Free Republic

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court in Virginia this week delivered a message to Congress, the White House and developers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline: not so fast. Pennsylvania-based Equitrans Midstream’s roughly 300-mile pipeline, envisioned to bring shale gas from the Marcellus and Utica in Appalachia to markets in the Southeast, was fast-tracked as part of the Biden administration’s deal with Congress to suspend the debt limit in June. It’s also supported by Pennsylvania congressmen, including U.S. Reps. John Joyce, R-Blair, and Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters, who joined U.S. Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., to introduce the legislation in May that helped...

A CNN poll revealed that 60 percent of Americans wanted meaningful cuts before a debt limit rise. Another 15 percent wanted the United States to default. Only 25% wanted the debt ceiling raised unconditionally.The concern was that the United States would default on its debt. This was a fearmongering falsehood. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen never produced actual numbers, and she changed the default date several times. The truth of the matter is that the federal revenue cash flow easily would easily have covered all debt payments while temporarily delaying some contact payments.Nonetheless in an overwhelming bipartisan vote (the House --...

Praise the Lord. The Republic is saved. We have a debt ceiling deal. The high-paid help in Washington finally exercised their 1st Amendment right and talked to each other. They hammered out a deal at the last minute. By the grace of God (or perhaps some other celestial from a warmer climate), the extinction-level event became a "near miss" rather than a Deep Impact.Our fearless secretary of the Treasury has been taking "extraordinary measures" to extend the debt ceiling deadline since January of this year. But her ability to sell "the check's in the mail" to the debt collectors was...

You probably could have predicted that Joe Biden would take a victory lap after the debt deal finally went through on Thursday. Indeed, I predicted earlier in the day how it would go when I was talking to a family member — Biden would claim what a great bipartisan achievement he’d shepherded while attacking the Republicans over Social Security and Medicare (saying he saved it for Americans). Then he would take no questions.Damn, if I wasn’t right on the money. Of course, it wasn’t anything special — it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to game out their plan. I’ve just...

An explosive mix of dysfunction, miscommunication, and misunderstandings inside and outside the White House led to the collapse of a historic spending and debt deal that President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner were on the verge of reaching last summer, according to revelations in author Bob Woodward's latest book. The book, "The Price of Politics," on sale Sept. 11, 2012, shows how close the president and the House speaker were to defying Washington odds and establishing a spending framework that included both new revenues and major changes to long-sacred entitlement programs. But at a critical juncture, with an agreement...

What happened? Obama and his advisers have cast the collapse of the talks as a republican failure. Boehner, unable to deliver, stepped away from the deal, simple as that. But interviews with most of the central players in those talks— some ofwhomwere granted anonymity to speak about the secret negotiations — as well as a review of meeting notes, e-mails and the negotiating proposals that changed hands, offer a more complicated picture of the collapse. Obama, nervous about how to defend the emerging agreement to his own democratic base, upped the ante in a way that made it more difficult...

Ok, someone please explain this one to us because we must be a little slow. Wasn't the whole thing with the debt ceiling hike such that no more Congressional melodramas would have to be inflicted upon the population until after Obama [won|lost] the 2012 elections? Because according to the one again exponentially increasing debt balance of the US Treasury (there is another $51 billion in debt/cash coming in next week), the total US treasury balance (subject to the ceiling) is $14.54 trillion (and $14.58 trillion for total), an increase of $20 billion overnight, the Treasury will hit its latest ceiling...

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), a top choice among Republicans for a deficit-cutting super-committee formed last week, on Sunday sought to tamp down expectations for the panel. “I don’t think a grand bargain is going to come out of this,” Mr. Ryan said on Fox News Sunday. He said that any deal for more than the $1.5 trillion in deficit-reduction over 10 years that the committee is charged with finding would depend on whether Democrats were willing to agree to overhaul entitlement programs. “I don’t see any agreement from the other side getting anywhere close to doing...

Religious Left Stews Over Debt Deal Posted By Mark D. Tooley On August 5, 2011 @ 12:27 am The Religious Left is displeased over the debt deal between President Obama and Congress for unforgivably omitting tax increases. They are also peeved over limits, if not outright cuts, to the growth of their beloved welfare, regulatory and entitlement state, which for the Religious Left is the virtual Kingdom of God on Earth. Some religious leftists were more incendiary than others. Emergent Church guru Brian McLaren, champion of religious postmodernism, typically rejects moral absolutes — except when denouncing conservatives. “A zealot faction...

