Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Let's Make A Deal!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate announced a last-minute deal on Wednesday to avert a historic lapse in the government's borrowing ability and a potentially damaging debt default, and to reopen the government after a two-week shutdown.
But even if the Senate and House of Representatives manage to overcome procedural hurdles to seal the deal before Thursday - when the Treasury says it will exhaust its borrowing authority - it will only be a temporary solution that sets up the prospect of another showdown early next year.
Major U.S. stock indexes rose more than 1 percent on optimism that lawmakers were finally reaching a deal to end the weeks-long fiscal impasse.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican leader Mitch McConnell announced the agreement on the Senate floor, where it was expected to win swift approval after a main Republican critic of the deal, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, said he would not use procedural moves to delay a vote.
Weeks of bitter fighting among Democrats and Republicans over President Barack Obama's signature healthcare reform law led to a partial government shutdown on October 1, sidelining hundreds of thousands of federal workers. Cruz and other Republicans backed by the conservative, small government Tea Party movement want to repeal or delay the healthcare law.

10 comments:

  1. What is interesting in this dialog is the absence of discussion about the underlying cause for this ‘dysfunction’ within our government.

    First of all, we have hypocrisy. This isn’t limited to one party or the other. From my point of view we have two kinds of hypocrisy. One is that of the elected official who says one thing and does another. The other is the career politician that says one thing at one point in his/her career and later, without a reasoned explanation, changes their mind. (This generally occurs with respect to advantage or disadvantage relative to a give political situation).

    We also have an electorate that is, by and large, disengaged. You couldn’t get a coherent answer from 90% of the people who vote, why they voted that way... except that the politician supports or say they support a particular fringe issue.
    This country has a debt problem. That is the problem. Of the people who are engaged we have couple of ‘professional’ points of view.... They all make since depending on sensibilities. One says that a government never runs out of money.... one says that a government is constrained by the same fiscal dimensions as any other entity except and depending on the credibility of the government/business/individual, they just have a bigger credit card. Just as no person can endlessly finance their world as they are not in control of all their assets, neither can a national government because some things must be purchased from people and countries who want reasonable assurance that they will be paid back.....

    We have Republicans who get elected to bring the nations fiscal business in order but they do nothing but add riders to other bills to expand the debt and deficit spending. The democrats make no pretext to their feelings about fiscal restraint, meanwhile the people who do stand on their election promises to address the debt and constitutional problems are called terrorist and irresponsible by the party leaderships and media. To an uniformed but valuable voting communities, it is poison to the truth.

    Obama said not so many years ago in his partisan chest thumping that :
    “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. ... I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.”
    —Sen. Barack Obama March 16, 2006

    He turns this around now and says that it was just ‘a political vote’... but now “We’re going to have to make sure that people are looking at this in a responsible way, rather than just through the lens of politics.”

    AND PEOPLE STILL TRUST HIM!

    He now says of this shutdown ‘He won’t negotiate this budget”... excuse me? Until such time as he formally declared the constitution null and void (and the unseeing civil war is completed in his favour)(good luck with that)... The House of Representatives initiate all spending.... period! And the senate is there for ‘consent’. If we have learned anything from this administration ‘Advice and Consent’ doesn’t mean much to him.

    Interestingly enough we are suppose to buy the “we will negotiate the budget after you pass the budget” when he has already played games with the last budget and its sequester. This is the same tactic use by Pelosi in her famous “We have to pass this thing to find out what’s in it” plea. Now we know what is in it and ‘they ain’t budgin’.

    Boehner and McConnell have always been for raising the debt ceiling. They were using this to sell the fiscal hawks down the river.... The mistake those that stood for fixing our debt made was lingering to long on extinguishing this albatross called Obamacare.... It just might collapse under its own weight! They should have immediately gone for the ‘everyone in Washington must use the same plan as the rest of the country and Oh yea... about that debt’ Turning down the first certainly would have shown Washington democrats for what they are and the second would have set the ‘tea party’ folks up for a good 2014...

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  2. Just a little rant but it is exactly how I feel..... but I don't expect my president to do that.... Unfortunately Americans are to afraid of the truth to elect someone who will stand up and say that....

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2_B3Hv9sn0&feature=youtu.be

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  3. As we are a democracy ( from the Greek for "rule by the people"), I have great faith in the wisdom of the electorate. It is the aggregate wisdom of the people which makes this country great. I resent elitists who denigrate the people, calling then stupid, sheepish or cowards.

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    1. We are not a democracy Mick. We are a Republic. We are a representative form of government that features a system of checks and balances.

      During the skirmish many political data points were established, many charlatans exposed on both sides.

      Adjustments will be made, people will be primaried. Forces will be marshaled. No one on the Tea Party side will rest easy.

      This was just a dry run. Just a picket line at the flank. Just a probe. The media remains completely blind to the movement.

      1773-2009

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  4. Sorry, I meant "calling THEM stupid".

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    1. Sorry friend, but we are a democracy in the original meaning of the term, for over 1000 years. Republic works too, as long as you remember that Red China is officially The Peoples REPUBLIC of China, and communist Russia was officially the United Soviet Socialist REPUBLIC. For myself, I would rather live in the USA, which is just an old fashioned democracy.

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    3. The distinction between our Republic and a democracy is not an idle one. It has great legal significance.
      The Constitution guarantees to every state a Republican form of government (Art. 4, Sec. 4). No state may join the United States unless it is a Republic. Our Republic is one dedicated to "liberty and justice for all." Minority individual rights are the priority. The people have natural rights instead of civil rights. The people are protected by the Bill of Rights from the majority. One vote in a jury can stop all of the majority from depriving any one of the people of his rights; this would not be so if the United States were a democracy. (see People's rights vs Citizens' rights)

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    4. In the Pledge of Allegiance we all pledge allegiance to our Republic, not to a democracy. "Republic" is the proper description of our government, not "democracy."
      A republic and a democracy are identical in every aspect except one. In a republic the sovereignty is in each individual person. In a democracy the sovereignty is in the group.

      http://www.1215.org/lawnotes/lawnotes/repvsdem.htm

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    5. Actually, the United States is a mixture of the two systems of government (Republican under Common Law, and democratic under statutory law). The People enjoy their God-given natural rights in the Republic. In a democracy, the Citizens enjoy only government granted privileges (also known as civil rights).

      There was a great political division between two major philosophers, Hobbes and Locke. Hobbes was on the side of government. He believed that sovereignty was vested in the state. Locke was on the side of the People. He believed that the fountain of sovereignty was the People of the state. Statists prefer Hobbes. Populists choose Locke. In California, the Government Code sides with Locke. Sections 11120 and 54950 both say, "The people of this State do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them." The preambles of the U.S. and California Constitutions also affirm the choice of Locke by the People.

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