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Live Thread: Obama responds to GOP plan (9pm ET/6pm PT)
AP/Hannity ^ | July 25, 2011

Posted on 07/25/2011 1:53:10 PM PDT by newzjunkey

Sean Hannity mentioned this prime-time address was announced a few minutes ago.

The AP confirms with a one sentence story at the source link.


TOPICS: Breaking News
KEYWORDS: boehner; debt; debtceiling; debtlimit; default; obama; reid
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To: LUV W; All

Link to Boehner’s speech on YOUTUBE. CSPAN is still too jammed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJl_9pLs6eM


801 posted on 07/25/2011 9:18:04 PM PDT by tcrlaf (You can only lead a lib to the Truth, you can't make it think...)
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To: nascarnation

I agree. Not bad. He basically called 0bama a demagogic drama queen which is spot on.


802 posted on 07/25/2011 9:18:29 PM PDT by TigersEye (No dark sarcasm in the press room ... Hey!, Barry!, leave them bills alone.)
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To: P-Marlowe

CNBC’s John Harwood Blames GOP ‘Crazy Politics’ for Debt Ceiling Stalemate
By: Kyle Drennen | July 25, 2011 | 15:32

Appearing on Saturday’s NBC Today, CNBC’s John Harwood solely blamed House Republicans for the ongoing debt ceiling gridlock: “Speaker Boehner and President Obama, were negotiating in good faith. They wanted a deal....the House Republican caucus...would not accept what President Obama needed to make a deal, and that is real and significant tax hikes as a component.”  

http://m.newsbusters.org/


803 posted on 07/25/2011 9:18:41 PM PDT by kcvl
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BTTT


804 posted on 07/25/2011 9:22:00 PM PDT by DollyCali (Don't tell God how big your storm is... tell your storm how BIG your God is!)
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To: kcvl

Let’s see how they *report* the phones and email being jammed.


805 posted on 07/25/2011 9:23:06 PM PDT by MestaMachine (Guns don't kill people, the obama administration does. (Gunwalker Ping List))
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To: newzjunkey

He doesn’t make the country any happier by screwing up the TV schedule. Do us all a favor and spend a week in your basement, Zero!


806 posted on 07/25/2011 9:25:21 PM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity (Liberalism is a social disease.)
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To: DollyCali

LOVE your tagline. Just had to tell ya! Gotta be one of the alltime best taglines I have ever seen. AMEN!


807 posted on 07/25/2011 9:25:57 PM PDT by MestaMachine (Guns don't kill people, the obama administration does. (Gunwalker Ping List))
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To: Soothesayer9

But of course. He’s said straight-up that he wishes this were China.


808 posted on 07/25/2011 9:27:37 PM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity (Liberalism is a social disease.)
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To: P-Marlowe
This is why Obama is a bald faced liar. He knows it. Geithner knows it. Everyone in his administration knows that issuing checks to social security will not increase the debt and therefore the checks must go out. Their threat to old people is a despicable lie.

Precisely. Social Security payments are ordained by law. And the money to make the payments is there -- no matter how you read the books.

So, why does the President of the United States and the Secretary of the Treasury keep referring to the Social Security payments as "problematic"?

Is it because they are uninformed and, thus, unaware of the law and the express financial arrangements that have been made to insure Social Security payments are made?

Or is it because they are conniving politicians, lying about the arrangements in order to politically threaten elderly people?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, which might it be?

This stunt was beneath Bill Clinton...

809 posted on 07/25/2011 9:31:27 PM PDT by okie01 (THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Ignorance On Parade)
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To: caww
"True...I knew he’d be spouting all the same o talking points....he’ll never be out of campaign mode, that’s all he knows and it isn’t working as Pres. he’s worse than over his head. Besides his lies are catching up with him...he’s having to tell more to cover the ones he told before." Was going to post this earlier and got sidetracked:

He might have told 5 lies in the first 5 minutes.

Want to see a LIE list tomorrow!

Krauthammer called it another campaign speech that was cliche-tested by the pollsters.

Debt 14 trillion now; 25 trillion in 10 years.

And we are going to be lucky to get 1 trillion in cuts. Still blinking over this pictoral.

