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President Obama is taking a completely different tack in this year’s budget fight than in 2011, when talks with congressional leaders ended with him at a low point in his presidency. Administration officials and White House allies argue Obama learned from his mistakes in that round, and that this underscores his decision to not negotiate with Republicans over raising the debt ceiling and ending the government shutdown. “Nope, nope, nope,” one senior administration official said when asked if Obama would bend on the latest round of debt ceiling negotiations. “He’s not budging. Not this time.” “We took John Boehner at...

(Mark Levin has laid out last night what Obama’s plans are should the Republicans hold the line and refuse to increase the debt ceiling. We have been here before, as I found it important to write about two years ago when Obama and the media were considering the unconstitutional and impeachable option of using the 14th Amendment to bypass Congress on the debt ceiling.I felt compelled to partially transcribe Mark’s commentary from last night’s show, because it is very important that we get this information to our Republican members of Congress. I have linked to the relevant articles and podcast...

As anyone can see who reads the most recent long-term budget outlook—published last month by the Congressional Budget Office, and almost entirely ignored by the media—the question is not if the United States will default but when and on which of its rapidly spiraling liabilities. True, the federal deficit has fallen to about 4% of GDP this year from its 10% peak in 2009. The bad news is that, even as discretionary expenditure has been slashed, spending on entitlements has continued to rise—and will rise inexorably in the coming years, driving the deficit back up above 6% by 2038. A...

(I'm paraphrasing, so I highly recommend listening to the podcast, beginning about half-way through.) In his 10/3/13 broadcast, Mark warns that, based upon Obama's inflammatory rhetoric regarding the debt ceiling, and the supposedly impending "default" on our debt, that Obama plans on acting unilaterally to over-spend the debt limit. Mark correlates a couple of facts. The first is that Obama is harping on "default." Most pundits are reading this as a means of "talking down" the economy, in order to blame the "Republican shutdown" for a weakening economy. But Mark believes that Obama is laying the groundwork for overspending the...

I have wondered for quite some time why Obama, Reid and Pelosi have been screaming so loudly about not prioritizing and "causing" a default. After all, it's not a default if you cannot pay for every program that was appropriated. You're just not keeping your political promises, which may***** off voters but isn't a default. A default is exactly one thing -- the non-payment of coupon or principal when it comes due. Now I understand the reason -- the 14th Amendment doesn't empower The President to raise the debt ceiling on his own. No, the 14th Amendment requires him to...

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...

A House-passed bill to ensure the military gets paid under any government shutdown was approved without dissent in the Senate on Monday — a rare bipartisan agreement as Congress stumbled toward midnight when the fiscal year ends and current appropriations expire. The measure, now on its way to President Barack Obama’s desk, would also ensure continued pay for civilian employees of the Defense Department and Pentagon contractors whom Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel determines “are providing support to members of the Armed Forces.” Put forward by House Republicans, the bill is considered good politics for the GOP, since analysts suggest the...

The House passed a continuing resolution without Obamacare funding, the Senate put Obamacare back in the continuing resolution, and now the ball in the House’s court with only days to go …. to government shutdown! The Republican-led U.S. House voted to attach a one-year delay of Obamacare to a must-pass spending bill, dramatically raising the likelihood of a partial government shutdown Oct. 1. So, it appears that Senate Democrats will shut down the Federal government, at least for a few days, if they don’t go along with Boehner’s demands of … delaying Obamacare for 1 year and getting rid of...

Headline says it all

In a speech at the Business Roundtable headquarters in Washington, D.C., Obama dismissed concerns about raising the debt ceiling by noting that it'd been done so many times in the past. "Now, this debt ceiling -- I just want to remind people in case you haven't been keeping up -- raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy. All it does is it says you got to pay the bills that you've already racked up, Congress. It's a basic function of making sure that the...

