid-term election be damned.
Not. Gonna. Happen.
GOP plays checkers while Commie-Libs play chess.
Their queens all got ravished by the pawns.
A more apt comparison is to auto racing versus latte mixing. Leftwingtards are still in latte. We've already gone through lahsi (a much more vigorous drink) and are into shooters ~ and they haven't even come in for new tires.
Put not your faith in winos.
I swear, if enough Republicans in the House vote to go with McConnell’s traitorous plan, they’re through. I’ll fight them as hard as I fight the Dim/commies.
Bingo! By an enormous $2.5 trillion. That’s an annual rate of about $1.6 trillion. This FY deficit will be about $1.4 trillion. So, no cut but an increase.
I think it is also worth pointing out that the “tea-party-backed Cut, Cap and Balance” label is a fabric of lies. In the first place, I doubt the plan has any but marginal support among tea partiers, especially once they actually understand what it entails. Secondly, if it actually “balanced” there would be no need whatsoever to raise the debt limit.
They really do think we’re stupid.
That’s an interesting scenario you lay out, but I don’t think Boehner is bright enough to follow it. Besides, I think he is in on the McConnell/Reid sellout. I have just about grown tired of watching these people contort themselves into pretzels. Maybe that’s what they want anyway.
Before you blow a gasket, the same sort of plan was proposed by and for Nixon, and by and for Reagan, and by Thomas Jefferson, and probably by many others over the years.
It's not new. It's not really McConnell's idea.
The Supreme Court has ruled on the matter several times and determined that it is ALWAYS Unconstitutional.
Yup - we won't even save .0001% on the national debt, but thank God some GS-7 somewhere won't have it as good as you!
Are you predicting it doesn't get enough votes to pass?
No reason - if you have a more recent (or better) Food Stamp (sorry....SNAP Electronic Benefit Transfer Cardholder) map, please post it.
If that's a 25% increase, give me more!
BTW, food stamp authorizations pretty much track the real unemployment rate.
It's not like a whole bunch of folks decided they needed food stamps ~ they got hungry because they no longer had an income.
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