ONE BILLION

ONE TRILLION

SOURCE

810 posted on 07/25/2011 9:31:46 PM PDT by thouworm (.)
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To: MestaMachine

I fear that you are correct.


811 posted on 07/25/2011 9:32:58 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: MagUSNRET

I have ALWAYS felt that way about Beckel...can’t stand him...while my husband likes him....go figure.


812 posted on 07/25/2011 9:34:53 PM PDT by goodnesswins
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To: tcrlaf

Thanks!


813 posted on 07/25/2011 9:39:43 PM PDT by luvie (obama's balanced approach means washington spends more, you pay more.)
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To: mojo114

Do you think every neodem gets the morning sheet of talking points from the Soros owned groups?!


Uh, YESSSS :(


814 posted on 07/25/2011 9:39:50 PM PDT by Freedom56v2 ("If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait till it is free"--PJ O'rourke)
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To: willk; All

“The president mentioned “economic justice”.I caught that too. Very chilling.”

The term “Economic Justice” can be traced back to Early NAZI “Philosopher/Propagandist” Gottfried Feder, and the book “Das Programm der NSDA”

Some sources credit it to Otto Strasser, as well, the author of the “25 Points” of the Nazi Party


815 posted on 07/25/2011 9:41:51 PM PDT by tcrlaf (You can only lead a lib to the Truth, you can't make it think...)
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To: MHGinTN

I have a lot of the types of things the guys buy here on my patch. I know I am in trouble when the white van pulls into my driveway. At least it would be better than a “Hoarders” intervention.


816 posted on 07/25/2011 9:43:38 PM PDT by Lazlo in PA (Now living in a newly minted Red State.)
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To: tcrlaf

Great speech...thanks again for posting the link!


817 posted on 07/25/2011 9:48:02 PM PDT by luvie (obama's balanced approach means washington spends more, you pay more.)
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To: MestaMachine; tcrlaf

Are you listening to the speech again? on Fox? This was one piece of demagoguery, and I doubt it was written this afternoon.

9:01 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Tonight, I want to talk about the debate we’ve been having in Washington over the national debt — a debate that directly affects the lives of all Americans.

For the last decade, we’ve spent more money than we take in. In the year 2000, the government had a budget surplus. But instead of using it to pay off our debt, the money was spent on trillions of dollars in new tax cuts, while two wars and an expensive prescription drug program were simply added to our nation’s credit card.

As a result, the deficit was on track to top $1 trillion the year I took office. To make matters worse, the recession meant that there was less money coming in, and it required us to spend even more -– on tax cuts for middle-class families to spur the economy; on unemployment insurance; on aid to states so we could prevent more teachers and firefighters and police officers from being laid off. These emergency steps also added to the deficit.

Now, every family knows that a little credit card debt is manageable. But if we stay on the current path, our growing debt could cost us jobs and do serious damage to the economy. More of our tax dollars will go toward paying off the interest on our loans. Businesses will be less likely to open up shop and hire workers in a country that can’t balance its books. Interest rates could climb for everyone who borrows money -– the homeowner with a mortgage, the student with a college loan, the corner store that wants to expand. And we won’t have enough money to make job-creating investments in things like education and infrastructure, or pay for vital programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

Because neither party is blameless for the decisions that led to this problem, both parties have a responsibility to solve it. And over the last several months, that’s what we’ve been trying to do. I won’t bore you with the details of every plan or proposal, but basically, the debate has centered around two different approaches.

The first approach says, let’s live within our means by making serious, historic cuts in government spending. Let’s cut domestic spending to the lowest level it’s been since Dwight Eisenhower was President. Let’s cut defense spending at the Pentagon by hundreds of billions of dollars. Let’s cut out waste and fraud in health care programs like Medicare — and at the same time, let’s make modest adjustments so that Medicare is still there for future generations. Finally, let’s ask the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to give up some of their breaks in the tax code and special deductions.

This balanced approach asks everyone to give a little without requiring anyone to sacrifice too much. It would reduce the deficit by around $4 trillion and put us on a path to pay down our debt. And the cuts wouldn’t happen so abruptly that they’d be a drag on our economy, or prevent us from helping small businesses and middle-class families get back on their feet right now.

