The Hard Reality of a Debt Ceiling Showdown: Jim Jordan eviscerates Biden for not negotiating with House Republicans

[hadit]

After Trump raised the debt by $7.5 trillion?
Republican's didn't say a word, when they raised the debt ceiling..........3 times.
As soon as a democrat gets in office, they whine.

Sounds like you'd better not vote for them next time.

 

[Nuthin' Fancy]

Sounds like you'd better not vote for them next time.

Won't have an issue.
Then again, the Italians and their satellites might change my vote or is it the lizard people?

 

[basquebromance]

The Right plans to seize on the debt ceiling to ram through unpopular ideas. The strategy could force Democrats to choose between government paralysis or draconian cuts to the federal budget — possibly even Social Security and Medicare.

the federal government will once again reach the debt limit, or the amount of money it can legally borrow to pay its employees, contractors, and bills. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said that she can keep the government running through June with “extraordinary measures,” but after that, Congress will need to vote to legally raise the debt limit in order to keep virtually all parts of the government running.

By any rational measure, this shouldn’t be a big deal. There’s little technical reason for the debt ceiling to exist at all — a view shared, among others, by Yellen herself. Despite support from even moderate figures like Yellen, Democrats refused to eliminate the debt ceiling when they controlled both houses of Congress. Instead, they handed Republicans a loaded gun.

With the debt ceiling, as with counting votes or certifying an election, the Right hopes to seize on this otherwise drab government function as a point of leverage to thrust unpopular ideas onto the country. A faction of the incoming House Republican majority all but forced Kevin McCarthy to commit to shutting down the government before they would support his run for Speaker of the House. To be fair, McCarthy hardly needed to be strong-armed: he already said last fall that he planned to play chicken with Democrats over a government shut down in order to force cuts to Social Security and other government programs.

In fact, as the Washington Post reported Friday, rather than try to figure out a way to avoid a needless debt crisis, House Republicans’ primary concern is finding a way to make the Treasury keep paying investors who hold government bonds when the government shuts down. Instead of avoiding needless harm to the economy, they just want to shield their real constituents from the worst of the fallout.

For such a plan to work, it would have to both pass the Senate and receive Joe Biden’s signature — both of which, for the moment, appear to be nonstarters. But Biden and the Democrat-led Senate also need the House to agree to raise the debt limit and pass a budget if they want the government to keep running.

What looks like a stalemate on paper unfortunately favors the Right. Republicans are only too happy for most of the government to close down, meaning they have far less to lose in sticking to a hard line in negotiations. That leaves Biden and Democrats with two unacceptable outcomes: a nonfunctioning government, or draconian cuts to the federal budget, including potentially to Social Security and Medicare.

The most likely course of events is after several weeks of needless pain, representatives of economic sectors that depend to a greater extent on steady credit and government regulation will put enough pressure on McCarthy to go back on his promises to the far-right members of his caucus. He’ll eventually force through a stopgap measure that gets Democrats to agree to inflict significant pain on the American people for no good reason (if not as much as Republicans want), and then the far right of the party will depose him as speaker. Some other equally masochistic empty suit will take his place, we’ll all forget about it for six months, nothing will change, and then it will be time for the country to take another stupid ride on the same merry-go-round, our pockets a little emptier for it.

Doesn’t it always seem to turn out that way somehow?

 

[Zincwarrior]

Despite support from even moderate figures like Yellen, Democrats refused to eliminate the debt ceiling when they controlled both houses of Congress. Instead, they handed Republicans a loaded gun.

You think they believe the Republicans will shoot themselves with it?

 

[Dragonlady]

If your credit card balances are so high that your debts would increase due to high interest and making minimum payments even if you spend nothing more, the first step is to cut up those damn cards.

Well then stop electing Republicans who keep crashing the economy with unfunded tax cuts.

 

[Rogue AI]

The debt ceiling shouldn't be a partisan issue. We need to pay our bills.

Plenty of money to pay our bills, we need to stop giving it out to stupid causes like the Ukraine and illegal alien invaders. We don't need to raise the debt ceiling, we need to prioritize the money we already have.

 

[hadit]

Well then stop electing Republicans who keep crashing the economy with unfunded tax cuts.

You don't have to fund a tax cut, you have to fund a spending increase.

 

[pknopp]

The Right plans to seize on the debt ceiling to ram through unpopular ideas. The strategy could force Democrats to choose between government paralysis or draconian cuts to the federal budget — possibly even Social Security and Medicare.

the federal government will once again reach the debt limit, or the amount of money it can legally borrow to pay its employees, contractors, and bills. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said that she can keep the government running through June with “extraordinary measures,” but after that, Congress will need to vote to legally raise the debt limit in order to keep virtually all parts of the government running.

