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Republican Senator John McCain ripped conservative Senator Ted Cruz tonight before the final senate vote to approve a budget plan. McCain was on with Greta Van Susteren. McCain has a long history of bashing his fellow Republican. [video]

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Wednesday he was disappointed that fellow Senate Republicans didn’t unite with House Republicans to make the dismantling of ObamaCare part of any deal to end the Washington fiscal crisis, but vowed not to block a Senate proposal to end the stalemate and continue efforts to stop the health care law. “I have nothing to gain from delaying this vote by one or two days,” said Cruz, who last month spoke 21 straight hours on the Senate floor in a filibuster-like attempt to defund ObamaCare.

any suggestions? my idea was to use Dem quotes, who made the quote, where and the date on page one and fun debt facts on the reverse side. put your suggestions and fun facts below...no internet links please-this is for print only . I plan to leave them at places where people sit alone and think- bathrooms, bus stops, etc.

OK, please educate me here-- How can this even be happening, constitutionally, when all fiscal bills MUST ORIGINATE in the House?

WASHINGTON — With economic disaster looming at the stroke of midnight Thursday morning, America was left standing on the precipice after House Republicans suddenly abandoned a vote that would have averted default.

The media, members of Congress, and the President of the United States have gleefully disseminated misinformation about what would happen if we do not raise the debt ceiling by October 17th. The biggest blow these lies encountered was when Moody’s, one of the nation's top credit rating agencies, released a memo on October 7th stating: “We believe the government would continue to pay interest and principal on its debt even in the event that the debt limit is not raised, leaving its creditworthiness intact...The debt limit restricts government expenditures to the amount of its incoming revenues; it does not prohibit...

The troops will get paid on Tuesday, but the check after that could come in the form of an IOU if the nation defaults on its debt obligations, Treasury Department officials said. Default on top of the government shutdown would cancel out the hastily-crafted legislation that brought back furloughed Defense Department civilian employees and allowed for the payment of back pay, death benefits, incentive pays, re-enlistment bonuses, veterans disability benefits and survivor benefits. All would be eliminated if Congress and the White House fail to reach agreement on raising the debt ceiling to avoid default on Oct. 17, Treasury Secretary...

President Barack Obama is solely responsible for the current government shutdown. He used the Republican opposition to his health care plan to manipulate them into a situation he could exploit. He wants to use his media sheep to make the Republicans look bad so he can pursue his goal of gaining dictatorial control over the budget process. He wants the type of power the British monarchy lost centuries ago. I wouldn't trust former President Thomas Jefferson with the type of control over the federal debt that Obama wants. Jefferson was not only a more honorable man than Obama, he may...

Leon Panetta served in Washington with nine presidents, starting with Lyndon Johnson. He has been a member of Congress, Office of Management and Budget director, White House chief of staff, director of the Central Intelligence Agency and secretary of defense — the last two under President Obama. He is a man who knows Washington and knows how to choose his words. So Panetta’s implicit rebuke of the president’s hands-off approach to the budget crisis at a breakfast Monday was striking. Indeed, implicit may be an understatement. Asked repeatedly whether he was being correctly understood as critical of President Obama, Panetta...

WASHINGTON — Several Republican senators said Sunday a Democratic request to increase government spending is hurting chances of a deal to end the 13-day-old shutdown. Leaders of the Democratic-led Senate were dismissive of a proposal Saturday, in part, because it kept in place for too long the automatic spending cuts that went into effect earlier this year. Another round of those decade-long cuts -- dubbed the sequester and approved by Congress and the White House in 2011 -- is expected in January. The Republican complaints came as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., spoke...

Jonathan Bernstein considers what the pointless shutdown fight has done to Ted Cruz’s political prospects: It’s one thing to have a reputation as a loudmouth; it’s quite another to have a reputation as a loser. That’s what the shutdown fight has done to Cruz. Among true believers he’ll be the one who was a leader in a fight that surely would have won if the squishes hadn’t sold them out. But for most party actors, including many sympathetic to Tea Partyism, he’s going to be the guy who ran up the wrong hill. It would have been different if Cruz’s...

