A Kentucky Ping.
...for those interested. :D
NO THANKS!
(Washington D.C. Establishment) Senator Mitch "go along to get along" McConnell
Repeal the 17th Admt. and bring the Senators home and (rigidly) held accountable the 10th Admt.
Posted on 08/02/2011 10:07:24 AM PDT by Palter
Today Sen. Rand Paul issued an open letter on the subject of the debt ceiling compromise facing the Senate. Below is that letter.
To paraphrase Senator Jim DeMint: When you're speeding toward the edge of a cliff, you don't set the cruise control. You stop the car. The current deal to raise the debt ceiling doesn't stop us from going over the fiscal cliff. At best, it slows us from going over it at 80 mph to going over it at 60 mph.
This plan never balances. The President called for a "balanced approach." But the American people are calling for a balanced budget.
This deal does nothing to fix the overreaches of both parties over the past few years: Obamacare, TARP, trillion-dollar wars, runaway entitlement spending. They are all cemented into place with this deal, and their legacy will be trillions of dollars in new debt.
The deal that is pending before us now:
Buried in the details of this bill is the automatic debt limit increase proposed a few weeks ago. The second installment of the debt ceiling increase is initiated by the President automatically and can only be stopped by a two-thirds vote of Congress. This shifts the Constitutional check on borrowing from Congress to the President and makes it easier to raise the debt ceiling. Despite claims to the contrary, none of the triggers in this bill include withholding the second limit increase.
Credit rating agencies have clearly stated the type of so-called cuts envisioned in this plan will result in our AAA bond rating being downgraded. Ironically then, the only way to avoid our debt being downgraded and the resulting economic problems that stem from that is for this bill to fail.
This plan does not solve our problem. Not even close. I cannot abide the destruction of our economy, therefore I vigorously oppose this deal and I urge my colleagues and the American people to do the same.
Sincerely,
Rand Paul, M.D.
United States Senator
ping
Oh, for a few more Senator Pauls.
Buy hard assets while your money is able to.
He lays it out clearly. After reading that, I don’t see how anyone could vote for this bill.
All we’ll do today is cement out future as the next Greece.
...for those interested. :D
NO THANKS!
(Washington D.C. Establishment) Senator Mitch "go along to get along" McConnell
Repeal the 17th Admt. and bring the Senators home and (rigidly) held accountable the 10th Admt.
The election of 2010 was historic in its scope. Clearly any leader created by it had a tremendous mandate for doing the change for which he was swept into office. In this case the change demanded was simple and direct . It was plastered over and over again in the signs of the one million strong Tea Party protesters who had marched into Washington DC, the District of Corruption. America is heading for bankruptcy and “We the people” want the spending to stop! As one pundit put it cleverly : This election was a restraining order on the Democrat party.
It looked like that election was going to achieve it's goal . Routinely voted up until now the debt ceiling hike was finally denied. If no other deal could be reached the budget would absolutely, undeniably become balanced and balanced soon. The House could have done nothing after the ceiling vote and had the total victory the People who put them there wanted. Fiscal restraint is a like cross to a vampire for the left and it responded quite predictably the way it always does, with lies designed to bring up unfounded fears. The first lie was that of default. There is money coming in every month that is more than enough to pay the interest (for now).
Of course the left and it's willing idiots began to bang the drums loudly. This act dared to strike them at the very core of it's power, the ability to dole out loot! Enormous pressure was brought to bare as a whole host of predators and parasites became endangered of losing feeding space to their depleted prey. If there were no honest victims of the necessary cuts the forces of the left would create them, the elites who provide the left with their cutbacks would stay first in line. The Republicans, however, had the upper hand, a mandate from the People and the power of the purse. The Constitution limits spending to the House alone. If Republicans had simply waited long enough the desperate left would have had no choice but to give in on any compromise bill the Republicans chose to offer. That offer was made: Cut Cap and Balance which the Senate tabled without even any debate.
