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| The Debt Ceiling agreement is a BLOW OUT DEAL . and AMERICAN TAXPAYERS GET NOTHING ! |
THE DEBT CEILING BLOWOUT .Borrowing more and taxing more & YOU guessed it sending more to the Military Industrial Complex . Every single member of the House depends on the passing of the Debt Ceiling for their own stock portfolios. They're only hurting themselves by not passing. This is all saber rattling. (1)>>Progressives Condemn Biden-GOP Debt Ceiling Deal as 'Cruel and Shortsighted' — "For no real reason at all, hungry people are set to lose food while tax cheats get a free pass." (1.2)>>This whole debt ceiling thing is a fake fiasco , you have to (1.3)>>think how much money billions was spent on UKR in the last two years that the jokers in charge of the United States would panic up to the last minute to resolve the the crisis , let say 100 days before . Can someone explain to me the point of having “debt ceilings” if they’re always getting increased anyway?It sounds like having a limit for how much you can drink at a bar then negotiating (with yourself?) to increase that limit every time you pass it. And what do we get? Nothing. We had the likes of (2)>>Janet Yellen warning us that Social Security payments were to be on hold if the issue was not solved by June 5h. STILL has to PASS CONGRESS . The hostage of increasing the ceiling debt , will be released for two years. If Biden wins in 2024, and the GOP holds the house, this will happen again. And again. And again. Fantastic. We are down to zero , more spending . It’s like Biden WANTS to lose to Trump/DeSantis. God, it’s like choosing between getting tortured to death by a serial killer economy or repeatedly raped by a sadist economy. However, the agreement risks angering both Democratic and Republican sides with the concessions made to compromise. Negotiators agreed to some Republican demands for increased work requirements for recipients of food stamps that had sparked an uproar from House Democrats as a nonstarter. Domestic program funding freez at 2023 levels is still bad I agree, but the alternative was directly cutting them, which (3)>>Biden prevented.SNAP benefits work requirements for adults without dependents already existed for those 18-49, it got expanded up to 54 year olds. Still bad, but this isn’t work requirements for EVERY single person on SNAP. The deal also includes waived work requirements for veterans and homeless Americans to access SNAP which is objectively good.Defense spending sucks I agree.Even those that want permitting reform mostly say it’s limited as hell. But the deal also includes increased and streamlined process for transmission lines, which is objectively good to help put more clean energy power into the grid which is needed for US to decarbonize.McCarthy himself said last that apparently out of the $80B in new spending the IRA provided for the agency, he negotiated… $1.9B of the $80 getting cut. Not even $10B like previous negotiations indicated. This is not ideal whatsoever but like, this is near as awful as it’s being made out to be. (4)>>This deal is trash & a huge middle finger from Biden to the poor.This deal is on top of 90 million having their food stamps cut this spring & 15 million losing Medicaid access this year.All as we endure a cost of living crisis that Biden ignores as he brags about the economy. One of these days it's possible we will see it. Politics in Washington is a big machine, and if we get fractured enough with people not wedded to stability, it's possible.Debt ceiling is a sound bite to an over stimulated and desensitized population. They sensationalize it and then they solve it, without ever giving any mention to why the govt can’t balance a fucking checkbook. (5)>>It is clear that the debt ceiling has been raised numerous times over the past few decades. There used to be a rule in Congress called the Gephardt rule that basically built in a debt ceiling increase every time a budget was passed, based on the assumption that, if you wanted to spend X billion dollars this year for whatever, you were then willing to borrow up to X billion dollars to pay for it. The rule was repealed in the mid-90s, turning the debt ceiling back into a separate Congressional issue. In practice, the debt ceiling is just there as a cudgel used to gain political points. One party is almost entirely responsible for both the massive debt and the use of the "debt ceiling" as a political tool. They create the problem then pretend that it needs to be fixed by cutting spending, when the real problem is failure to tax at the level needed for the spending. It isn't as though the amounts being spent is unexpected, a surprise to anyone. And it keeps working because lots of Americans either do not see or do not care. Democrats could have repealed the law when they had a supermajority during Obama’s first term. The problem is that the Republican and Democratic parties are trying to operate a government that the Constitution was never intended to allow. The debt ceiling is the attempt to end around Congress' responsibility to approve all debts. Rather than amend the document, they instead do this dumb shit. Instead, they squandered the opportunity. This shows that the government is consistently spending more money than it takes in, and borrowing to make up the difference. This is not sustainable in the long term, and will eventually lead to an economic crisis. Like nukes, you don't want this stuff to even be in the conversation or certainly as a negotiating tactic, it's totally irresponsible and shows you the kind of leaders we have (they don't work for you and I).
