The Debt Ceiling Approacheth

[Direckshun]

Now that the fiscal cliff has been turned into various cliffs over the entirety of 2013 (should be a fun year, gang...), we can turn our attention the the next one coming up.

In February, we face the sequester cliff, followed shortly by the debt ceiling.

For all intents and purposes, this thread will be used as a repository for both cliffs.

The debt ceiling, of course, has far graver consequences for both the country and the planet. Treasury adopted emergency funding measures about two weeks ago.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

Dug this up from 2011.

I continue to believe that, to protect their right flanks, the GOP absolutely cannot negotiate on anything other than complete Democratic capitulation. They must be willing to cut the baby in half and default on America's debt. Anything less leaves them vulnerable in 2014 primaries.

Obama has already ruled that out, and he did so very recently. Bill Clinton and Nancy Pelosi have both said they'd invoke the 14th amendment if they were president, but Obama has concluded that the 14th amendment does not allow him to ignore the debt ceiling. The trillion dollar coin idea also wont happen.

More than likely, when the treasury is no longer able to borrow, Obama will prioritize spending, paying debt service first to protect the credit rating as much as possible, then he'll beat the GOP over the head with the bully pulpit talking about all the poor people who have been cut off.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by donkhater

Correction--it should be an unnecessary devcie. But since our leaders can't do math, I appreciate that it is there.

no, the debt ceiling is an idiotic device under any circumstances whatsoever.

If congress wants to cut spending, they should just F'ing cut spending. If they refuse to do it, then the bills have to be paid.

[Comrade Crapski]

Originally Posted by alnorth

no, the debt ceiling is an idiotic device under any circumstances whatsoever.

If congress wants to cut spending, they should just F'ing cut spending. If they refuse to do it, then the bills have to be paid.

Where do you get that kind of money?

[donkhater]

Originally Posted by alnorth

no, the debt ceiling is an idiotic device under any circumstances whatsoever.

If congress wants to cut spending, they should just F'ing cut spending. If they refuse to do it, then the bills have to be paid.

Yes I actually do agree with that. I guess it's just frustration on my part. I really don't see any other way to slap these idiots into sanity. Do you?

Ruin the country's credit by not servicing debt or go bankrupt ala Greece? Which is the longer term risk? Maybe another tick down in the country's credit rating will get their attention before a real depression hits.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by mlyonsd

I wouldn't say that was true the first two years.

How much you want to bet?

I bet I can dig up no fewer than 20 threads from Obama's first two years.

Let's do this. What do you want to bet.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by donkhater

The only good thing it has done has been to get some consessions on spending as ridiculously small and inept as they are. In the absence of a ceiling, what would ever motivate these two sides to even speak to one another? Hell, the Senate can't even be bothered to pass a budget.

It's gotten to the point of being criminal and treasonous.

Is there any reason you willfully ignored one of the questions ("what is bad about the debt ceiling") in my post?

[Direckshun]

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/2...nues-this-year

Democrats look for up to $1 trillion in new tax revenues this year
By Alexander Bolton
01/07/13 05:00 AM ET

Democrats say they want to raise as much as $1 trillion in new revenues through tax reform later this year to balance Republican demands to slash mandatory spending.

Democratic leaders have had little time to craft a new position for their party since passing a tax deal Tuesday that will raise $620 billion in revenue over the next 10 years.

The emerging consensus, however, is that the next installment of deficit reduction should reach $2 trillion and about half of it should come from higher taxes.

This sets up tax reform as one of the biggest fights of the 113th Congress, which began on Thursday.

Republicans say tax reform should be revenue-neutral. Additional revenues collected by eliminating or curbing tax breaks and deductions should be used to lower rates.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) has dismissed the possibility of negotiating additional tax increases.

“I'm in favor of doing tax reform but I think tax reform ought to be revenue-neutral, as it was back during the Reagan years.