Let's just get into this NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that just totally turned Washington upside down yesterday....The poll that shows the Republicans literally getting killed over the government shutdown... Now, keep in mind just two days ago there was an AP poll that showed Obama at 37% and we're still hearing crickets over that poll. People have looked at the internals of the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, and it's 800 people. The spread of Democrat to Republican is 43 32. So 43% in the poll are Democrats, 32% are Republicans. That's an 11 point difference there. That's not representative at...

A combination of budget cuts and escalating compensation costs will reduce the U.S. military’s fighting forces by at least 50 percent by 2021 and threaten national security, according to a report released Friday. The report by the Bipartisan Policy Center also said that the nearly $1 trillion in defense funding reductions over the next decade, known as the sequester, would cripple the readiness and modernization of military forces. The report pushed back against the notion that the sequester cuts have not been as debilitating as originally thought and actually helped to curb the nation’s mounting debt. While the cuts...

Senate Republicans are unhappy with a House GOP plan to raise the debt ceiling for six weeks without funding the federal government — and are coalescing around their own proposal to pair a short-term debt-ceiling increase with a year-long stopgap spending bill. Under their plan, government would be funded for a year at the $967 billion level set by the 2011 Budget Control Act. The package would also include a repeal of ObamaCare's medical-device tax and language to require income verification of people who apply for healthcare subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, say GOP sources familiar with the talks....

.........Ryan’s office said that merely convening a conference or agreeing on a budget would not be enough to reopen the government or raise the debt ceiling, however. “A budget resolution doesn’t have the force of law. So passing a budget resolution wouldn’t reopen the federal government. And it wouldn’t raise the debt ceiling, either. To open the government, pay our bills today, and make sure we can pay our bills tomorrow, we will need to do a lot more,” House Budget spokesman William Allison said. A leading Democrat slammed a budget conference under the threat of a continued shutdown and...

Gov. Jan Brewer said Wednesday that she does not want U.S. House Republicans to succeed in their bid to shut down the Affordable Care Act, saying it would “devastate” the state budget. Brewer said she has never been a fan of “Obamacare.’’ And she pointed out she was among several governors who sued — unsuccessfully — to have it declared unconstitutional. But the governor said once it was clear the law would take effect, she sought ways to have Arizona take advantage of a key provision rewarding states that expand their Medicaid programs. In this state, that is the Arizona...

Given how arcane the debt-limit debate can get, wouldn’t it help if we had responsible reporting? Today’s New York Times story by Jonathan Weisman, “Many in G.O.P. Offer Theory: Default Wouldn’t Be That Bad,” seems to get the definition of “default” wrong. Or at least isn’t understanding what the GOP congressman quoted are saying. Default, in the bond market, means missing a bond payment. If you haven’t read it yet, the article quotes various Republicans who are arguing that the government will indeed be able to meet its debt obligations, for some time at least, even if the debt-limit is...

From the summary of a new Goldman Sachs research note (this is a corrected version, which restates the potential GDP drop in the final point): – The federal government has been partially shut down for 4 days, and it appears likely that the situation could continue for a while longer. As the shutdown continues, the political focus has begun to shift to the next deadline: the Treasury expects to exhaust its borrowing capacity by October 17. We expect the Treasury’s cash balance to be depleted no later than October 31 and possibly quite a bit sooner. – After October 17,...

<p>Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) had what some colleagues called "a heated exchange" and what she described as "a conversation" with President Obama during a White House meeting Wednesday afternoon regarding the District's budget constraints as a result of the partial government shutdown.</p>

Well I must say this one surprises me. Most of the people he interviewed all said Obama or the Democrats were to blame for the government shutdown. Watch:

SNIP Senate Democrats are so determined they are even willing to violate the Constitution by empowering the President to raise the debt ceiling. SNIP They are now seeking to violate the United States Constitution as a means of silencing the voice of their opposition, the Republicans. They are planning to vote soon to authorize the President to assume powers that the Constitution clearly states do not belong to the President, the power to raise the debt ceiling. Article 1 Section 8.2 states, “The Congress shall have power to borrow money on the credit of the United States.” Raising the debt...

Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, a reliable friend of business on Capitol Hill and no one’s idea of a bomb thrower, isn’t buying the apocalyptic warnings that a default on United States government debt would lead to a global economic cataclysm. “We always have enough money to pay our debt service,” said Mr. Burr, who pointed to a stream of tax revenue flowing into the Treasury as he shrugged off fears of a cascading financial crisis. “You’ve had the federal government out of work for close to two weeks; that’s about $24 billion a month. Every month, you...

Between 2009 and 2012, the federal government recorded the largest budget deficits relative to the size of the economy since 1946, causing federal debt to soar. Federal debt held by the public is now about 73 percent of the economy’s annual output, or gross domestic product (GDP). That percentage is higher than at any point in U.S. history except a brief period around World War II, and it is twice the percentage at the end of 2007. Full Text at Link http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44521

Divided government requires bipartisan negotiation By Eric Cantor, Published: October 8 Eric Cantor, a Republican from Virginia, is the House majority leader. For three years, Congress and the White House have been building to this moment. Not the debt limit or Obamacare specifically, but this clarifying moment of Washington dysfunction. President Obama has led us here by continually thwarting the will of Congress and dismissing its role in our constitutional republic. This must end. .... snip ....

In the movie “28 days later”, the rage virus virtually destroys the UK. 28-days-later-empty-street-small But 22 days after Congress returned from its summer recess, we are stuck in a budget and debt ceiling battle royale. And we have people behaving liked crazed zombies from “28 Days Later.” President Obama today defiantly said that he would not negotiate until the Republicans surrender unconditionally. Then he will talk. House Speaker Boehner still believes Obama will negotiate. Congress has had 22 days to work of the budget and debt ceiling. But I don’t see the rage in financial markets that I would have...

OK now this is exactly what I’ve been talking about. Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) not only doesn’t put up with any crap from MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, but schools her on the fact that Obamacare treats big business differently than individuals and families. And he does it well, even throwing Jon Stewart in her face because he asked the questions that they should be asking. He rounds it off at the end telling her “I think the media should start doing it’s job.” BOOM! He even leaves her speechless at one point, but I’m gonna make you watch to see that....

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks briefly extended losses in late afternoon on Tuesday as President Barack Obama spoke about the political stalemate in Washington. The Nasdaq dropped more than 2 percent during his remarks.

Just announced on Fox.

Despite the fact that the average federal employee earns $123,000 (2010 numbers) in salary and benefits while the average private sector employee earns $61,000, my sympathy goes out to those who have found themselves on the sidelines because of Barack Obama and Harry Reid’s shutdown. Despite the fact that they will likely get all of their backpay and perhaps a bit more, it’s always difficult to see people have their finances thrown into chaos. Nonetheless, big government is a cancer on productivity, and while a million federal employees are feeling the pinch of this impasse, tens of millions of Americans...

Leftist geography professor at taxpayer-funded university rails at students over shutdown 9:35 AM 10/07/2013 Eric Owens Education Editor Last week, a geography professor at the public, taxpayer-funded University of Wisconsin-La Crosse used a required assignment in one of her courses to wage a campaign against Republicans, blaming them entirely for the government shutdown over federal spending. Rachel Slocum, an assistant professor in the UW–La Crosse geography and earth sciences department, sent the vitriolic email entitled “government websites” on Oct. 1, reports Media Trackers Wisconsin. Here it is, unexpurgated: hi everyone Some of the data gathering assignment will be impossible to...