NOTES AND COMMENTS :
(1)>>Progressives Condemn Biden-GOP Debt Ceiling Deal . If you want an honest answer: (1) separation of power (I’m not talking about an independent judiciary. The House, Senate, and WH are equal branches of the federal government, unlike the UK system for example, in which their House of Commons, comparable to our House of Representatives, is sovereign), (2) the need to pass an annual budget every year. Let’s take a step back and look at how budget negotiations work when different parties hold the House vs. WH (and Senate just adds yet another complexity/roadblock into this problem). Suppose the House wants to cut spending, and the WH wants to spend more. No budget is passed in October. The federal government shuts down! This had happened at least twice when Obama was president. So federal government shutdown is one mechanism to force a budget deal between different parties holding various branches of the federal government. Debt ceiling is just another tool/mechanism for budget negotiations. Many people say it’s a bad tool and should be abolished, because it’s too dangerous (if a default actually happens). I think it’s a useful tool, because threatening to default is, in my opinion, better and less disruptive than an actual federal government shutdown. If a mere threat of shutdown can do the job (pass a budget) I think it’s better and safer than threatening to default. But a real shutdown? It’s worse. (1.2)>>This whole debt ceiling thing is a fake fiasco .There are so many people who are deeply out of touch with the political realities.Biden isn’t a progressive Saint being stymied by a powers beyond his control, but the notion that he could invoke the 14th Amendment, fight it up the courts and have the global economy remain stable is absurd. Then the SCOTUS would almost assuredly strike it down.If we want to be pissed at Dems, let’s be pissed at them (Manchin and Sinema) not fixing the debt ceiling during the lame duck. But let’s be honest, the budget fight in the fall would have gotten us almost exactly this same “deal.” Can’t negotiate when one side doesn’t care at all of the market and economy crash and the people at the bottom get crushed.This is a voter problem pure and simple. Well, not pure and simple, the districts are rigged and the Senate is fucked and the SCOTUS is rigged, and the electoral college is a joke, but if voters actually cared enough to show up and hold politicians accountable, we wouldn’t be in this mess.(1.3)>>think how much money billions was spent on UKR in the last two years that the jokers in charge of the United States would panic. In all the media coverage, no explanation is given as to the real causes of the soaring national debt or why it is the working class that must pay the price.What are the real sources of the increase in the national debt to its current $31.4 trillion? The United States spent between $4 trillion and $6 trillion on the 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a Harvard analysis. Last year alone, the Biden administration allocated $113 billion in arms to Ukraine and this year proposed a record $1 trillion Pentagon budget. Last week at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, before returning to the U.S. and holding budget talks with McCarthy, Biden announced an additional $375 billion in arms for the right-wing puppet regime in Kiev. Behind the mutual recriminations between the two capitalist parties and the stage-managed crisis negotiations, there is a basic agreement: All of the social gains made by the working class in the course of more than a century of struggle must be wiped out to pay for the drive by the American ruling class to remove, by force of arms, Russia and China as obstacles to U.S. hegemony, even if it means triggering a nuclear war. (2)>>Janet Yellen warning. Ah yes the proverbial “Constitutional Crisis” of the US governmental system. 🙄Now , but i thought she said the economy was strong. Yellen is an actor and everything she does is part of a staged performance. Yellen collects 10x her salary from Citadel - paid 'speaking fees'. Yellen is literally a mouthpiece for citadel. Everything she does is driven by lies and deceit. This Week” on Sunday U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that negotiations in regards to raising or suspending the debt ceiling should not take place “with a gun to the head of the American people”. During her interview, she issued a dire warning that a failure by Congress to act on the debt ceiling would trigger a “constitutional crisis” that would also call into question the federal government’s creditworthiness.She expressed the seriousness of the financial market's consequences if the debt ceiling is not raised by early June, when she said that, “the federal government could run short of cash to pay bills”. The Treasury Secretary adamantly expressed that “it’s Congress’s job to do it, if they failed to do it, we will have an economic and financial catastrophe that will be of our own making”.Our legislature is far more broken and downright insane than it was the last time there was a fight over the debt ceiling. I wouldn’t put it past certain cretins in office to intentionally damage the global economy to gain personal power.Will the debt ceiling probably be raised like it was every time before? Yeah probably. But because the small chance they do otherwise has such serious consequences, it should be taken seriously.