"We've resolved this issue. Look, we don't have this problem because we tax too little. We have it because we spend way, way too much,” McConnell said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Liberal and centrist Democrats say revenues collected through tax reform should go to deficit reduction.

“We’ve done about $2 trillion. I thought $4 trillion is the goal we should reach. I think we’re about halfway there. We need another $2 trillion,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), a member of the Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax reform.

He said the $917 billion cut under the Budget Control Act passed in the summer of 2011, combined with $620 billion in revenues from Tuesday’s tax deal and interest savings, adds up to about $2 trillion.

Cardin said the ratio of spending cuts to higher tax revenues “should be about even” in the next deficit-reduction deal passed by Congress.

Sen. Jon Tester, a centrist Democrat from Montana who won a close reelection in November, set out similar parameters.

He said the broad goal for deficit reduction should be in the $4 trillion to $5 trillion range and “we should strive for [a] one-for-one” ratio of spending cuts to additional tax revenues.

The White House also supports a 1:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases as Congress seeks to finish the fiscal work left unresolved by the recently completed 112th Congress.

White House officials point to last week’s fiscal-cliff agreement to “buy down” the sequester for two months. The deal delayed the implementation of automatic across-the-board spending cuts to domestic and defense programs and paid for it with $12 billion in revenues and $12 billion in spending cuts — evenly divided between defense and non-defense spending.

Administration officials view that as a template for future deficit-reduction agreements.

But Democrats in Congress are not yet unified on the issue. Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat who won his first term in November’s election, said the spending cut-to-tax increase ratio should be higher.

“Obviously, that second half of the fiscal cliff is the tough spending decisions,” he said. “During the course of the campaign I often talked about 2-1 as a total. That would count all the spending reductions that have already been agreed to.”

“I think if you’re looking at a 70-30 ratio, somewhere in between 2 to 1 and 3 to 1, I think that’s a reasonable position,” said newly elected Sen. Chris Murphy (D) of Connecticut, who noted he is from a “fiscally responsible” state.

Like Kaine, Murphy said “you could factor in the cuts already made.”

Congress agreed to cut spending by $917 billion in 2011 and to raise $620 billion in additional tax revenues last week, settling on a ratio of roughly 3 to 2 so far.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Friday that the ratio of spending cuts to tax revenues to date has been tilted more heavily toward spending. Counting the 2011 Budget Control Act and the year-end tax deal, he argues the split is closer to $1.1 trillion in spending cuts and $600 billion in revenues — but he appears to be counting interest savings from spending cuts and not from tax increases.

The biggest question for Democrats is how much revenue is realistically available through tax reform.

Former Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), a longtime chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, argues the federal government loses $1.2 trillion a year because of various tax breaks, a large pool for lawmakers to draw from to reduce the deficit.

“Through the tax code, we spend more there than we spend through all the appropriated accounts,” he said in his Senate farewell speech.

Conrad displayed a chart on the Senate floor Wednesday showing that people in the top 1 percent of income earners collect over $250,000 in after-tax income from tax expenditures. These expenditures are defined as revenue losses due to special exclusions, exemptions or deductions from gross income.

But policy analysts say the amount Congress can raise by eliminating tax expenditures will be constrained by political realities.

President Obama’s proposal to limit the value of itemized deductions to 28 percent evoked a backlash from the real estate industry and charitable groups. The mortgage interest and charitable tax deductions are two major drains on federal revenue.

Potential future revenue from limiting exemptions and deductions for wealthy taxpayers is also limited by the personal exemption phase-out and Pease — a cap on itemized deductions — provisions of the New Year’s Day tax deal. They account for $152 billion of the projected revenues from the deal.

Jim Kessler, senior vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank, thinks the most Democrats can get from tax reform is about $300 billion to $400 billion. He said negotiators can find an additional $100 billion in revenue by switching the chained-CPI formula for calculating cost-of-living increases for Social Security and other federal programs.

“I think you get $400 [billion] or $500 billion in new revenue because stuff [is] taken off the table,” he said.

