Replies

“Generally, dereliction of duty refers to failure through negligence or obstinacy to perform one’s legal or moral duty to a reasonable expectation. In other words, it means willful or negligent failure to perform assigned duties or performing them in a culpably inefficient manner. Dereliction of duty is a specific offense in military law. “ (Quote from USLegal.com).

Dereliction of duty is an Impeachable Offense, as stipulated in the US Constitution. Dereliction of duty is also a US Military offense subject to a Courts Martial.

Will our sorry Congressional RINOs do their usual kid gloves, “boys will be boys” approach to Obama’s numerous violations of the US Constitution, or will they FINALLY draw up The Articles of Impeachment for B. Hussein Obama?

http://michellemalkin.com/2013/10/08/death-benefits-outrage-camp-bastion-widow-has-challenge-for-congress/

Send to everyone.

Is there any MUSLIM prayer services continuing????

Great list. But missing is Harry Reid's contempt for poor kids dying of cancer.

Good job.
Thanks.

Thank you for your efforts.

America!

bkmk

The Wall Street Journal editorial titled "Kevin Hassett and Abby McCloskey: Obama Rewrites Debt-Limit History" mentioned above has serious flaws. It states:

Congressional Republicans who want legislative conditions in exchange for a debt-limit increase are following a strategy that has been pursued by both parties the majority of the time. Of the 53 increases in the debt limit, 26 were "clean"—that is, stand-alone, no strings-attached statutes. The remaining debt-limit increases were part of an omnibus package of other legislative bills or a continuing resolution. Other times, the limit was paired with reforms, only some of which were related to the budget.

I've posted an analysis of this at this link. Following is the key portion and conclusion:

So let's look at the Congressional Research Service study from which this statistic comes. It appears to have come from a study titled "Votes on Measures to Adjust the Statutory Debt Limit, 1978 to Present, released February 15, 2013. In its Summary, the study does state the following:

Since 1978, the statutory federal debt limit has been changed 53 times by Congress through the enactment of legislation adjusting the federal debt limit, either as stand-alone legislation or as part of legislation dealing with other matters.

The study contains three tables. Table 1 lists information on all 53 debt limit measures since 1978. Table 2 identifies 26 stand-alone measures from these 53. Table 3 then lists the other 27 bills considered as other than stand-alone measures and provides brief background information on the nature of each measure and by what means it was considered. The following table gives some of the key items from Table 1 for the 27 non-stand-alone measures:

               OTHER THAN STAND-ALONE DEBT LIMIT MEASURES

                       House Vote       Senate Vote     Public Law    Debt
                    ----------------  ----------------     Date of   Limit
Year  Bill Number   Tally     Margin  Tally     Margin   Enactment ($ bil)
----  ------------  --------  ------  --------  ------  ----------  ------
1979  H.R. 2534     209-165       44  62-33         29    4/2/1979     830*
      H.R. 5369     219-198       21  49-29         20   9/29/1979     879*
1980  H.R. 7428     335-34       301  68-10         58    6/6/1980    n.c.
1983  H.R. 2990     Voice Vote        51-41         10   5/26/1983    1389*
1984  H.R. 5692     211-198       13  Voice Vote         5/25/1984    1520*
1985  H.R. 3721     300-121      179  Voice Vote        11/14/1985  1903.8
      H.J.Res. 372  271-154      117  61-31         30  12/12/1985  2078.7
1986  H.R. 5300     305-70       235  61-25         36  10/21/1986    2300
1987  H.J.Res. 324  230-176       54  64-34         30   9/29/1987    2800*
1989  H.R. 3024     231-185       46  Voice Vote          8/7/1989    2870*
      H.J.Res. 280  269-99       170  Voice Vote         11/8/1989  3122.7
1990  H.J.Res. 666  362-3        359  Voice Vote         10/9/1990    n.c.
      H.J.Res. 677  379-37       342  Voice Vote        10/19/1990    n.c.
      H.J.Res. 681  380-45       335  Unanimous Consent 10/25/1990    n.c.
      H.J.Res. 687  283-49       234  Voice Vote        10/28/1990    3230
      H.R. 5835     228-200       28  54-45          9   11/5/1990    4145*
1993  H.R. 2264     218-216        2  51-50          1   8/10/1993    4900*
1996  H.R. 2924     396-0        396  Unanimous Consent   2/8/1996
      H.R. 3021     362-51       311  Voice Vote         3/12/1996
      H.R. 3136     328-91       237  Unanimous Consent  3/29/1996    5500
1997  H.R. 2015     346-85       261  85-15         70    8/5/1997    5950
2008  H.R. 3221     272-152      120  72-13         59   7/30/2008   10615
      H.R. 1424     263-171       92  74-25         49   10/3/2008   11315*
2009  H.R. 1        246-183-1     63  60-38         22   2/17/2009   12104*
2010  H.J.Res. 45   233-187       46  60-39         21   2/12/2010   14294*
2011  S. 365        269-161      108  74-26         48    8/2/2011   16394
2013  H.R. 325      285-144      141  64-34         30    2/4/2013