(3)>>Biden prevented.SNAP benefits work requirements . This is a point that gets missed so much. Even if you just hate the poor and want them dead and think they’re all just a bunch of useless deadbeats, that program benefits a lot more than just the poor. That’s not very “but the economy” of them. The deal targets recipients of the Supplementary Nutrition Program, or SNAP, between the ages of 50 and 54, adding new requirements that they work 20 hours a week to receive the aid. The deal reached by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) over the weekend would push age requirements from able-bodied adults beginning at 18 years old and under 50 years old to able-bodied adults under 54 years old. The time frame of working at least 20 hours a week, or 80 hours a month, continues to apply. Otherwise, recipients will receive benefits for only three months every three years.SNAP benefits are ALREADY completely SCREWED . Food bank lines are hours and hours long and they’re turning people away. The benefits were literally just cut by a ton.Access to food is a human right. I don’t care what the reason is including just being a mooch in society as some people like to believe. People deserve to eat. I’d rather pay for food for others than military weapons. I’m so sick of my tax dollars support military over human needs. Feed our people! Basic human rights FFS. I find it oxymoronic they talk about forcing people to work while not creating any new programs. House Republicans argue that requiring able-bodied adults without dependents, ages 18 to 55, up from the current requirement for ages 18 to 49, to work or participate in a work training or education program for a least 20 hours per week to receive continuous SNAP benefits would save the nation a “few billion dollars. Basically, watch your money in case the House and Biden cannot reach an agreement, or if Biden agrees to the GOP's massive cuts to Social Security, Snap, VA benefits, etc.Have a Plan B, and a Plan C, and a Plan D at this point, guys. It looks like if this is resolved, it'll be down to the wire - probably. The Treasury said, however, America may run out of money before that... So use your Snap today or this weekend, have cash on hand, reach out to friends and family to see if we default if you can borrow money, etc. (4)>>This deal is trash & a huge middle finger from Biden to the poor. The big hit on Biden is the economy: With inflation moderating but still high, 41 percent say they're not as well off financially as they were when Biden took office. Democrats might not like where the US is headed with the poor state of the economy, high gas and energy prices, Ukraine, Afghanistan’s botched withdrawal, but they don’t see the connection to Biden or the democrat Policies on Woke, DEI, IRA, environmental Agendas. They don't understand they aren't just talking among themselves. They all know that they don't really care about the debt - they just want to screw up the economy, hurt the poor, and blame it on Biden. It is so routine that they forget not everyone is in on the plan."[Biden] believes that when middle class families are doing well, our economy is doing well, and that when the American consumer is doing well and has money to spend, that's the driver of strong growth," says top economic advisor Bharat Ramamurti. The average American family has lost $10,000 paying for the increased cost of living since Biden took office.(5)>>It is clear that the debt ceiling has been raised numerous times over the past few decades. Manufactured crisis over US debt ceiling is very troubling . CONSIDERING the U.S. government is literally broke .But of course it’s all about narratives and cheering for Team Blue or Team Red when they both want to fuck us over badly. Yes, both parties have sold their souls the insane war in Ukraine with a blank check .It is now “X-date,” June 1, when the US will purportedly default on its debt obligations, triggering a “catastrophe,” unless the Democrats and Republicans can agree on a bipartisan deal raising the debt ceiling in return for brutal cuts in social programs on which tens of millions of working people rely.We’re falling backwards through time economically and governmentally but we already have all this tech which has fundamentally changed our world so it’s REAL weird.Far from increased social spending driving the rise in the national debt, it remains sharply down, when adjusted for inflation and population growth, from the levels preceding the bipartisan Budget Control Act of 2011. To be fair, our government should be working towards creating balanced budgets, then figuring out how to chip away at the national debt instead of constantly green lighting deficit spending. The economic consequences of a large-scale, intentional default are unknown, but predictions range from the merely bad to the truly catastrophic. Even flirting with default can create uncertainty, hurt the economy, and drive up interest rates and government costs. There is agreement between the 2 capitalist parties: All of the social gains by the working class in the course of more than a century of struggle must be wiped out to pay for the war drive.