[LiveSteam]

If the first lady ever catches Obama cheating on her. I bet its Direckshun she catches sucking on his Shillong

Wanna bet
wanna bet. huh,huh huh?

[LiveSteam]

Here is your revenue & how they plan to get it. You idiot

Pelosi, Van Hollen, Durbin: Americans Still Not Taxed Enough
By Susan Jones
January 7, 2013
Subscribe to Susan Jones's posts


President Barack Obama winks as he arrives to make a statement regarding the passage of the fiscal cliff bill at the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

(CNSNews.com) - Are Democrats done raising taxes on the American people?

"No," says House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

"We can raise more revenue," says Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

And Sen. Dick Durban (D-Ill.) says "there are still deductions, credits, special treatments under the tax code which ought to be looked at very carefully."

The three Democrats took similar questions about additional tax hikes on different Sunday talk shows.

Interviewed Friday by Bob Schieffer, host of CBS's "Face the Nation," Pelosi was asked if the "revenue side" of the fiscal cliff is finished. Revenue means higher taxes to Democrats.

"No, no, it is not," Pelosi replied. "I mean, the president had said originally he wanted $1.6 trillion in revenue. He took it down to $1.2 as a compromise. In this legislation (fiscal cliff) we had $620 billion, very significant, high-end tax -- changing the high-end tax rate to 39.6 percent. But that is not enough on the revenue side."
"We're talking about looking at the tax code, putting everything on the table from the standpoint of closing loopholes -- and we know that we can do that -- special subsidies for big oil, for example, $38 billion right there.

"But again, not to take things in isolation, just to say, OK, well, how much more revenue can we get as we go forward?"

Would Democrats eliminate tax deductions, Schieffer asked Pelosi.

"My idea of tax reform is to have a comprehensive view," she replied. "We've talked about tax simplification and fairness as something that we should be engaged in all along -- long before these fights came along. And now we have a chance to do that with I'd say a heightened awareness by the public on why we need to do certain things.

"So let's, you know, put on the table what it is that we can, in order to increase revenue. We've changed the rate, the high-end tax rate, (to) 39.6 percent, a very important step. And again, there's much more that we can do by just subjecting it to the scrutiny of what is bringing in revenue, what is creating growth. And we don't want to hurt that if there's some tax provisions that create growth. We want to support that."

Pelosi ruled out higher taxes on the middle class. But for people in higher income brackets, higher taxes are "not off the table," she said. "But not in terms of tax rates but in terms of other considerations."

'We have to take a balanced approach'

On "Fox New Sunday," Rep. Chris Van Hollen was asked about the Republican position -- expressed by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell -- that there will be no more tax hikes.

"Well, if Mitch McConnell is going to draw the line in the sand, it's going to be a recipe for more gridlock," Van Hollen said. "We have to take a balanced approach to long-term deficit reduction -- meaning additional (spending) cuts."

Van Hollen noted that as part of the fiscal cliff deal, "We raised $730 billion in revenue from very high income individuals. As we go forward, we need to adopt the same framework as the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission, meaning a combination of cuts and revenue."

During the presidential campaign, even the Republican candidates were talking about closing tax "loopholes" that benefit wealthy Americans, Van Hollen noted: "Guess what. They are still there," Van Hollen said. "So, through tax reform, we can raise more revenue matched by additional cuts to address the sequester issue and long-term deficit."

'These loopholes...'

On CNN's "State of the Union with Candy Crowley," Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) also indicated he's willing to keep raising taxes: "There's money to be saved in tax reform," Durbin said.

"I can tell you that there are still deductions, credits, special treatments under the tax code which ought to be looked at very carefully. We forgo about $1.2 trillion a year in the tax code, money that otherwise would go to the government, and when you look closely, some of those things are near and dear to us individually and to the economy -- the mortgage interest deduction, charitable deductions, deductions for state and local taxes, but beyond that, trust me, there are plenty of things within that tax code, these loopholes where people can park their money in some island offshore and not pay taxes, these are things that need to be closed. We can do that and use the money to reduce the deficit."