This approach is also bipartisan. While many in my own party aren’t happy with the painful cuts it makes, enough will be willing to accept them if the burden is fairly shared. While Republicans might like to see deeper cuts and no revenue at all, there are many in the Senate who have said, “Yes, I’m willing to put politics aside and consider this approach because I care about solving the problem.” And to his credit, this is the kind of approach the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, was working on with me over the last several weeks.

The only reason this balanced approach isn’t on its way to becoming law right now is because a significant number of Republicans in Congress are insisting on a different approach — a cuts-only approach -– an approach that doesn’t ask the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to contribute anything at all. And because nothing is asked of those at the top of the income scale, such an approach would close the deficit only with more severe cuts to programs we all care about –- cuts that place a greater burden on working families.

So the debate right now isn’t about whether we need to make tough choices. Democrats and Republicans agree on the amount of deficit reduction we need. The debate is about how it should be done. Most Americans, regardless of political party, don’t understand how we can ask a senior citizen to pay more for her Medicare before we ask a corporate jet owner or the oil companies to give up tax breaks that other companies don’t get. How can we ask a student to pay more for college before we ask hedge fund managers to stop paying taxes at a lower rate than their secretaries? How can we slash funding for education and clean energy before we ask people like me to give up tax breaks we don’t need and didn’t ask for?

That’s not right. It’s not fair. We all want a government that lives within its means, but there are still things we need to pay for as a country -– things like new roads and bridges; weather satellites and food inspection; services to veterans and medical research.

And keep in mind that under a balanced approach, the 98 percent of Americans who make under $250,000 would see no tax increases at all. None. In fact, I want to extend the payroll tax cut for working families. What we’re talking about under a balanced approach is asking Americans whose incomes have gone up the most over the last decade -– millionaires and billionaires -– to share in the sacrifice everyone else has to make. And I think these patriotic Americans are willing to pitch in. In fact, over the last few decades, they’ve pitched in every time we passed a bipartisan deal to reduce the deficit. The first time a deal was passed, a predecessor of mine made the case for a balanced approach by saying this:

“Would you rather reduce deficits and interest rates by raising revenue from those who are not now paying their fair share, or would you rather accept larger budget deficits, higher interest rates, and higher unemployment? And I think I know your answer.”

Those words were spoken by Ronald Reagan. But today, many Republicans in the House refuse to consider this kind of balanced approach -– an approach that was pursued not only by President Reagan, but by the first President Bush, by President Clinton, by myself, and by many Democrats and Republicans in the United States Senate. So we’re left with a stalemate.

Now, what makes today’s stalemate so dangerous is that it has been tied to something known as the debt ceiling -– a term that most people outside of Washington have probably never heard of before.

Understand –- raising the debt ceiling does not allow Congress to spend more money. It simply gives our country the ability to pay the bills that Congress has already racked up. In the past, raising the debt ceiling was routine. Since the 1950s, Congress has always passed it, and every President has signed it. President Reagan did it 18 times. George W. Bush did it seven times. And we have to do it by next Tuesday, August 2nd, or else we won’t be able to pay all of our bills.

Unfortunately, for the past several weeks, Republican House members have essentially said that the only way they’ll vote to prevent America’s first-ever default is if the rest of us agree to their deep, spending cuts-only approach.

If that happens, and we default, we would not have enough money to pay all of our bills -– bills that include monthly Social Security checks, veterans’ benefits, and the government contracts we’ve signed with thousands of businesses.

For the first time in history, our country’s AAA credit rating would be downgraded, leaving investors around the world to wonder whether the United States is still a good bet. Interest rates would skyrocket on credit cards, on mortgages and on car loans, which amounts to a huge tax hike on the American people. We would risk sparking a deep economic crisis -– this one caused almost entirely by Washington.

So defaulting on our obligations is a reckless and irresponsible outcome to this debate. And Republican leaders say that they agree we must avoid default. But the new approach that Speaker Boehner unveiled today, which would temporarily extend the debt ceiling in exchange for spending cuts, would force us to once again face the threat of default just six months from now. In other words, it doesn’t solve the problem.

First of all, a six-month extension of the debt ceiling might not be enough to avoid a credit downgrade and the higher interest rates that all Americans would have to pay as a result. We know what we have to do to reduce our deficits; there’s no point in putting the economy at risk by kicking the can further down the road.

