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[NohopeSeriously]

The American Dream

Yeah.

[Ya-ta Boy]

An interesting (not) turn of events:

While Reid was still negotiating his bill with Senate Republicans, the House decided to vote on it under suspension rules (meaning it had to pass by 2/3 majority). As planned by the House leadership, the bill then failed 173-236.

Looking at GOP priorities, I think Johathan Chait has them about right:

In order, the GOP cares about:
1. Low taxes for the wealthy
2. Reducing social spending, especially for the poor
3. Defending the defense budget
4. Low deficits

Democrats have shown, both in the health care debate and the debt ceiling debate, that they are willing to compromise their priorities in order to control the deficit.

http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/92941/the-debt-ceiling-crisis-and-the-failure-the-establishment

[Ya-ta Boy]

Here is a cheerful thought from Fox:

07/30/2011 4:23 PM Fox Guest Advises Viewers To Take Out $1,000 In Cash

There is, it appears, an emerging sense of panic developing on the cable news circuit over the state of a deal on the nation's debt ceiling. On Fox News Saturday afternoon, Patricia Powell, founder and CEO of Powell Financial Group, advised viewers that they would be wise to have $1,000 in cash on hand if Congress were unable to come to a deal.

"Everybody needs a cash reserve and I'm talking � seriously about cash, cash dollars in your wallet -- not just maybe money in the bank, but you also want money in the bank and not just in the money market fund," said Powell. "None of us know, if they � choose to default, whether there is going to be a credit crunch, whether you might have some trouble accessing some of your credit, and you might even have some trouble with your money market funds. So none of us know. Make sure you have cash."

"How much are you talking about?" asked the Fox host.

"For most of us, if we had $1000 in bills, in our drawer, we would be fine," said Powell. "I don't expect that you're going to need them, but you know what? If you need them, it would be nice to have."

It should be noted that there are a number of steps that banks take to avoid runs on their cash, including temporarily suspending withdrawals.

-- Sam Stein
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/29/debt-ceiling-deadline-default_n_913809.html#393_fox-guest-advises-viewers-to-take-out-1000-in-cash-

[NYC_Gal 2.0]

It's the new reality show. The Real Scumbags of Washington, DC. Also known as The Amazing Waste.

[Kuros]

[Ya-ta Boy]

The sun is coming up here in Asia and reports are that Congress and the White House are nearing an agreement in time to forestall a panic (it is hoped). The details are being leaked, but no one yet knows what the final deal will look like. The fact that there should never have needed to be a deal is being overlooked on the sites I've seen, except one.

Matt Yglesias has this important point:

I actually think that whatever the contours of the deal, at this point the biggest damage is to the overall system of government. Obama has successfully transformed massive debt ceiling hostage taking from an act of breathtakingly irresponsible brinksmanship into a proven effective negotiating tactic. Suppose he gets re-elected in 2012. What�s he going to do when this issue recurs in 2013? Every time the president�s party has fewer than 60 votes in the Senate, we may face a recurrence of this crisis.

http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/07/31/283862/compromise-in-the-works/

The social contract that lasted for 222 years has been broken for the second time. It has always been the deal that we govern ourselves by simple majority vote on all things except certain specified situations (treaties and amendments) where a supermajority is needed. Now it is clear that the majority has to have 60 votes in the Senate and that hostage taking will be rewarded in the House. Democrats will have to follow suit the next time they are in the minority or completely surrender to a one party system of GOP rule regardless of the outcome of any election.

Unless Obama vetos any deal and invokes the 14th Amendment, democracy is dead. Grover Norquist will have succeeded in drowning the American government.

[Kuros]

Obama announces US deficit deal between party leaders

I'm not even taking too much stock of the numbers.

[Ya-ta Boy]

Well, that's just dandy. A settlement has been reached (and announced Sunday night). No details I've seen yet.

In a conference call with his rank and file, Boehner said the agreement "isn't the greatest deal in the world, but it shows how much we've changed the terms of the debate in this town."

Obama underscored that point. He said that, if enacted, the agreement would mean "the lowest level of domestic spending since Dwight Eisenhower was president" more than a half century ago.

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-congress-reach-debt-deal-003853348.html

[Kuros]

Pelosi: �None Of Us� May Support Debt Limit Deal

[Ya-ta Boy]

I haven't looked at the details of the agreement yet. I don't really care what is in it. It is not a legitimate deal. I know of no legal system in the world that enforces an agreement made under duress.

As bad, the Radical Republicans have been rewarded for their behavior. That is a huge mistake, as I said this morning.

It is nice some agree with me:
Steve Benen: Republicans aren�t just radicalized, aren�t just pursuing an extreme agenda, and aren�t just allergic to compromise. The congressional GOP is also changing the very nature of governing in ways with no modern precedent.

Welcome to the normalization of extortion politics...

Republicans effectively tell the administration, over and over again, that the normal system of American governance can continue � just as soon as Democrats agree to policy changes the GOP can�t otherwise pass.

