davebodner wrote:It's very unusual for Congress to forbid spending money to implement an existing law. Mostly they forbid spending money on things the president wants to do, but isn't required to do (e.g. they used this power to keep the president from transferring Guantanamo prisoners to the US).
Aside from unusual, it's simply dumb. As we found out on the 1st, lack of funding didn't stop the health exchanges from opening. The health care freight train simply can't stop on a dime like that. Temporarily interrupting the funding only ends up raising the costs of what's going to be implement, anyway. If they can muster the votes to overturn Obamacare, there's probably a smart way of dismantling it. But what the House tried to do was simply poorly planned.
I don't disagree at all. My point in all of this is not that the Republicans are making a smart move, or that what they are doing is a good thing. Not at all. I agree that they're being pretty stupid. My main point is that, for good or bad, what they are doing is quite Constitutional and following of the law. My other point is that the Democrats are behaving just as stupidly. The Republicans want to fund all of government except Obamacare, and are standing their ground. Democrats want an "all-or-nothing" appropriation including Obamacare and are standing their ground. Neither side is willing to negotiate. Both sides are being absolutely ridiculous. But the Republicans are following the Constitution.
davebodner wrote:Not raising the debt ceiling would be criminally irresponsible. Notwithstanding the sanguine predictions, it's still far from certain that we wouldn't default on debt. Though at the end of the year there may be enough money to theoretically balance the books, we have to remember that cash flows in and money has to go out at very different rates throughout the year. Just maybe the bureaucrats at the Treasury dept. are skillful enough and lucky enough to always have enough cash on-hand for whatever bills and bonds have to be paid that particular day. But that's making a helluva assumption. If not, we go into default. And if the markets even think default is possible, we're gonna have to pay higher interest rates, which increases the deficit.
That's where our agreement is going to have to diverge. I'm going to have to side with Senator Obama on this issue. From 2006:
" wrote:The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure...
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. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.
And as I've pointed out, government revenues are greater than mandated spending - and that mandated spending includes payments on the debt. Pay attention to that word "mandated." That means it HAS to be spent, according to law. There is no avoiding those expenditures, unless the law is changed. And the first thing that has to be paid every month is our debt payment (which is only just the interest - and who ever gets out of debt by only paying the interest? But I digress.). The only chance we have at a default, at not making our debt payment, is if the President, in violation of the law, orders it not to be paid.
If the debt ceiling is not raised, it means we can't borrow more money for all the unnecessary and extra-constitutional discretionary spending.
Don't buy in to the scare tactics about defaulting on our debt if we don't raise the debt ceiling. Because a scare tactic is all it is. Obama is using it now. Bush used it before him. The next President, regardless of party, will use it again. The party in power always uses it because it always works, but it is only a scare tactic. Don't buy in to it.
davebodner wrote:And who started this rumor that Obama is trying to make the government closure more painful than is necessary? Parks and monuments ALWAYS close during a shutdown. The Parks Service doesn't need Oval Office approval to move in the barricades. That's just what they do.
It's not a rumor. There is plenty of evidence.
Park Service Ranger: 'We've Been Told to Make Life As Difficult For People As We Can' - “]Mt. Vernon[/URL],
state-run parks, and block people from even looking at
Mount Rushmore. They have shut down
private businesses, and
kicked people out of their homes. They have closed things that were NOT closed during the last shutdown, like
parks they provide no funding to, a
historic restaurant, and
Ford's Theater - which is operated by a non-profit group.
And that's just a few examples.
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