* measures with a final vote margin of less than 100 in the House or less
  than 30 in the Senate
Note: n.c. = no change
Source: "Votes on Measures to Adjust the Statutory Debt Limit, 1978 to Present

A number of interesting facts are evident from this table. First of all, it doesn't appear that all of these 27 cases are independent. For example, there are 5 cases in less than a month, from 10/9/1990 through 11/5/1990. The first 3 of these cases involve no raise in the debt limit. Perhaps more interesting, the majority of these votes do not appear to be heavily contentious. Only 11 of the 27 measures resulted in a final vote margin of less than 100 in the House or less than 30 in the Senate.

The following table contains notes from Table 3 on the 27 non-stand-alone measures:

               OTHER THAN STAND-ALONE DEBT LIMIT MEASURES

Year  Notes on the Measure
----  --------------------
1979  required Congress & President present balanced budgets for 81 and 82
      made increase in debt limit part of budget process (in the House)
1980  included a repeal of the Presidentially imposed oil import fee
1983  included making the whole debt limit permanent
1984  included some miscellaneous admin authority to Treasury Secretary
1985  extended for a month some expiring acts, including a cigarette tax
      required report on legislation for alternative minimum corporate tax
1986  required the restoration of lost interest to certain trust funds
1987  used as legislative vehicle for the Balanced Budget ... Act of 1987
1989  included change in method of accounting for federal debt instruments
      repealed nondiscrimination rules that deal w/ employee benefit plans
1990  change in Debt Limit included in a continuing appropriations measure
      change in Debt Limit included in a continuing resolution
      change in Debt Limit included in a continuing resolution
      change in Debt Limit included in a continuing resolution
      change in Debt Limit included in Omnibus Budget Recon. Act of 1990
1993  change in Debt Limit included in Omnibus Budget Recon. Act of 1993
1996  temporarily exempted from limit monthly insurance benefits to SSA
      temporarily exempted from limit monthly insurance benefits to SSA
      included an increase in the debt limit in Title III
1997  included a debt limit increase in Title V, Subtitle G
2008  included an increase to the debt limit
      included an increase to the debt limit
2009  included an increase to the debt limit
2010  included provisions for “Statutory PAYGO” and “wasteful spending”
2011  included provisions aimed at deficit reduction
2013  required hold on Member salary if no budget resolution by April 15

Source: "Votes on Measures to Adjust the Statutory Debt Limit, 1978 to Present

These are of course very abbreviated notes on the measures. Still, they suggest that most of the additional items in the measure were not very major. I saw no mention of the issues that Wallace mentioned above (campaign finance reform, school prayer and busing and a nuclear freeze). Also, it appears that some of the debt limit increases may have been included with other bills (such as continuing resolutions) simply for convenience. At the very least, more study would be required for these cases. Simply treating all non-stand-alone measures the same does not make sense. Hence, it may be correct that, as Secretary Lew suggested above, "the question of threatening to cause a default of the United States, not until 2011 did it become a positive agenda".

On Friday, Warren Buffett was quoted as saying the following about the debt ceiling:

It ought to be banned as a weapon. It should be like nuclear bombs, I mean, basically too horrible to use.”

In fact, according to this article, only only one democratic country, besides America, has a debt ceiling. That country is Denmark but the article states that they "set the ceiling high enough so that it never slows the process of borrowing money and they can avoid political conflicts like the one currently gripping the U.S.". The article continues:

Barry Bosworth, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, said the U.S. debt ceiling “has no logical basis.”

Congress, through budget and appropriations bills, has sole authority to decide how much the government will spend, so he said “it makes no sense to have a secondary rule to then object to the deficit that emerges from the other decisions.”

At the very least, we could legislate that the debt ceiling must always be addressed in a stand-alone measure. Meanwhile, those who distort history to defend such threats, as do the authors of the Journal editorial, should be challenged.

Note: On a related issue, this article explains why government shutdowns only seem to occur in America.