The Social Security Administration has begun warning the public it cannot guarantee full benefit payments if the debt ceiling isn’t increased. When asked by the public, the agency is notifying beneficiaries that “Unlike a federal shutdown which has no impact on the payment of Social Security benefits, failure to raise the debt ceiling puts Social Security benefits at risk,” according to a person familiar with the agency directive. The warning was assembled after the agency consulted with the Treasury Department, which would play a lead role in determining how the government handles payments if the borrowing limit isn’t raised soon....

Business owners and furloughed workers suffering due to the government shutdown are asking lawmakers for help. Federally-funded Head Start programs may have to close their doors without much-needed funds. "I feel bad because as I walked up here, I got handed an envelope with a resume of a Head Start worker who told me she's getting closed down in a week," Florida representative Lois Frankel said. Several workers are facing similar fates if the shutdown does not come to an end. "This is the first time that I can remember where we've been mandated to come to work this time...

Creating a CR that would pay our principal and interest on existing debt would effectively pre-empt any action Obama would attempt to take by using the 14th amendment in order to raise the debt ceiling. From what I have read, the 14th amendment may be one method to keep the country from going into default. But, Obama is trying to take it one step further by the misuse of the amendment in order to also raise the ceiling as well. He cannot raise the ceiling using the 14th. If he even gets a chance to press this, it will create...

“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. ... I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.” -- 3/16/2006 Floor speech in the Senate First, we learned that the federal budget deficit could reach nearly half a trillion dollars next year. Eight years after we had a record surplus, we’re now faced with record deficits. This mortgaging of our children’s future is a direct result of the Bush Administration’s dangerously failed fiscal...

Ben S. Bernanke, the world’s most-powerful central banker, says he doesn’t understand gold prices. If his peers had paid attention, they might have stopped expanding reserves that lost $545 billion in value since bullion peaked in 2011. Bernanke, who holds economics degrees from Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and led the Federal Reserve through the biggest financial disaster since the Great Depression, told the Senate Banking Committee in July that “nobody really understands gold prices and I don’t pretend to really understand them either.” Central banks, which own 18 percent of all the gold ever mined, will...

We're going to have a little test that will determine if you are an a-hole. But first, let's have a look at the real Barack Obama. Let us review what kind of person he is. Obama is supposed to be the President of all of the United States and not just the President of his party. He is supposed to watch out for the general welfare of all of us. The Presidential Oath reads: "I, name, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and I will to the best...

Harry Reid: Furlough back pay is ‘paid vacation’ By: Burgess Everett October 5, 2013 12:44 PM EDT By passing a bill providing federal workers back pay while the government is closed, House Republicans are giving them a “paid vacation,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Saturday afternoon. Just a few minutes after the House passed its retroactive pay legislation for federal workers, Reid said the legislation is “uncontroversial” but said it is “cruel” to tell those employees they will get paid when the government reopens while at the same time refusing to open government.

It’s hard to believe, but America hasn’t had a budget since Barack Obama took over the White House and Harry Reid took over the Senate. Why aren’t Republicans using this ongoing travesty as a weapon in their seemingly hopeless congressional fight to defund Obamacare? Every American understands what a budget is. Every family has to have one. Why not the country? It’s a constitutional issue, yet no one cares. Instead of a federal budget, what we’ve been getting under the Reid/Obama regime for five years has been a series of continuing resolutions to fund our bloated government.

Senator Schumer and many of our Democratic colleagues have been conducting a sustained and direct attack on the millions of people who supported and identified with the Tea Party movement. Make no mistake about it they don’t respect the people in the Tea Party movement they demean them in every way and virtually every day in this body. And everybody that is part of that movement, because they believed in America, they thought this US congress has gone lunatic in spending their country into bankruptcy. And passing Obamacare over the overwhelming objection of the American people and they did it...

John Boehner HEATED Debate with George Stephanopoulos WILL NOT PASS CLEAN CR ABC #thisweek. boehner joins abc this to discuss obamacare govt shutdown and negotiations witht he president.

