you've got to be kidding. why in the hell would you want us to default? do you know what repercussions there could be, and not just here, but worldwide?

i agree, both parties need serious work. however, we all know who has led us to this current shutdown, and is now threatening economic chaos with the debt ceiling. our economy has been showing signs of moving in the right direction, and now all this.
congress knows, and knew full well what their spending would lead to. laws they've passed has brought us to this debt ceiling. had they wished to remain forever below it, they should have budgeted wisely. this isn't something that has just happened. it's been coming for some time. it's disingenuous now for anyone in congress to say 'we must reign in spending'. that horse left the barn a while ago.

I completely agree with you and think regardless of who's in power they should be forced to operate under a balanced budget unless we're attacked or citizens are dying in the streets.

The Cash for Clunkers took stupid to a whole new level IMO

and i just saw this, on the latest polls.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...bc-poll-finds/

republican disapproval from those polled is growing. and you know there's something wrong when:

Just 52 percent of Republicans, for instance, approve of how Republicans in Congress are handling budget negotiations.

You do know that we take in way more than the interest each month...balance the budget. Enough of this. Time for the cat food boomers.

Are you really an ******* or just play one on the Internet?

i agree, balance it.
that said, they've already spent the money in past budgets, which is why we're about to hit the ceiling. but i can tell that you've read none of the articles i've posted, that explain the difference between spending and the ceiling. you probably think they should just pay 'important stuff' which is actually illegal. they have to pay bills as they come in. if the debt ceiling isn't changed, the treasury no longer will have borrowing authority to pay things as they come due, while they wait for deposits.
it's akin to operating a business and having no line of credit. i'm sure employees want paid every two weeks, regardless of cash flow.

your answer is so much more succinct then mine....

Call it like I see it. About everything.

I give you that.;)

http://news.msn.com/us/va-chief-shut...llions-of-vets

About 3.8 million veterans will not receive disability compensation next month if the partial government shutdown continues into late October, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki says. Some 315,000 veterans and 202,000 surviving spouses and dependents will see pension payments stopped.

Shinseki is spelling out some of the dire consequences of a longer-term shutdown in testimony Wednesday for the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. The short-term consequences have meant that disability claims production has slowed by an average of about 1,400 per day since the shutdown began Oct. 1, and that has stalled the department's efforts to reduce the backlog of disability claims pending for longer than 125 days.

In all, more than $6 billion in payments would be halted with an extended shutdown.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/econo...ryTiles_medium

The Fed's ongoing quest to drive down interest rates targets both goals. By keeping rates low, Bernanke makes it cheaper for borrowers to take out loans. And to convince lenders to take a risk on those loans, the Fed has bought up massive quantities of Treasury bonds—considered the ultimate safe investment among investors—in an effort to drive down the rate at which those bonds pay off to private investors. The hope is that investors, unsatisfied at the low rate of return they get back from the federal government, will instead put their money into the private sector.

That's where Congress is so damaging to Bernanke's efforts. By precipitating one crisis after another, lawmakers are sending investors running back to the type of investments that keep their money safe but do precious little in the way of economic stimulus.

If Congress wanted to spook lenders, it could hardly pick a better method than flirting with default. "It would be the opposite of what the Fed's wanted to do," says Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services. "It basically says something has happened outside the Fed's control that could shock the economy into recession."

For Bernanke, the current debt-ceiling standoff may be all the more infuriating because he's seen it, and its destructive effects, play out before. When the country last brushed up against the debt ceiling in the summer of 2011, investors flocked to Treasury bonds, looking for a safe place to park their assets while they waited to see if Congress was going to unleash economic chaos

Meanwhile, even though the government is shut down. They're hiring at over $100K/year plus benefits.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...ted-in-spite-/

Approve and borrow 90 days of expense money, come up with a balanced budget and then we'll worry about hiring media relation guys.

Until then lets hold off on any more mechanical bulls, Detroit bailouts, and aid to countries whose majority hates us.