But there’s an even greater danger to this approach. Based on what we’ve seen these past few weeks, we know what to expect six months from now. The House of Representatives will once again refuse to prevent default unless the rest of us accept their cuts-only approach. Again, they will refuse to ask the wealthiest Americans to give up their tax cuts or deductions. Again, they will demand harsh cuts to programs like Medicare. And once again, the economy will be held captive unless they get their way.

This is no way to run the greatest country on Earth. It’s a dangerous game that we’ve never played before, and we can’t afford to play it now. Not when the jobs and livelihoods of so many families are at stake. We can’t allow the American people to become collateral damage to Washington’s political warfare.

Congress now has one week left to act, and there are still paths forward. The Senate has introduced a plan to avoid default, which makes a down payment on deficit reduction and ensures that we don’t have to go through this again in six months.

I think that’s a much better approach, although serious deficit reduction would still require us to tackle the tough challenges of entitlement and tax reform. Either way, I’ve told leaders of both parties that they must come up with a fair compromise in the next few days that can pass both houses of Congress -– and a compromise that I can sign. I’m confident we can reach this compromise. Despite our disagreements, Republican leaders and I have found common ground before. And I believe that enough members of both parties will ultimately put politics aside and help us make progress.

Now, I realize that a lot of the new members of Congress and I don’t see eye-to-eye on many issues. But we were each elected by some of the same Americans for some of the same reasons. Yes, many want government to start living within its means. And many are fed up with a system in which the deck seems stacked against middle-class Americans in favor of the wealthiest few. But do you know what people are fed up with most of all?

They’re fed up with a town where compromise has become a dirty word. They work all day long, many of them scraping by, just to put food on the table. And when these Americans come home at night, bone-tired, and turn on the news, all they see is the same partisan three-ring circus here in Washington. They see leaders who can’t seem to come together and do what it takes to make life just a little bit better for ordinary Americans. They’re offended by that. And they should be.

The American people may have voted for divided government, but they didn’t vote for a dysfunctional government. So I’m asking you all to make your voice heard. If you want a balanced approach to reducing the deficit, let your member of Congress know. If you believe we can solve this problem through compromise, send that message.

America, after all, has always been a grand experiment in compromise. As a democracy made up of every race and religion, where every belief and point of view is welcomed, we have put to the test time and again the proposition at the heart of our founding: that out of many, we are one. We’ve engaged in fierce and passionate debates about the issues of the day, but from slavery to war, from civil liberties to questions of economic justice, we have tried to live by the words that Jefferson once wrote: “Every man cannot have his way in all things — without this mutual disposition, we are disjointed individuals, but not a society.”

History is scattered with the stories of those who held fast to rigid ideologies and refused to listen to those who disagreed. But those are not the Americans we remember. We remember the Americans who put country above self, and set personal grievances aside for the greater good. We remember the Americans who held this country together during its most difficult hours; who put aside pride and party to form a more perfect union.

That’s who we remember. That’s who we need to be right now. The entire world is watching. So let’s seize this moment to show why the United States of America is still the greatest nation on Earth –- not just because we can still keep our word and meet our obligations, but because we can still come together as one nation.

Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

END
9:16 P.M. EDT


818 posted on 07/25/2011 9:48:03 PM PDT by thouworm (.)
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To: Lazlo in PA

Well, the farm I’m thinking of should have had a hoarder’s intervention fifty years ago. I mean, marble flooring from a long gone Chattanooga Hotel? Brass spittoon from a long gone Atlanta saloon? A building literally falling in atop a T-model Ford? Thousands of board feet of trees sawn up for lumber when they fell on the farm? There are literally chicken houses filled!


819 posted on 07/25/2011 9:49:29 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Some, believing they can't be deceived, it's nigh impossible to convince them when they're deceived.)
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To: thouworm
The lying bastard will get away with this on every network, because the meida has decided to whore itself to this demagoguing liar criminal usurper:

"In the year 2000, the government had a budget surplus. But instead of using it to pay off our debt, the money was spent on trillions of dollars in new tax cuts ..." The filth in OUR White House couldn't wait four sentences into his teleprompter reading before he lied with a sincere face to the dumbed down world.

820 posted on 07/25/2011 9:54:15 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Some, believing they can't be deceived, it's nigh impossible to convince them when they're deceived.)
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