#debt limit

[odinsblog]

Imagine you and your Republican coworkers went out to a restaurant for lunch, ordered from the menu (you had the soup dejour, they had the most expensive lobster on the menu), and ate your meals

When the check comes, Republicans say they refuse to pay (for the meals they’ve already eaten!), UNLESS everyone agrees to starve the homeless and rob the poor the next time you eat here

That’s what is happening

I know that the hypocrisy and the cruelty is the point with Republicans, but it needs to be noted that they never had a problem with raising the debt limit when Trump was in the White House and blowing holes in the deficit to give tax cuts to billionaires

[contemplatingoutlander]

A simple explanation of why the Fourteenth Amendment can (and perhaps should) be invoked if the GOP refuses to raise the debt ceiling

Defaulting on the national debt is not an option. If Congress fails to act responsibly, the president must. There is no mention of a “debt ceiling” in our original Constitution or in any of its amendments; it is a creature of statute. Under the debt ceiling/limit law, the Treasury is restrained from paying for financial obligations and expenditures —already approved and appropriated — once the statutory debt limit is reached. This conflicts with Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides, in pertinent part, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law … shall not be questioned.” [emphasis added] If the public debt cannot be questioned it cannot be challenged and, therefore, must be paid. As Senate pro tempore Benjamin Wade, one of the drafters of Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, explained, “[E]very man who has property in the public funds will feel safer when he sees that the national debt is withdrawn from the power of a Congress to repudiate it and placed under the guardianship of the Constitution than he would feel it if it were left at loose ends and subject to the varying majorities which may arise in Congress.” [emphasis added] Clearly, a failure to raise the debt limit would violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s mandate that our public indebtedness be paid. If this situation were to arise, Biden would be obligated to raise the debt limit himself, via Executive Order. The President of the United States has a sworn duty to uphold the laws of the United States, including the laws authorizing our country’s indebtedness and dependent on that authorization for them to remain in full force and effect. The president also has the sworn duty to uphold the Constitution, including, of course, Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits Congress from repudiating the indebtedness authorized by those laws.

--If you care to listen, comment on an article in The Washington Post

This was the first time I saw the quote by Senate pro tempore Benjamin Wade. It is clear from that quote that the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to protect the country from the very thing that the Republicans are threatening. 

Given that, it seems to me that Biden should invoke the Fourteenth Amendment if the GOP refuses to accept a reasonable compromise in the debt limit negotiations.

_____________ illustration source

[porterdavis]

Keep pounding this out

[memenewsdotcom]

Fitch downgrades U.S. credit

[trump666traitor]

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Stephen Millies

Using the so-called debt limit as a club, congressional leaders are pushing for more attacks on the poor. Don’t expect Joe Biden to fight back. Only the people can stop Congress from cutting food stamps and other needed social programs. The AFL-CIO needs to call a new Solidarity Day to fight these vicious cutbacks.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Democrats erupted in laughter on the House floor Wednesday when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — who was presiding over the chamber — called for decorum.

The heckling came as House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) was delivering floor remarks about the debt ceiling, which has been the subject of high-stakes negotiations between GOP lawmakers and the White House.

As Scalise was urging the Senate and White House to take action on raising the borrowing limit — referencing the bill House Republicans passed last month — Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) called him a liar.

“We are in fact the only body in this town who has actually taken steps to address the debt ceiling and the spending problem in Washington. I would encourage the Senate to take up the bill, I would encourage the President to get engaged and address this problem, but we already have, the votes are on the board —” Scalise said before pausing to react to Bowman.

Bowman’s office confirmed to The Hill that it was the congressman who yelled “liar” while Scalise was speaking.

“Order,” Greene said from the dais, pounding her gavel.

“I ask that the House be in order and there be some decorum on the other side,” Scalise said.

After a roughly 15-second pause, Greene called for decorum in the chamber.

“The members are reminded to abide by decorum of the House,” she said.

Democrats in the chamber then erupted in laughter. Some members — including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.) — stood from their seats and started shouting.

As the laughter continued, Greene slammed her gavel a number of times.

The Hill reached out to Greene for comment.

The Democrats’ reaction was a reflection of the controversy swirling around Greene’s own bombastic behavior since arriving on Capitol Hill, which at times has played out on the House floor. During President Biden’s State of the Union address in February, the Georgia Republican yelled “liar” as the President delivered remarks on Social Security and Medicare.

And last month, Greene was silenced during a Homeland Security Committee hearing after she accused Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of being a liar.

Following the laughter, Greene said “the House will be in order” and recognized Scalise to continue talking on the floor.