This should really piss you off.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/us...ted=1&_r=5&hp&

right on......cat food can be a little expensive. they could score two mystery meat tacos at Jacks for .99

Not a subscriber and because I'm anticipating more and more increases on my health insurance policy I'm not taking on any added entitlement spending at this time. ;)

Tacos are my favorite food.

well, it will piss off some. actually, a decided majority. altho the aca has lukewarm support, about 3/4's of the people say that the govt. should NOT be shut down in order to derail obamacare.
that law, flawed as it is, passed all three branches of government. the behavior being exhibited by a portion of congress to stop a law that congress passed (and the executive and judicial also signed off on) is reprehensible.

but, repubs are going all out now on this, because their largest fear isn't obamacare. it's that once people get obamacare, they will like it and want to keep it. THAT is what repubs don't want to have happen. and the funny thing is, when you ask people if they like the different rules and regs in obamacare, they like it. but when you ask them 'do you like obamacare', they say no. quite a job done on branding by the republicans on this.
ask many of these same folks, who don't like obamacare, if they support the affordable care act, yes-yes, they do.
of course, they are also pulling this stunt in the lead up to the debt ceiling. that's the other part of their grand plan.

They hate Obamacare but just love The Affordable Care Act.:zz:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opi...,6137479.story

it's CRAZY. lol

no, the craziest thing is that a segment of congress has been able to shut the whole government down. this is supposed to be a democracy-not mob rule by a small portion of one party. and that's what this is-or a tantrum, thrown by a few with the mindset of 2 year olds. i can't get my wayyyyyyy. waaaaah. i don't know that i've ever been so disgusted with these people.


oh, and randall and anyone else saying hitting the debt ceiling would be no big deal, please...read this:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opi...,6006376.story


an excerpt:


If the U.S. government starts defaulting on its obligations — any obligations — that confidence will be permanently shaken. And that has some very real, practical consequences.

The largest holders of U.S. treasuries are the Social Security system and the Federal Reserve. If government bonds are suddenly devalued, Social Security could find itself unable to pay retirees, and the assets that back the value of the dollar would evaporate. The third and fourth largest bond holders are the Chinese and Japanese governments. If their assets suddenly contract in value, the contagion would spread from the world's largest economy to the second- and third-largest. Many institutions are barred from trading in bonds issued by an entity in default, which means that pension funds, money market funds, bond funds and other investment funds would be required to dump their U.S. debt, causing its value to spiral downward even more.

For average Americans, that means the purchasing power of their dollars will collapse, and interest rates on everything from mortgages to credit cards would skyrocket — if any lending was going on at all. After Lehman Brothers defaulted on its obligations five years ago, the stock market lost half its value, lending froze and unemployment jumped above 10 percent. We still have not recovered. The treasury's outstanding debt is more than 20 times as great as Lehman's was. We avoided another Great Depression after Lehman only because the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury were able to take extraordinary action to shore up the financial markets. If the U.S. government is the one to default, there will be no one to save us.


The precise chain of events that would occur after a U.S. default is unknowable, both because it has never happened and because it would be the single largest disruption of the financial markets imaginable. But there is near universal consensus among economists, global finance officials and the financial industry that it would foster world-wide catastrophe.Yet a sizable portion of the Republican caucus in Washington chooses simply not to believe any of it. They think the White House is bluffing or that the predictions of dire consequences are overblown. Sequestration wasn't the end of the world, they say, and neither so far has been the federal government shutdown — at least not for members of Congress, who continue to show up to work and get paid.

Amazing how well we're doing with the country shut down?

Granted we need to pay the bills we owe. We don't have to incur any new ones. And as the past week has shown us we can do just fine w/o the majority of government in operation despite Chicken Little's prediction of the sky falling.

BTW We need to stop considering Social Security as an entitlement unless we change SS withholding to Entitlement Withholding on everyone's check.

Dude we do not know the impact of a default. It could be financial Armageddon. This is no video game where we hit reset and get a do over if in fact it is

We don't need to re-start the entire government to prevent default, we only need to pay our bills. Hence my point of SS not being an entitlement but rather a bill.

Let's pay our bills while we balance the budget. Until then everything else can wait. You'll see it get done but not until the money train is stopped.

War criminals toast each other over jokes, as America burns.

