Very impressive list of A-players! ALL the brightest bulbs are there... including Hank Johnson.
Posted on 01/16/2013 7:53:49 AM PST by SeekAndFind
One way out the debt ceiling showdown: getting rid of the debt ceiling altogether. A group of House Democrats is introducing legislation Wednesday that would repeal the federal debt limit.
Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Jim Moran (D-Va.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) are behind the effort. Some of the same lawmakers attempted to repeal the debt limit in 2011. Given Republican control of the House, it is incredibly unlikely that this legislation will pass.
The debt limit dates to 1939, and stems from earlier limits on borrowing that were meant to give the Treasury secretary more freedom from congressional oversight. But attempts to use the debt ceiling to extract budgetary concessions from the White House began as early as 1953.
“There is certainly a time and a place for discussion of the proper levels of taxation and spending, and I am ready to have that discussion,” Nadler said in a recent Hill op-ed. “But such discussions need not – must not – be tied to the routine raising of the debt ceiling to pay for debts already incurred.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
D stands for Destroyer these days...
That just about says it all.
Very impressive list of A-players! ALL the brightest bulbs are there... including Hank Johnson.
*sigh*
we have lost the debt ceiling argument anyway, what the heck just repeal the stupid thing. Congress doesn’t have the nads to actually allow a default anyway.
So just take the silly ceiling off the table.
>>Given Republican control of the House, it is incredibly unlikely that this legislation will pass.
This statement is laughable. Boehner and the RINOs will team up with the Dhimmis to pass it over the objections of the GOP “majority”. The statists control all three branches of government now.
Beat me to it...nicely done. The actual video is still great to watch as well.
For anyone who has not seen it yet, you MUST search for “Hank Johnson - Guam” and prepare to LYAO.
I remember the olden days of 2001-2008 when the GOP was irresponsible with the nation’s purse and Democrats and the press condemned the irresponsibility of continuing the spending and the need to raise the debt ceiling, including the current president while he was senator.
Today, those that want to reign in the spending are the irresponsible ones.
Who says party labels don’t matter?
I would be ashamed to be a member of the same party as people like Johnson. And that includes many of the voters. How a seeminly intelligent person could vote WITH retards is hard to understand.
We will default, and I don't expect a very pleasant collection effort by China.
if the Dems win back the House in ‘14 this will pass ten minutes after Pelosi re-takes the gavel.
There is no “debt ceiling”.
Congress has the sole power to borrow money on the credit of the United States.
Congress has the sole power to regulate the value of money.
No payments can be made from the Treasury other than those authorized by both Houses of Congress and thus enacted into law.
Congress cannot alter the powers of Congress by statute, only by Constitutional amendment.
No amendment has been proposed and ratified to alter the unrestricted power of Congress to borrow money on the credit of the United States.
THEREFORE, the power of Congress to borrow money on the credit of the United States remains unrestricted, and no statute to the contrary (specifically one defining a “debt ceiling”) can possibly be constitutional.
The debt is so out of control what’s another trillion? Quadrillion... Bazillion... it’s over folks. It’s quite out of our hands. And there is no one to oppose the regime. He/They can do anything he/they wants. It’s just a matter of time now...
You forget the other factor, the 5:1 male to female ratio due to their one-child policy. It will be very easy for their leadership to whip the population into a war frenzy, they’ll promise each soldier a cute little American home on a cel-de-sac and our daughters as wives.
Democrats aim to repeal the debt ceiling.Karl Marx words come true.
I side with the Democrats.
The debt ceiling limit is unenforceable and its not a good weapon for the GOP to wield against higher spending. It makes the GOP look like the Party Of Deadbeats. Not a position you want to be in with the American people.
Instead, get rid of it and focus on cutting spending. That way the discussion shifts from whether we should pay our debt to how big our government should be.
Let the Democrats argue in favor of Big Government. Republicans should never be caught arguing that we shouldn’t pay our bills on time because we disagree with Obama’s priorities.
Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 34 (Thursday, March 16, 2006)] [Senate] [Pages S2236-S2241]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office
Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about America's debt problem.
The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is 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.
Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is ``trillion'' with a ``T.'' That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President's budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.
Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we'll spend on Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.
And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.
Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America's priorities. Instead, interest payments are a significant tax on all Americans--a debt tax that Washington doesn't want to talk about. If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we would see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.
But we are not doing that. Despite repeated efforts by Senators Conrad and Feingold, the Senate continues to reject a return to the commonsense Pay-go rules that used to apply. Previously, Pay-go rules applied both to increases in mandatory spending and to tax cuts. The Senate had to abide by the commonsense budgeting principle of balancing expenses and revenues. Unfortunately, the principle was abandoned, and now the demands of budget discipline apply only to spending.
As a result, tax breaks have not been paid for by reductions in Federal spending, and thus the only way to pay for them has been to increase our deficit to historically high levels and borrow more and more money. Now we have to pay for those tax breaks plus the cost of borrowing for them. Instead of reducing the deficit, as some people claimed, the fiscal policies of this administration and its allies in Congress will add more than $600 million in debt for each of the next 5 years. That is why I will once again cosponsor the Pay-go amendment and continue to hope that my colleagues will return to a smart rule that has worked in the past and can work again.
Our debt also matters internationally. My friend, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, likes to remind us that it took 42 Presidents 224 years to run up only $1 trillion of foreign-held debt.
This administration did more than that in just 5 years. Now, there is nothing wrong with borrowing from foreign countries. But we must remember that the more we depend on foreign nations to lend us money, the more our economic security is tied to the whims of foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours.
Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ``the buck stops here.'' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem [[Page S2238]] and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.
I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit.
Senator Barack Obama Senate Floor Speech on Public Debt March 16, 2006 http://the-heff-report.blogspot.com/p/text-of-senator-barack-obama-senate.html
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