The traditional American model would tell Republicans to win an election. If that doesn�t work, Republicans should work with rivals to pass legislation that moves them closer to their goal. In 2011, the GOP has decided these old-school norms are of no value. Why bother with them when Republicans can force through policy changes by way of a series of hostage strategies? Why should the legislative branch use its powers through legislative action when extortion is more effective?


http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_07/extortion_politics_a_new_form031209.php#

Paul Krugman: What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation�s economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can�t.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/opinion/the-president-surrenders-on-debt-ceiling.html?_r=1

[visitorq]

[bucheon bum]

Obama's leadership skills are awful. Unless some extremist like Bachmann gets the GOP nomination, I really don't know why I'd vote for any presidential candidate next year. There really is no point.

Ross Douthat sums it up well:

[NohopeSeriously]

Forget Compromise: The Debt Ceiling Is Unconstitutional by Ellen Brown

The game of Russian roulette being played with the U.S. federal debt has been called a �grotesque political carnival� and political blackmail. The uproar stems from a statute that is unique to the United States and never did make much sense. First passed in 1917 and revised multiple times since, it imposes a dollar limit on the federal debt. What doesn�t make sense is that the same Congress that voted on the statute votes on the budget, which periodically exceeds the limit, requiring the statute to be revised. The debt ceiling has been raised 74 times since 1962, 10 of them since 2001. The most recent increase, to $14.294 trillion by H.J.Res. 45, was signed into law on February 12, 2010.

Taxes aren�t collected until after the annual budget is passed, so Congress can�t know in advance whether or how much additional borrowing will be required. Inevitably, there will be some years that the budget pushes the debt over the limit, requiring new legislation. And inevitably, now that this tactic has been discovered, there will be a costly battle over the increase, wasting congressional time, destabilizing markets, and rattling faith in the American financial and political systems. There will be continual blackmail, arm-twisting and concessions. The situation is untenable and cries out for a definitive resolution.

Fortunately, there is one. A bevy of legal scholars are recommending that the issue be eliminated altogether by playing the Constitutional trump card. The Fourteenth Amendment provides at Section 4:

�The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.�

Where statute and the Constitution collide, the Constitution prevails. Whether the government should pay the bills it has already incurred is not a matter of negotiation. It is a Constitutional mandate. And those are the bills we are talking about here, as President Obama stressed in his remarks on the issue last Friday. He said:

�Raising the debt ceiling simply gives our country the ability to pay the bills that Congress has already racked up. I want to emphasize that. The debt ceiling does not determine how much more money we can spend, it simply authorizes us to pay the bills we already have racked up. It gives the United States of America the ability to keep its word.�

Ignoring the debt ceiling on Constitutional grounds would not, as Michelle Bachmann declares, make President Obama a �dictator.� It would simply mean he is complying with his Constitutional mandate to pay the government�s bills on time and in full.

(leaving out details)

The debt crisis was created, not by a social safety net bought and paid for by the taxpayers, but by a banking system taken over by Wall Street gamblers. The gamblers lost their bets and were bailed out at the expense of the taxpayers; and if anyone should be held to account, it is these gamblers.

The debt ceiling crisis is a manufactured one, engineered to extort concessions that will lock the middle class in debt peonage for decades to come. Congress is empowered by the Constitution to issue the money it needs to pay its debts. Abraham Lincoln did it; Barack Obama could do it. He probably won�t, but he does need to follow his Constitutional mandate to pay the government�s bills as and when due. The statute imposing a ceiling on the national debt is trumped by the Fourteenth Amendment, making it redundant and unnecessary. The statute should be repealed.

[Kuros]

The Debt Ceiling needs to be abolished. But first there must be compromise. If the President "unilaterally" pays the debts (Congress already incurred) without (additional and redundant) Congressional authorization, then there will be a legal cloud cast over the payments. It won't do much to save the US from a dip in its credit rating.

Meanwhile, the deal, as yet still only a proposal, has been welcomed by bipartisan and even non-partisan disappointment.

CRFB Reacts to Debt Deal

[Ya-ta Boy]

Things haven't looked this bleak since Reagan was elected and judging by the fact no one has posted anything positive about the debt ceiling deal it looks like everyone else feels pretty much the same.

I find myself fantasizing that Bill has some fake 'health issue' that prompts Hillary to resign so she can spend time with her family...until a couple of weeks before the Iowa caucus where she pulls a Gene McCarthy and forces Obama into an LBJ moment of throwing in the towel.

In the meantime, I'm trying very hard with little success to look at things like the TPM guy:

Let me get this straight. The President kept revenues on the table, did not touch the sunset provisions in the Bush tax cuts, ensured that military cuts keep the GOP honest, protected Medicare by adding in only provider cuts in the trigger, made the reduction apparently enough to stave off a debt downgrade, got the debt ceiling raised, wounded Boehner by demonstrating to the world that he is controlled by the Tea Party caucus, took out the requirement that a BBA be passed and sent to the states and got the extension through 2012? What exactly is wrong with this deal?

Trouble is, I don't believe the Tea Party cares much about military spending. A good many of them want to bring the troops home faster than Obama does. While that will make defense cuts easier (note: 'ier', not 'y'), it is not going to help force through tax increases.

Probably worst of all is what bb said. Voters need something to be for, not just scared the other guy is worse.