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/09/war_...america_burns/

gop's favorability hits all-time low:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slate...ther_part.html

I'm shocked, who woulda thunk it:D

Be sure to watch last nite's daily show...the repukes had nothing to do with the shutdown:zz:..then he nails boner with a clip of interview with Stephanopoulos...and his guest is Malala:tro:

yeah, i haven't watched the last few episodes of that, or colbert. will have to do some catching up.
i'd like to see malala get a nobel. that girl can teach many people a lesson-well, more than one lesson. and the taliban still says they're gonna get her. so threatened by a girl! and one daring to get an education at that!

gee, i hope her ovaries are ok. :rolleyes:

I do also..that would really frost the taliban's lower parts:tro:
Kid is very good interviewee, sharp and clear beyond her years..
Diane Sawyer showed a short bit from her interview last nite and i think she might be on tonites eve news...and i think she will be on a 20/20 segment.

Was gonna post this in the jokes thread but thought in light of current events it would fit here..

CAN YOU NAME THIS OLD TOOL?

Thought you would enjoy this educational moment in American history.
Do you know what it is? Give it a guess, then look below for the answer.



[IMG][/IMG]


Hint: Used by a physician...
Hint: It's a kit...
Tobacco Smoke Enemas (1750s-1810s) The tobacco enema was used to infuse tobacco smoke into a patient's rectum for various Medical purposes, primarily the resuscitation of drowning victims.
A rectal tube inserted into the anus was connected to a fumigator and bellows that forced the smoke towards the rectum.
The warmth of the smoke was thought to promote respiration, but doubts about the credibility of tobacco enemas led to the popular phrase "blowing' smoke up your ass".

enjoyed the interview, will have to go online to see the rest of it. great girl, i hope she lives a long and fruitful life.

Amazing how we're finally at least discussing a balanced budget.

Follow Susie Orman and cut those credit cards up!

DENIED!

jms, it boggles the mind that some in congress, and elsewhere, think default is no big deal...or that people in congress, who are supposed to know better, think we can just pay some things....so, here's why you can't prioritize bill paying, and anyone who thinks we can just pay some bills while balancing the budget (what a laugher) take note of the first reason why:




This is what's known among debt ceiling junkies as "payment prioritization"—you use cash on hand to keep paying interest and rolling over the principal on the national debt, while letting Medicare reimbursements or salaries for FBI agents slide. Here are four problems with the idea, according to the Treasury Department:

1. It's illegal: Treasury is not authorized to unilaterally decide to pay certain bills and not others. If it were, the constitutional order would completely collapse. Obama could just not cut the checks for farm subsidies or missile defense programs he opposes. Then in a few years President Ted Cruz could refuse to pay SNAP benefits.

2. It's also impossible: Because payment prioritization is illegal, Treasury's payment system is not designed to allow prioritization to happen. Cardiff Garcia has an in-depth roundup of coverage of this angle, but the best simple explanation comes from the Treasury inspector general, who explains that on a technical level, the systems "are designed to make each payment in the order it comes due." Of course systems could always be changed. But look at all the problems Health and Human Services is having in getting the Affordable Care Act computer systems to work. They can't just whip up an entirely new computer system in the next two weeks. (And, of course, given the government shutdown, it would be illegal for them to hire someone to try.)

3. The timing doesn't work: Over a given year, the Treasury certainly collects more in taxes than it pays in interest. But that's not necessarily true on any given day. Most days the Treasury doesn't pay any interest. Then on some days large interest bills come due. To prioritize interest payments, you would need to not pay certain bills the Treasury does have enough cash on hand to pay in order to stockpile money for future interest payments. That further exacerbates problem Nos. 1 and 2.

4. Prioritization doesn't solve the problem: Even if all these problems could be waived away, you're not really solving the underlying problem. Yes, bondholders would still get their money. But nobody in the future could seriously treat U.S. government debt as a risk-free information-insensitive asset. It would become just another speculative play whose odds of working out would depend on your assessment of the ups and downs of American politics. Making the interest payments would somewhat mitigate the ensuing financial crisis, but would by no means eliminate it.

Looks like they may have a deal on the table. 6-weeks worth of expense money and leaving the government shut-down while 'discussing' the budget.