It is the hero who stands up to the fear and does what is right anyways that is remembered long after he is gone. The name of Achilles is remembered to this day for such boldness. Unlike Achilles the only arrows Boner had to fear was a shower of lies designed to scare the people and Boner himself into backing down. This was not a typical vote, the very future of the greatest nation on Earth , ever , was in his hands. With only a little courage he could have easily saved it. Millions of Americans had paid with their very lives for much less . Seldom in the tides of history can one man do so much for so many. If Boner had stood tall and simply waited out the Democrats , as the necessary cuts began to occur the Democrats would have had no choice but to pass the Cut , Cap and Balance plan. Instead he caved into the fear and blew his chance to become one of the great names in the pantheon of history.
One thing I would have added to the cut cap and balance bill would have been an Obamacare delay. It would push all the timed points of Obamacare up two years and denied funding till then .There is no way a complete repeal would ever have been signed (they lost to much to get it!) but how could they fight the much more palatable choice of letting the 2012 election become a referendum on Obamacare ? Given enough time after the supposed default the pressure would have become unstoppable and even a veto would have been overridden.
Emergency. I have yet to see a good thing passed when they Gov’t says it’s an emergency, we gotta pass it, or else. Tarp, Patriot Act, Debt bill, etc.
...Agreed...
All of this talk about the “debt ceiling” is missing the point.
The problem isn’t that we’re running up against our self-imposed debt ceiling, we’re running up against real limits in how much other people and other nations are willing to lend to us.
Look at the last increase in our self-imposed limit. How much of that increased debt were we actually able to sell? 30%? The rest of it we invented out of whole cloth.
The pending disaster isn’t our defaulting because we fail to raise our debt ceiling, it’s the market deciding that our bonds aren’t worth buying. And we’ve already hit that.
We need to significantly reduce what we borrow - or the world is going to do it for us. The former is going to be very painful - the latter will be far worse.
Actually, that can’t be the destination. We can monetize our debt and make it somewhat our creditors’ problem. Greece must live with whatever stock of Euros are available. That means they hit the wall we can keep pushing back.
Not sure what comparison makes the most sense: if people had a good grasp of world history, I’d suggest reading about the Roman Empire in the West after about 275 AD. The probable result for us is being drowned in barbarians, who may or may not be assimilable. If they are, then we end up like Gaul was: under attack but internally stable, if impoverished. If not, then we end up like Tunisia: overrun, our cities burned and our most stalwart citizens hunted down.
And an end to RAT control of the Senate and WH.
Thank you Rand Paul. It sickens me that people on our side voted for this mess. It’s awful. I really like Gov. Palin, but I think she should have waited to see all that’s in this monster bill before making comments about it.
Although, I watched her interview and it was Greta who first spoke about victory regarding the Tea Party changing the debate about this bill. I think Gov. Palin should not have used the word victory. This bill is crap through and through. It’s as Sen. Rand Paul says.
I love the guy but why can’t he just come out and say the whole concept of the Super Committee is unconstitutional.
I’m not sure if we can monetize it. Much of it is short term or at least medium term debt. That debt cannot be monetized.
By ‘monetize’ I mean issuing new debt (of whatever denomination). Is that incorrect logic?
That’s correct. I was trying to make the point that if the debt is rolled over, it has to be rolled over at the new interest rate and that leads to a geometrically compounding death spiral.
For instance, if we have $1T of debt that was financed for five years at 2.5% then the interest payment was $25B per year which also has to be financed. If we try to roll that over but interest rates went up (as they must if we print more money, if our bond rating goes down or if investment money becomes scarce) to 7.5% then that interest payment goes up to $75B per year. That difference adds to even more financing being required. At some point (economic historians use 120% Debt to GDP ratio as a rule of thumb) one can’t print money fast enough to refinance the old debt. The debt rises faster than simple compounding because the interest rate is no longer constant but starts compounding too.
Did I do a good job of explaining what I meant this time?
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