[QUOTE=chuckster;352171]Silly me, I thought the present administration extended tax cuts and now they are "bush tax cuts" and not Obama tax cuts.

If you haven't noticed, jobs are heading outside the US at a frenetic pace never to return. Ask the all knowing Michael Moore, he and other libs seem to have the answers.[/QUOTE

To funny.... and just like a Repub. Revisionist history.

Originally Posted by chuckster

Silly me, I thought the present administration extended tax cuts and now they are "bush tax cuts" and not Obama tax cuts.

If you haven't noticed, jobs are heading outside the US at a frenetic pace never to return. Ask the all knowing Michael Moore, he and other libs seem to have the answers.

Originally Posted by cologal

Nero and Congress.....

Wait I forgot....Congress voted to extend the Bush Tax Cuts because doing that would start the jobs flowing.....

So where are the jobs? And if we lost jobs after big tax cuts why do we continue to offer them?

Here, let CNN give you the real scoop. Caution, brief commercial before CNN hammers Obama for not sticking to his Marxist Ideology.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvhX1E8PBa8[/ame]

and regarding the jobs, it's the uncertainity of what the administration is doing, and the jobs and business killing debt.

Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

I think you're terribly wrong, DK....dangerously wrong! I think a few other things will happen if Congress refuses to increase the debt ceiling. Don't get me wrong, I'm not proposing that 'the 535' simply authorizes more borrowing. I'll be very disappointed if they don't keep such authorization short and definitely have any such approval conditioned on some very aggressive spending cuts, a move in the short term towards a balanced budget, or some other legislation that might suggest a semblance of fiscal responsibility.

But back to your assertion that "not raising the debt ceiling won't do a darn thing". There is no bankruptcy court for sovereign nations. There is no creditors committee who negotiates which of them will take the write off of their loans and investments. There is no group of lenders to provide interim financing until a balanced budget is achieved. I don't think it's much of a stretch to conclude that any and all of the following would result.

• The debt rating agencies would immediately drop the credit rating of U.S. bonds and bills from AAA to AA or maybe even lower. That would severely constrain our ability to borrow in the future, probably permanently.

• As our debt which on average is very short-term in duration rolled over, the interest rates on any new debt we might issue to fund the rollovers would increase substantially. Default would be a distinct possibility. Even at current low rates the CBO projects that the combination of rising debt and rising interest rates is projected to cause net interest payments to balloon from 1.4% to 3.4% of GDP by 2020. Lowered debt ratings would increase the amount we spend on interest on the national debt substantially. Having our interest payments rise to the level of the current defense budget is not beyond possibility.

• Both the stock market and bond market would have significant declines in values. No one really knows how the markets would react, but a decline in value of "Black Friday" proportions, as much as 50% or more, isn't out of the question. With the resulting uncertainty, the banking system would grind to a halt.

• Unemployment would skyrocket as our economy ground to a halt because of the uncertainty caused by the failure of our government. Without federal money, there would be no unemployment benefits.

• The federal government would be thrown into complete turmoil. Because there would be no way to pay for any "discretionary" government services, most or all of them would have to be shut down. Services such as Homeland Security, the air controllers, the entire regulatory infrastucture, would have to be shut down because there would be no money to fund their continued operation. In time, they'd be restarted at substantially lesser levels of service--most of what we know as "government" would have to be almost eliminated. It would take Congress months and months to finally agree at what non-discretionary programs would be reduced in order to return funding for discretionary programs. But until Congress reached some very complicated conclusions, our lives would change immediately!

• Our military operations would have to be shut down immediately. Arguably, there wouldn't be enough money to pay for additional munitions, hospital and rehab care, or even enough to pay for the travel expenses to bring our military home from wherever they are in the world.

• Medicare and Social Security? There wouldn't be enough money to fund next month's checks.

• Should I keep adding to the list??

Making thoughtless and misinformed statements such as yours is what's dangerous about public forums such as this one. What's worse is when the person making such thoughtless statements is serving in an official capacity--in your case "Administrator"--on a public website.

DK, I'd really suggest that you think a little bit before you make such dumb statements. You may influence others who don't choose to think about what's being said, relying on statements such as yours as fact, which would almost certainly result in detrimental results in their lives. I don't think that would be your intent.

Thank you for your post! Well said.

VK,

I'm not really sure who died and left you the expert? There are plenty who totally disagree with you. You know the US has defaulted 3 times in the past right?

Obama himself is against raising the ceiling. It's a bad idea and even he knows it.

What I think is dumb is your assumption you have some level of understanding and expertiese others don't. Typical elitist attitude.

That's why we have the problems we do.

Lassen,

I really enjoy reading your posts and your exceptional wording like "only a liberal" and calling others elitists. Not that I agree with many of your ideas at all, but keep it up. It gives me a good laugh to see what some reactionaries are thinking up for their latest conspiracy theories.

Hope the flooding stays away from your area.

Isn't that what VK is? He calls my statements "dumb" and yet his are no more than his theories. Not even Obama agrees with him. But yet he is gospel and I'm dumb?

"Kahuna is a Hawaiian word, defined in the Pukui & Elbert (1986) as a "Priest, sorcerer, magician, wizard, minister, expert in any profession."

I don't think so scooter...

Obama's own words. Or did he change his mind now that he and his party are spending the money?

"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. … 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 and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."

dk: When was the last time the US defaulted on it's debt? Seriously.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/20...-debt-default/

The first time was in 1790, the only episode Professor Reinhart unearthed in which the United States defaulted on its external debt obligations. It also defaulted on its domestic debt obligations then, too.

Then in 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, the United States had another domestic debt default related to the repayment of gold-based obligations. Additionally, there were two episodes when a spate of American states defaulted on their debts, in 1841-42 (nine states) and 1873-84 (10 states). The havoc wreaked by these state-level defaults is part of the reason that so many states now have constitutional balanced-budget requirements.

So defaulting on a $14T debt has no precedent. Figuring out which seniors or soldiers get paid in a multi trillion dollar budget has no precedent.

Guess what happens to the stock market when it encounters situations with *uncertainty*, never mind things that are UNPRECEDENTED.