Crowley asked Durbin, "So there are other taxes that you believe that you can, however you want to put them, raise, retrieve, whatever, from the wealthy?"

"Absolutely," Durbin replied. "And I'll also tell you that I think we need to open our minds to our tax revenue. You know, we've had conversations about an infrastructure fund that will really start America building again, for the highways and airports and locks and dams and things like that...I believe we should have energy taxes that really fund infrastructure investment."

Durbin said higher gas taxes should be considered in the future. And he alluded to higher taxes on electricity to expand the nation's power grid.


http://cnsnews.com/news/article/pelo...t-taxed-enough

[petegz28]

More taxes!!!!!!

[mlyonsd]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

How much you want to bet?

I bet I can dig up no fewer than 20 threads from Obama's first two years.

Let's do this. What do you want to bet.

I've been talking about it since Bush was president.

When you said 'we' I thought you literally meant the rest of the public and MSM. Democrats raised the debt ceiling when they were totally in power, I don't recall any giant worry about it then by them. Why? Because the dems could do anything they wanted, which is tough luck since they won the 2008 elections.

Now that the country has effectively split their power up in the last two elections, using the ceiling as a tool to reign in spending is why the limit exists, and exactly what republicans were put in office to do.

[LiveSteam]

Originally Posted by mlyonsd

I've been talking about it since Bush was president.

When you said 'we' I thought you literally meant the rest of the public and MSM. Democrats raised the debt ceiling when they were totally in power, I don't recall any giant worry about it then by them. Why? Because the dems could do anything they wanted, which is tough luck since they won the 2008 elections.

Now that the country has effectively split their power up in the last two elections, using the ceiling as a tool to reign in spending is why the limit exists, and exactly what republicans were put in office to do.

[King_Chief_Fan]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

Now that the fiscal cliff has been turned into various cliffs over the entirety of 2013 (should be a fun year, gang...), we can turn our attention the the next one coming up.

In February, we face the sequester cliff, followed shortly by the debt ceiling.

For all intents and purposes, this thread will be used as a repository for both cliffs.

The debt ceiling, of course, has far graver consequences for both the country and the planet. Treasury adopted emergency funding measures about two weeks ago.

the fiscal cliff as approved makes the debt ceiling the worst...here is 640 billion more dollars...go pay down the debt....nope we got some new money to spend!!!

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by LiveSteam

If the first lady ever catches Obama cheating on her. I bet its Direckshun she catches sucking on his Shillong

Wanna bet
wanna bet. huh,huh huh?

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by mlyonsd

I've been talking about it since Bush was president.

When you said 'we' I thought you literally meant the rest of the public and MSM. Democrats raised the debt ceiling when they were totally in power, I don't recall any giant worry about it then by them. Why? Because the dems could do anything they wanted, which is tough luck since they won the 2008 elections.

Ah, so in no way that we can effectively measure. "The public" and "the media" -- great amorphous villains that have no metric by which we can measure them.

The Democratic Party (myself included) complained about Bush running up the deficit after inheriting the Clinton surplus, mostly in his first term. The media covered this. Once the recession hit and Obama took the reins, Republicans complained about huge Obama deficits. The media covered this. If you disagree, please say so. That'd be pretty disingenuous, because we've both been there for both.

I don't know on what planet in which century you believe the media has been ignoring the debt, but my guess is you don't either. It's just easier to claim that bullshit and pin it on "the public" and "the media" without having to actually back that up.

The reason there's never been any stink about raising the debt ceiling is because it's a bullshit tool that accomplishes nothing (it reminds us to "have a conversation," according to you) while threatening the global economy, and single-handedly damaging America's credit.

The pro/con of that is so hilariously lopsided that nobody's dared to teeter on the brink of default until Republicans went full retard in the summer of 2011.