By any rational measure, this shouldn’t be a big deal. There’s little technical reason for the debt ceiling to exist at all — a view shared, among others, by Yellen herself. Despite support from even moderate figures like Yellen, Democrats refused to eliminate the debt ceiling when they controlled both houses of Congress. Instead, they handed Republicans a loaded gun.

With the debt ceiling, as with counting votes or certifying an election, the Right hopes to seize on this otherwise drab government function as a point of leverage to thrust unpopular ideas onto the country. A faction of the incoming House Republican majority all but forced Kevin McCarthy to commit to shutting down the government before they would support his run for Speaker of the House. To be fair, McCarthy hardly needed to be strong-armed: he already said last fall that he planned to play chicken with Democrats over a government shut down in order to force cuts to Social Security and other government programs.

In fact, as the Washington Post reported Friday, rather than try to figure out a way to avoid a needless debt crisis, House Republicans’ primary concern is finding a way to make the Treasury keep paying investors who hold government bonds when the government shuts down. Instead of avoiding needless harm to the economy, they just want to shield their real constituents from the worst of the fallout.

For such a plan to work, it would have to both pass the Senate and receive Joe Biden’s signature — both of which, for the moment, appear to be nonstarters. But Biden and the Democrat-led Senate also need the House to agree to raise the debt limit and pass a budget if they want the government to keep running.

What looks like a stalemate on paper unfortunately favors the Right. Republicans are only too happy for most of the government to close down, meaning they have far less to lose in sticking to a hard line in negotiations. That leaves Biden and Democrats with two unacceptable outcomes: a nonfunctioning government, or draconian cuts to the federal budget, including potentially to Social Security and Medicare.

The most likely course of events is after several weeks of needless pain, representatives of economic sectors that depend to a greater extent on steady credit and government regulation will put enough pressure on McCarthy to go back on his promises to the far-right members of his caucus. He’ll eventually force through a stopgap measure that gets Democrats to agree to inflict significant pain on the American people for no good reason (if not as much as Republicans want), and then the far right of the party will depose him as speaker. Some other equally masochistic empty suit will take his place, we’ll all forget about it for six months, nothing will change, and then it will be time for the country to take another stupid ride on the same merry-go-round, our pockets a little emptier for it.

Doesn’t it always seem to turn out that way somehow?

Yellen should have thought all of that back when it was her actions helping to get us into this mess to start with.

 

[Seymour Flops]

Well then stop electing Republicans who keep crashing the economy with unfunded tax cuts.

Republicans are just as guilty as Democrats for the decades long drunken spending spree.

But tax cuts are not "spending" and do not need to be "funded."

 

[BULLDOG]

Uh... no
It is about continuing to ADD to the debt.

Again, no. It's about how much of the debt we will pay now, and how much we leave for later.

 

[BULLDOG]

Uh... no
It is about continuing to ADD to the debt.

Explain how raising the debt ceiling adds a single penny to the debt. Credible link please.

 

[pknopp]

Explain how raising the debt ceiling adds a single penny to the debt. Credible link please.

Politicians add debt because they know the ceiling will continue to get raised.

 

[BULLDOG]

Politicians add debt because they know the ceiling will continue to get raised.

Politicians add debt whether we pay our due bills or not.

 

[pknopp]

Politicians add debt whether we pay our due bills or not.

They do but the argument is to stop allowing it. I'm not holding my breath, just forwarding the argument.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Explain how raising the debt ceiling adds a single penny to the debt. Credible link please.

What? Why do you think they want to raise it??

 

[Clipper]

The Biden administration and House Republicans are heading toward an initial Thursday debt ceiling deadline without even a hint of an endgame, ensuring a months-long standoff that’s poised to rattle financial markets amid worries about a recession this year.

The two sides are effectively shrugging as the Treasury Department warns the country will hit the $31.4 trillion borrowing cap Thursday — though it’s not a hard deadline, as the department can still use extraordinary measures to pay the bills for another few months. But it means the potential economic doomsday clock is officially ticking, with House Republicans still insisting on massive spending cuts before they help raise the debt ceiling and Democrats refusing to engage the idea.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last week that the U.S. likely won’t run out of cash or exhaust those measures until at least early June. Until then, the department is suspending investments in certain government retirement funds and hoping the House GOP and Democrats can come to an agreement to keep the government from careening into an economic crisis with far-reaching consequences.