The White House shot back Thursday at Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) claim that Republicans had called the president’s bluff in debt-ceiling negotiations. The administration issued a point-by-point rebuttal to Ryan’s op-ed yesterday in The Wall Street Journal, in which he characterized Republicans as having successfully stared down President Obama in the protracted fight over spending and the nation’s borrowing authority. Maybe the most bombastic claim Ryan made was that Republican leaders called Obama’s bluff by forcing him to accept legislation that included no revenue-raisers and raised the debt limit

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Here's a story from The Politico -- and I'm suspicious. I think every story from The Politico comes from the White House. No, I really do. You may interpret that as old Rush trying to be funny -- and I know, I know; I'm a funny guy -- but I'm saying this with all sincerity. I think most everything on the Politico comes from the White House. I think it's a steno pool. "The debt ceiling..." Well, here's the headline: "Debt Deal Could Endanger the Health Care Law," and, by the way, folks, I have a whole...

VAN SUSTEREN: Donald, the debt ceiling -- many Americans have heard back and forth between the two political parties that if it hadn't gotten raised, there'd be something catastrophic. Would it have been catastrophic to the American people? TRUMP: I don't think so. I think the Republicans tried hard, but they didn't make a good deal. They did very little cutting, but the worst thing of all -- and they could have had, and it was the one thing Obama wanted -- he wanted to bring it past the election because if they had this come due again before the...

Military pay raises, funding for veterans health care and the Post-9/11 GI Bill could be sacrificed to new fiscal realities as the result of the deal signed by President Obama on Tuesday to raise the federal debt ceiling, according to the Military Officers Association and veterans groups. The law requires the federal budget be cut $2.1 trillion over 10 years. The White House said it plans to cut $350 billion from the Defense Department budget (excluding war funding) over the next decade. Retired Air Force Col. Michael Hayden, the association's deputy director for government relations, said this means "everything is...

The debt deal that passed Congress yesterday fails to address the fiscal crisis. How does it fall short? No Balance: The plan fails to achieve a balanced budget, or even to lay out balance as a meaningful goal. Without this goal, deficit spending will continue and the American people will fail to coalesce behind the effort. Too Small: As advertised, the spending cuts in this package are less than one-third of the total projected deficit over the next ten years, and the deficits ten years from now will still be measured in the hundreds of billions. Revenues: The plan opens...

Free money creation to bail out America’s elite financial speculators, but not for Social Security or Medicare Only the “Crazies” Get the Bank Giveaway Right*snip* What has made the post-2008 crash most remarkable is not merely the delusion that the way to get rich is by debt leverage (unless you are a banker, that is). Most unique is the crash’s aftermath. This time around the bad debts have not been wiped off the books. There have indeed been the usual bankruptcies – but the bad lenders and speculators are being saved from loss by the government intervening to issue Treasury...

Leadership. Congressional leaders were forced to ask President Wonderful and his aides to leave the White House meeting so that they could get something done. The Hill reported: GOP aides and lawmakers, speaking on background, portrayed Boehner as the calm negotiator who repeatedly exasperated President Obama. Boehner last month asked the networks to televise his response to Obama’s address to the nation, a request which infuriated the White House, Republican sources said. On July 23, they claim, the White House called Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), telling her not to participate on a call with Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry...

Graduate students are going to take a big financial hit because of the debt deal, according to Michael Scherer's debt debate breakdown at Time. They currently aren't charged any interest on student loans until 6 months after graduation, but the debt deal cuts that federal subsidy. The costs for grad students will increase by more than $18 billion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The change will take effect on loans made after July 1, 2012. Students in degree programs that take lengthy periods to complete (such as medicine, law and any doctoral programs) will be...

I’ve been seeing and hearing too many Tea Party members claiming that the debt deal is a win for the Tea Party. Be careful, the MSM is where this claim began and they are using it because they foresee a need to place blame in the not too distant future. The claim that the Tea Party won the debt debate is a talking point from the progressives. If you are claiming victory now, then you are also taking ownership of the future blame.

After weeks of intense wrangling between President Barack Obama and lawmakers on Capitol Hill, the Senate passed the debt ceiling bill Tuesday with a vote of 74-26. Here is a look at which lawmakers voted for or against the debt plan. Of the 74 lawmakers who voted in support of the bill in U.S. Senate, 28 of them are Republicans, 45 are Democrats and one Independent was included in the list: Akaka (D-HI), Alexander (R-TN), Barrasso (R-WY), Baucus (D-MT), Begich (D-AK), Bennet (D-CO), Bingaman (D-NM), Blumenthal (D-CT), Blunt (R-MO), Boozman (R-AR), Boxer (D-CA), Brown (D-OH), Brown (R-MA) Burr (R-NC), Cantwell...

President Obama wanted three things from the debt-ceiling fight: trillions in new borrowing authority, status quo on spending and no more drama before his shot at re-election. He got everything. [Snip] GOP leaders claim they cut the best deal possible in a divided government. [Snip] That’s an exaggeration. The bill would cut a minuscule $7 billion in 2012 and $3 billion total in 2013 - the only enforceable years. Meanwhile, the nation will continue to borrow at a rate of $100 billion a month. The second tranche of “cuts” will be left up to a new bipartisan committee tasked with...