Debt Deal Moving On to Plan B (Dem-GOP leaders' sellout costs US $2.5 trillion in new debt)

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...

I'm not sure where you are coming from? Do you imagine that only people who pay cash money to the government get to be patriotic?

Did I ever say that?

When did I say that?

Never.

Where are you "coming from" on this? It seems to me from your posts that there is very little daylight between you, Obama, Reid, and Pelosi in terms of Food Stamps and Entitlements that have bankrupted our nation.

So, tell me how food stamps have bankrupt the nation ~ and how do "entitlements" do that ~ perhaps Social Security provides entirely too great a temptation to the government to just take the income from FICA and spend it on frivolous stuff (like Amtrak)

I suspect you are most POd about EITC ~ which is a $50 billion program. With a nearly $2 trillion excess spending gap to be filled, that is 0.25%, 1/4 of 1% of the gap.

Here, let's take it slow ~ when your tax needs are so great that if you TAXED everything away from every wage earner, whether poor, medium or huge, or super rich ~ 100% taxation ~ and you still don't have enough money to pay the obligations, it's not people earning a living, or even the poor, who are causing your problems.

It's a SPENDING PROBLEM, and not even a SPENDING ON ENTITLEMENTS PROBLEM, but just Wildassed stupid nonstop monstrous spending.

You cannot win the game by just clamping down on SSS, SS, EITC and food stamps.

You said people who don't pay income taxes "have no skin in the game"

It is a true statement. I believe the current figure is 47% of people pay no Federal Taxes.

Moreover, I doubt it was Obama who said "skin in the game", especially in the context of the boobs who are getting the Earned Income Tax Credit (i.e. a check for nearly $4K for a "tax refund" when you never even paid taxes!)

Here is the deal with the "skin in the game" analogy. Even if you are of modest means, you still would be required to pay Federal Taxes. A very, very small portion of your income, but nevertheless you would pay something.

Then, when "this" program or "that" program is proposed by the Democrats.......suddenly these people who are paying taxes will realize that maybe that new program isn't such a good idea after all.

And THAT is how that works.

tell me how food stamps have bankrupt the nation ~ and how do "entitlements" do that

Like this:

Now, add up 20%, 22%, and 16%.

You should come up with 58%, which is where we start with before we can even cut anything else.

That 58% is bankrupting the country. It all started with FDR, but it still continue.

You appear to have no sense of scale. Total SNAP cost about $80 billion last year. We are talking about $2,000,000,000,000 deficiency, which is 25 TIMES the cost of Food Stamps.

Considering what that particular program does, weigh it against Department of Education which hands out $78 billion per year in grants to school districts, et al, which has plenty of well-paid employees who really don't need those grants!

I think you should start with Commerce Department, Department of Labor, Department of Education, Housing and Urban Development, and so forth.

Although the food stamp program started up in the 1960s, way back during the Great Depression a deal was struck with the states whereby the federal government would collect the taxes for and pay welfare!

Food stamps are also extended to working poor ~ not just to the handicapped, disabled, low income elderly, and chilluns!

BTW, the only way you get EITC is to earn a living that is subject to FICA. EITC is designed, in part, to mitigate FICA and other direct taxes on the working poor.

BTW, be a good idea to clawback all our money Obama gave to the banks and brokerages to bail them out.

And I mean ALL of it.

There's plenty for the House of Representatives to direct the President to cut without even thinking about SS, SSS, SNAP and EITCH.

BTW, SS is PAID FOR WITH FICA.

Good heavens.

Did you see that video about the ETIC scam? Did you watch it? Do you understand what Clinton and the Democrats did?

Moreover, a "sense of scale" with entitlements is a laughable concept.

There are over 60 "welfare" programs including the Food Stamp program. Democrats have divided them into little pieces.

Take a re-look at this chart, and look that the "Unemployment Insurance and Other Entitlements" block. Eighty Billion here, eighty billion there, and soon you are talking serious money.

The problem with entitlements is several fold:

- they cause people to become dependent, slothful, and ungrateful

- they never end

- they always grow

- they create a political class the Democrats exploit

- they destroy self esteem and God given dignity

Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

There has been exactly ONE welfare reform bill passed by Congress and signed by a President. Clinton reluctantly signed a welfare reform bill that slightly modified ONE program (AFDP). Guess what? Obama overturned that small reform in his first week. The word was his mother-in-law screamed about it.

The other 60+ programs were never touched, and won't be touched.

finally, let's talk about the whole premise of the program: feeding the hungry. People in the country are not starving - especially the poor! We are the only nation in the history of humanity to have a majority obese poor population. And it isn't "nutrition education" for the answer either. That is HUD spin. These people do not have any self control or discipline. We are literally feeding that.

I agree with you: get rid of HUD, Dept of Education, Dept of Energy, the TSA, and all these other hated Federal agencies.

We also need to seriously reform Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Not "ten years from now." No kick the can down the road. Now.

A number of programs that you have a problem with are FINANCED with separate taxes. Workman's Compensation ~ as much a welfare scam as any ~ is paid for with a tax on employers. Social Security has collected far more FDIC than it has paid out in benefits, and even Medicare has collected more than it's paid.

Unemployment Compensation is limited in duration and is paid by states out of a fund created by taxes collected on employers.

Federal highway building programs are paid for out of gasoline taxes ~ and to tell you I find it outrageous that we encourage Socialist meddling with this gas tax operation. Those roads should be built by private companies. You want something wasteful and prone to making people slothful that's gotta' be a 6 lane super highway ~

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