At work today and listening to Conservative Talk Radio, I have heard 4 PSA ads in one half hour. One is using children to give voice to garbage and encourage the public to recycle. That number will work out to 8 PSAs an hour. All promoting the Obama's (Barry and Moochelle) agenda wasting taxpayer monies.

In the midst of a significant American political crisis, it is easy to forget that twenty years ago this week, Russia’s former president Boris Yeltsin shelled Moscow’s White House—where the country’s parliament met at that time—in a considerably more dramatic and probably more consequential executive-legislative conflict than today’s in Washington. Yet Americans would do well to remember the events that led to the October 1993 crisis. Unfortunately, few still appear to recall October 3 and 4. Even The Washington Post seems to have forgotten; despite its current editorial-page editor’s service as Moscow bureau chief at that time, the paper’s timeline...

Never before has an American president threatened and risked the U.S. economy and financial markets the way Barack Obama has in recent days. For his own narrow political ends, Obama and his minions have actually accused the Republican Party of deliberately provoking a Treasury debt default because they don't agree with the president's position on the continuing budget resolution and the debt ceiling. "As reckless as a government shutdown is ... an economic shutdown that results from default would be dramatically worse," Obama said Thursday. Clearly targeting Republicans, he said a default would be "the height of irresponsibility." Then, on...

Someone at the Anchorage, Alaska, branch of the National Weather Service seems to have a very important message regarding the federal government shutdown: “PLEASE PAY US.”

The vision of democracy is that the federal budget—and all activities of the federal government—reflects the values of a majority of Americans. Yet most people feel that the federal budget does not currently reflect their values and that the budgeting process is too complex to understand. It is indeed a complicated process. Many forces shape the federal budget, some of them are forces written into law—like the president’s role in drafting the budget—while other forces stem from the realities of our political system.

Never before has an American president threatened and risked the U.S. economy and financial markets the way Barack Obama has in recent days. For his own narrow political ends, Obama and his minions have actually accused the Republican party of deliberately provoking a Treasury debt default because they don’t agree with the Obama position on the continuing budget resolution and the debt ceiling. “As reckless as a government shutdown is . . . an economic shutdown that results from default would be dramatically worse,” Obama said on Thursday. Clearly targeting Republicans, he said a default would be “the height of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden took an unusual stroll to a sandwich shop down the street from the White House on Friday, a photo opportunity designed to show their solidarity for workers laid off due to a government shutdown. Obama also seized the opportunity to respond to an embarrassing quote from an unnamed White House official that Republicans have used to their advantage in the battle over who is to blame for hundreds of thousands of people going without pay checks.

House Democratic leaders believe they have hit on a new way to potentially force House Republican leaders into allowing a vote on a “clean CR” funding the government without any defunding of Obamacare attached. At last count, as many as two dozen House Republicans appear prepared to vote for a clean CR. With Democrats included, that means a majority of the House of Representatives would vote right now to reopen the government. But the House GOP leadership won’t allow such a vote. Dems have hit on a way to use a “discharge petition,” which forces a House vote if a...

The hard-line stance of Republican House members on the government shutdown is generating increasing anger among senior Republican officials, who say the small bloc of conservatives is undermining the party and helping President Obama just as the American people appeared to be losing confidence in him. “Fighting with the president is one thing,” said Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri. “Fighting with the president and losing is another thing. When you’re in the minority you need to look really hard to find the fights you can win.” And on Wednesday at a private luncheon, several Senate Republicans — Dan Coats...

The debt ceiling should really be renamed the default ceiling. This catastrophic game of chicken cost the U.S. our AAA credit rating and $19 billion when it was last employed in the summer of 2011 by House radicals who pretended their intransigence was a stand for fiscal responsibility. Now the default ceiling is looming again, promising yet another showdown between President Obama and House Republicans. But even Speaker John Boehner realizes that the 50 or so radicals on the far right of his own party—the Bachmann, Broun, Gohmert and King crew—are the greatest impediment to responsible self-government right now. That’s...