But Yellen’s warning to congressional leaders hasn’t spurred any movement toward even the beginning of a deal between Congress and the White House. The biggest legislative battle of the year is just beginning — and threatening to grow even messier than the 15-ballot speakership fight — and there’s no exit strategy in sight.
Even some Republicans viewed as more likely to negotiate with the White House are already taking aim at the administration’s position after White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said last week: “We will not be doing any negotiation.”

The White House is already working behind the scenes to work around Speaker Kevin McCarthy, including dispatching its top advisers to meet with moderate Republicans — particularly those who won in districts President Joe Biden won in 2020 — in hopes Democrats can count on those GOP lawmakers to cross the aisle and lift the debt ceiling.

Concessions over the debt ceiling were a vital part of the deal that McCarthy negotiated with his 20 conservative holdouts to finally attain the speakership. He agreed that the GOP House wouldn’t move to lift the debt ceiling unless Congress slashes at least $130 billion in federal spending next fiscal year or addresses broader fiscal reforms that tackle the ballooning debt, as many Republicans argue it threatens the nation’s economic security and future.

Some GOP members are beginning to float more specific plans as the debt-ceiling fight gets officially underway, like the return of a controversial payment prioritization plan that former Sen. Pat Toomey’s (R-Pa.) proposed during a similar showdown about a decade ago. Such a plan would allow the government to keep paying its bondholders if both parties can’t reach an agreement, while dictating what other financial obligations would lapse.

Meanwhile, the primary concern for financial markets is whether the debt ceiling brawl forces the U.S. to miss a payment owed to Treasury bondholders. Treasuries — usually seen as extremely safe assets — underpin the global financial system and are closely tied to lending products like mortgages. Missing a payment could send the stock market off a cliff, though Wall Street analysts are split about how much of a threat the standoff actually poses to the economy, with some banking on Congress and the White House reaching some sort of deal before the federal government misses any debt payments.

Some of the Republicans pushing the payment prioritization plan, first reported by the Washington Post, include Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), one of the 20 holdouts. He told the Post: “We agreed to advance a debt prioritization bill through regular order by the end of the first quarter of 2023 … Now, the contours of that were not specified (there are different versions).”

The hotly debated idea divides Republicans and budget experts alike, and the administration has already swatted it down. White House chief of staff Ron Klain tweeted that it would sow “CHAOS” in the U.S. and “cut off funding” for food safety, FAA operations, border security and drug enforcement.

It’s unclear what capability the Treasury Department has to prioritize payments, with officials declining to comment last week on whether it’s even an option. A top Treasury official stressed in a December speech that debt limit stalemates hurt the department’s cash balance and trigger market volatility. Treasury officials told House Republicans in 2014 that while the government could technically prioritize payments, such a plan would be “entirely experimental and create unacceptable risk to both domestic and global financial markets.”

Payment plan aside, the debt ceiling is a critical political battle for the House GOP. With McCarthy commanding only a narrow majority that can move to topple him at any time, even lawmakers who count him as a friend predict the showdown won’t end well for him. It will "cost Kevin his job" predicted independent senator Kyrsten Sinema.

Maybe some should inform jerkoff Gymmy that the debt ceiling needs to be addressed to repay govt. debt that has already been incurred. Money that has ALREADY been borrowed. What is there to negotiate? Who they want to fuck over?

We're in the hands of a bunch of asswipes like Jordan who have no idea what they're yapping about. We're doomed.

 

[BULLDOG]

They do but the argument is to stop allowing it. I'm not holding my breath, just forwarding the argument.

Increasing the debt ceiling doesn't increase debt in any way.

 

[BULLDOG]

What? Why do you think they want to raise it??

Because we haven't allotted enough to pay our bills. They voted to spend the money. Now they need to pay the bill for what we already bought. If they don't want to spend any more, they shouldn't pass any more bills to increase the debt. That has nothing to do with the debt ceiling.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Because we haven't allotted enough to pay our bills. They voted to spend the money. Now they need to pay the bill for what we already bought. If they don't want to spend any more, they shouldn't pass any more bills to increase the debt. That has nothing to do with the debt ceiling.

Yeah... like I said... it is about spending. Whether that was lats month or tomorrow.
All the conservatives are wanting to do is take a look at all of the MASSIVE - MASSIVE - MASSIVE spending the Dems passed in a hurry before the election... and their buddy McConnel in the Senate passed.

 

[busybee01]

You do know that you can squeeze all the rich people that are left and it won't be a drop in the bucket against debt? You get that right? It is all about the spending. Playing games with revenue generation is like running the faucet when the house is on fire.

Trump's tax cuts cost the Treasury trillions and most of it went to the rich.