“While some in this town might be interested in theatrics, House Republicans took action,” Scalise said, prompting groans in the chamber. “We passed a bill to address the problem, it’s time for my friends on the other side to start doing their job, call the Senate back in to take up the bill.”

“If they don’t like it they can amend it, that is part of the legislative process. Let’s get our jobs done; we’ve done ours, they need to do theirs,” he added.

Scalise took to the House floor Wednesday to inform lawmakers that they can leave Washington for Memorial Day weekend but should be prepared to return to the Capitol with 24-hours notice to vote on a debt limit ceiling as negotiations over raising the borrowing limit drag on.

For more than a week, Republican lawmakers and White House negotiators have been engaging in talks to come to an agreement. Pressure, however, has mounted in recent days as the calendar inches closer to June 1 — the day that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned the U.S. could default by.

After announcing the scheduling plans, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) spoke on the House floor to criticize the GOP bill and celebrate that all members of the Democratic caucus signed on to a discharge petition, which liberal lawmakers are hoping can be used to force a vote on legislation to increase the borrowing limit.

Democrats erupted in applause.

While all 213 Democrats have signed onto the petition, the caucus needs five Republicans to join their effort to reach the threshold of a majority of the chamber, which is needed to force a vote through the discharge petition. That, however, is an unlikely scenario as Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has called on GOP lawmakers to stand behind him in negotiations.

Clark, however, called on Republicans to join the Democratic effort.

“It only takes five patriots to join us in the fight for the American people. Join us, sign the petition, stay here and fight for American families, fight for their American security,” she added.

[factcheckdotorg]

Debt Ceiling Talks Go Down to the Wire — Again

The U.S. government will likely run out of money in early June unless Congress passes a bill to raise the debt limit. Here we look at the current state of negotiations and review how the past 10 debt limit disputes were resolved.

[news-of-the-day]

6/1/23

Somehow Speaker McCarthy managed to wrangle everyone together and the debt limit bill passed the House with a vote of 314-117. Members from both parties did vote nay. The US is odd because it has a debt ceiling at all, almost every other country doesn't, so that's why we don't hear about this same issue elsewhere.

19 are dead in Sudan as the ceasefire broke down and a market in Khartoum was attacked.

Russia's missile barrage on Kiev continues, killing three.

Senegal's opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko, was sentenced to two years in prison. Sonko was accused of raping a massage parlor employee and then later sending death threats to her. Sonko claims this was all contrived by President Sall to bring him down so he couldn’t run in elections. Although the courts acquitted him of the rape, he was convicted of "corrupting the youth," which in this case is using his position to have sex with someone under the age of 21. Sonko refused to attend the hearings, so it's unknown what the courts will decide about bringing him to prison.

It's a relatively slow news day (so far), so I'll cover something I normally would skip: State Farm, the largest property insurer, won't issue new homeowners insurance policy in California, citing the wildfire and rising construction costs. There are still other companies offering it in California in the state, but this could be a harbinger of things to come as climate change brings more extreme conditions. How insurance works is everyone pays into the pot until someone has an emergency. If everyone has an emergency at once, there'll be no more money. Massive natural disasters are one of those situations. Rebuilding an entire town that's been burned to the ground requires large funding. Now, a lot of these companies have a lot of money--a quick glance at today's wikipedia page says State Farm has ~$300B in assets--but I can easily see State Farm going through that rapidly if every year something crazy happens in California. Yes, of course they're also trying to make a profit, but even if you factor out the CEO's salary ($25M/year), it wouldn't cover the costs for these huge influxes of insurance claims. For example, the US is required to pay for people in high-flood areas, and the fund for that, the National Flood Insurance Program, is tens of billions in debt. I'm saying all of this because it may reach a point that many people would have to move out of high-risk areas. If companies refuse to provide homeowners insurance, then no bank will give a mortgage. Or they lose their home to a disaster, but can't rebuild because they have no insurance money to pay for it. We'll have to see what happens in the upcoming decades.

1) NYT 2) Guardian 3) Reuters 4) Al Jazeera 5) SF Chronicle

[odinsblog]

“One particularly maddening aspect of our current politics is that Democrats feel beholden to rules that Republicans feel entitled to burn. Democrats creatively interpret rules in ways that inevitably frustrate their ability to wield power, while Republicans creatively use their power to get around the rules.

Democrats invent constraints on themselves, ostensibly to restrict Republicans, while these same Republicans long ago decided to use maximal power to achieve their goals.” (source)

Why doesn’t Biden at least try using the 14th Amendment? Just for shits and giggles.

Seriously: does anyone believe that if their roles were reversed, Republicans wouldn’t be taking full advantage of the 14th Amendment??