Raising the debt ceiling doesn't increase the nation's debt, Pres. Obama declared in a speech today. In a speech at the Business Roundtable headquarters in Washington, D.C., Obama dismissed concerns about raising the debt ceiling by noting that it'd been done so many times in the past: "Now, this debt ceiling -- I just want to remind people in case you haven't been keeping up -- raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy. All it does is it says you got to pay the...

Raising the debt ceiling doesn't increase the nation's debt, Pres. Obama declared in a speech today... Obama dismissed concerns about raising the debt ceiling by noting that it'd been done so many times in the past: ... Obama went on to suggest that "the average person" mistakenly thinks that raising the debt ceiling means the U.S. is racking up more debt:

House Republicans surprised Americans by punting on 1st down and agreeing to let the Administration borrow until May 19th. Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) — House Republicans’ bill to temporarily suspend limit on federal borrowing until mid-May may allow Treasury to borrow for months after that, Bloomberg BNA reports, citing analysts. • Bill’s language “would seem to allow the Treasury to replenish all the trust fund balances that have depleted so far this month, which means that all of its ‘extraordinary’ debt ceiling accounting adjustments would reset once this initial legislation was approved,” Wrightson ICAP Chief Economist Lou Crandall said in e-mail...

“Raising the debt ceiling does not authorize more spending. It simply allows the country to pay for spending that Congress has already committed to.” ~ POTUS :: :: By: Larry Walker II ::Wow, that was enlightening. I really had no idea. Now I get it. He must be talking about last year, when Congress voted unanimously in favor of the president’s budget, then walked it over to the Senate, which also unanimously approved. That’s when Congress committed to another trillion dollars of deficit spending, right? Too bad that never happened. In reality, the president’s budget failed to attain a...

Here's audio of then-senator Barack Obama calling a vote to raise the debt ceiling "a sad state of affairs": The one time the debt ceiling was up for a vote when Obama was in the Senate, he voted against it.

Pres. Obama Dodges a question from Major Garrett of CBS news on his own voting against raising the debt ceiling when he was a Senator (January 14, 2013).

How bad is the USA’s debt problem (as we approach the dreaded debt ceiling debate)? Federal government debt held by the public surged starting in Q2 2008. But since Q2 2008, government debt held by the public surged 113%. But real GDP growth over 4+ years was a measly 2.6%. That’s not annual real GDP growth, but real GDP growth over 4+ years! Most people don’t talk about government debt held by the public. Instead, they focus on Total Public Debt, the one that stands at $16,432,692,129,510.84 While not as dramatic as Federal debt held by the public, it is...

President Obama intends to take a confrontational approach with Republicans in future economic battles by using the same campaign-style events the White House saw as effective in the “fiscal-cliff” fight. Many in Obama’s party believe that he got the upper hand in the recent deal to avoid the mixture of across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts, and that the aggressive approach helped build his public case. Sources close to Obama say he can fend off Republicans for several reasons: his successful reelection; polling suggesting public support for many of his positions; and division among Republicans on Capitol Hill. Jen Psaki,...

Democratic Illinois Rep. Danny K. Davis told The Daily Caller that President Obama should have the power to raise the nation’s debt ceiling without congressional approval, citing the example of President Abraham Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation as a good use of presidential authority. “Sometimes when we’ve gotten great answers is when presidents have had enough authority to take some actions,” Davis told TheDC on Capitol Hill Friday. “I mean, remember that we just celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, and if Abraham Lincoln had not had the power, authority and the will to make that decision, we...

President Obama hailed the sweeping bipartisan tax deal Tuesday night as "one step in a broader effort" to strengthen the nation's economy, saying it prevented a middle-class tax hike that could have sent the economy back into recession. The president, taking a victory lap after fulfilling a campaign promise to raise taxes on the wealthy, spoke less than an hour after the House approved the tax deal, 257-167, in a rare New Year's Day vote. “A simple premise of my campaign for president was to change the tax code that was too skewed toward the wealthy at the expense of...