Free Republic

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.

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...

While the media and Democrats scream about the Titanic sinking of government default, there is scant evidence in financial markets of it. Here are two curves as of 1pm EST, the US Treasury yield curve and the US credit default swaps curve. The Treasury curve is upward sloping while the CDS curve is downward sloping. Actually, the CDS curve has an inverted hump. ustcdes1015E It does look like a bomb crater rather than a typical CDS curve. If we look at 1 month ago, we see an upward sloping CDS curve. 1moyccds And if we compare the current curves compared...

On the House floor on Monday, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) argued that President Barack Obama’s activities during the government shutdown over Obamacare are a sign to him that Obama would act nefariously to attack the full faith and credit of the United States of America by taking the country into a default in a debt ceiling crisis if the president does not get everything he wants in negotiations. “Given the ruthless and vindictive way the shutdown has been handled, I now believe that this president would willfully act to destroy the full faith and credit of the United States unless...

The Donald weighs in

I don't understand how not increasing the debt ceiling is going to cause a default. Defaults come from not paying debt. Besides, borrowing money to pay money owed is not a good budget plan. Can't the GOP pass a bill releasing the funds to pay our debt while holding back the debt ceiling increase .... wouldn't that amount to a spending cuts and can't we capitalize on that?

According to The Federal Reserve G.19 Report for August, consumer debt topped $3 trillion! Of course, Federal government debt has topped $16 trillion, over 5 times the amount of consumer debt. Note that pickup in Federal debt growth compared to consumer debt growth after Q2 2008 (red box). feddebtconsumer Here is a chart of revolving consumer credit versus non-revolving credit. Non-revolving debt (e.g., auto loans) have effectively replaced revolving debt. revnonrev Business loans have finally grown past the prior peak in 2008. frbusloasn On the government side, current expenditures (purple line) continue to grow, but the rate of growth flattened...

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...