If it fails, then so be it. People can accept a strategic loss if a genuine attempt was made, but refusing to even try feels a dereliction of duty at best, or a straight up betrayal at worst.

Yes, yes, we understand that Biden isn’t an all powerful dictator, but it feels unforgivably quisling to take the 14th Amendment completely off the table ��because it might not work.”

All I know is, as the next general election approaches and the more outrageous Republican governors become, I’m not understanding why establishment Democrats continue placing sO much value in “norms and traditions.”

Republicans are trying to cut programs for the poor and obliterate the social safety net. Why is Biden so inured with “negotiating” with the party of white supremacy and fascism??

The stakes are high, and Republicans are shitting all over the Constitution—literally what have you got to lose??

[penguicorns-are-cool]

It looks like on June 1st the US is going to default on the debt which is going to crash the global economy.

Not enough people are talking about how scary this is and that's probably because economics is confusing but I'm going to explain it really quick.

So the US debt is actually essential to the global economy (I know weird right debt is supposed to be bad). The debt is basically because we take a lot of loans and go into 800 billion dollars of trade deficits every year (when we import way more than we export, ideally import and export would be equal value but when the import is more than the export we have to pay the difference) this is fine because the US has paid off all of its loans and deficits in time the debt is just all the loans that we haven't finished paying off. A lot of countries and companies give loans to the US or a lot of people buy bonds because the interest is profitable and those countries and companies depend on the fact that the US generally pays its loans, that's why we have a AAA rating which is kind of like having the highest credit score. To prevent us from having to default on all these loans since the amount of loans and value of the loans are only rising, we just keep raising the debt ceiling and it's been working out.

Now that's all fine so why don't we just raise the debt ceiling again? well, that's because stupid fucking Mcarthy (he's that guy who was elected as speaker back when the congress had to shut down for like half a week for that election) well the reason he won is because he promised to pay off the debt, WE CAN'T JUST FUCKING PAY OFF THE DEBT. look the US has a lot of money but not that much money. But now he's in a bit of a tricky spot because he won very narrowly because a few people liked that he would pay off the debt, so if he raises the debt ceiling, he loses their support and they might just vote him out. So instead of just raising the debt ceiling, congress has been talking about plans to default which means we say we haven't paid the debt in time and we're going to pay it all at once right now which means that we have to cut a ton of welfare programs for example: Veteran's Aide, school, nutrition assistance (funding for food for pregnant people and young children), air safety towers, rail safety inspections, workforce development services, gov funding college scholarships, student debt relief, mental health support for students, support for students with disabilities, food stamps, access to healthcare, and a bunch more stuff.

Now why you non-Americans should care. the US, for better or for worse, is the center of the global economy. the US dollar makes up over half the money used in foreign trade, a lot of countries and companies do loan money to the US because it is seen as very safe to be part of the debt, and there are tons of people who invest in the US and US companies. If the US defaults it would first of all hurt all those countries that are part of the debt because those countries would not be paid back immediately and would not be able to profit from US loans anymore since the US would not be seen as trustworthy enough for that, it would crash the US economy which means the value of the US dollar would go haywire hurting anyone who uses US dollars in foreign trade, and it would hurt anyone invested in anything American.

So yeah this is really fucking scary and it looks like they're going to go through with the default so it does look like we're going to be in a recession in about 6 days especially since the global economy is already really fucked up right now and all that.

[porterdavis]

The fiscal cliff explained

Let’s say you took out a large mortgage to buy a house. Maybe you made the right decision, maybe you didn’t. Either way, you signed the contract. And your next monthly payment on that mortgage is due.

So how do you respond? Do you (a.) grumble but pay the bill, since that’s what you promised to do? Or do you (b.) refuse to pay, giving a speech about how debt is bad and your family must cut spending, even though defaulting on your mortgage will ruin your credit rating and could cause you to lose your house?

On Monday, Kevin McCarthy, speaker of the House, decided to go for option (b.). 

When the party that controls one body of Congress has no interest in keeping America governable, catastrophe is always a real possibility.

Paul Krugman

[commonsensecommentary]

“Elections may come and go—each ushering in a bright new crop of office holders—but promised reforms will often be frustrated by those occupying the countless little government cubicles where innovations go to die.”

(From my blog archive)

[kontextmaschine]

Question: Whyyy didn't Democrats repeal the debt limit when they had 60 Senators in 2009?

Answer: There exist figures closely involved in or exposed to financial markets whose favor and support is necessary to the institutional structure and continuation of the party as constituted since the collapse of labor unions who very strongly prefer that the amount of government debt issuance be held to caps known well in advance and requiring approval of some portion of the Republican Party even in periods of Democratic trifecta.

[memenewsdotcom]

Biden signs debt ceiling bill