Problem is they need to balance it not discuss it.

Meanwhile U.S. embassies all over the world will be toasting using brand new expensive wine glasses.

have gotten caught up at work, and have started looking over what new news is out there regarding the gop in govt. playing with our economic present and future. obama has a meeting scheduled with some gop leaders at the white house; i wish him luck.

and this little tidbit, from a story about the meeting:

'The game of Washington chicken over increasing the debt limit — required so Treasury can borrow more money to pay the government's bills in full and on time — already has sent the stock market south, spiked the interest rate for one-month Treasury bills and prompted Fidelity Investments, the nation's largest manager of money market mutual funds, to sell federal debt that comes due around the time the nation could hit its borrowing limit.'

boehner is letting a small group of tea partiers simultaneously hamstring the gop, and the govt, and kick a growing economy in the teeth.



on a related note-why hasn't congress passed a budget in years? and did you guys know that there's no penalty for not having a budget? no one has standing to force the issue. this is why we keep having continuing resolutions-well, til now.

A temporary stay just means we have this overhanging for 6 more weeks.

How often do we hit the debt ceiling?

A lot. Since 1944, Congress has raised the debt ceiling 94 times: 54 times by Republicans, 40 by Democrats. In fact, we technically hit the debt ceiling on May 19 of this year.

Wait. We already hit the debt ceiling?! Why hasn't everything gone horribly wrong?

Because the Treasury Department has been using what it calls "extraordinary measures" to prevent us from actually breaching the debt ceiling. Our debt has sat at about $25 million below the $16,699,421,000,000 limit, as the Treasury has performed various actions such as delaying new investments into employee retirement funds to keep us under the debt ceiling. However, the Treasury department cannot keep doing so forever. Today, Secretary Jack Lew announced that we will officially breach the debt ceiling on October 17.

there's talk of just making a temporary change, something to hold over til the next election. but then, that's done all the time now, with nothing getting done (except the house voting 41 times to repeal a law that has no shot of being repealed, because the senate won't vote to repeal).

there needs to be a real budget. this continuing resolution crap is just that, crap.


and really....the debt ceiling is a ridiculous rule. congress votes to spend, and then congress has to vote to allow the treasury to spend the money it has already said to spend? how the hell does that make sense? if they didn't want to breach a certain level of debt, you do so by proper budgeting and spending. not by spending and then saying 'oh, hit the ceiling'...and causing a default. good lord, how stupid are the people who get voted in, and how stupid the voters?

so...much hand-wringing is going on, and i just had a client come by and mention that social security checks could stop coming. so, i looked into it-sure enough, if the govt defaults, ss would be affected. so, some reading turned me to other subjects, other articles, and finally, i wondered....why is there a debt ceiling? when was it put in place? so, of course, i asked the mighty google god...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...fecd_blog.html

The article notes that the debt limit generally was raised without controversy until a White House request to raise the limit in 1953 was sidetracked in the Senate, “where the ceiling was viewed as an instrument for forcing economy on the executive branch of the government.”

Hmm, that sounds familiar.



and the last of the article:

The debt limit was originally conceived as a way to make things easier for Congress, because lawmakers were tired of having to issue bonds for specific purposes. (Congress, after all, had already decided to spend the money.) But then Congress often finds a way to make the easy stuff harder.

Indeed, when he was a senator, President Obama also refused to approve a debt-limit increase in 2006 without a plan to reduce the deficit. The president now acknowledges that was a “political vote, as opposed to doing what was important for the country — which he regrets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...ling_increases


A statutorily imposed debt ceiling has been in effect since 1917 when the US Congress passed the Second Liberty Bond Act. Before 1917 there was no debt ceiling in force, but there were parliamentary procedural limitations on the level of possible debt that could be held by government.

US government indebtedness has been the norm in United States financial history, as well of most Western European and North American countries, for the past 200 years.

The US has been in debt every year except for 1835.
Debts incurred during the American Revolutionary War and under the Articles of Confederation led to the first yearly report on the amount of the debt ($75,463,476.52 on January 1, 1791).
Every President since Herbert Hoover has added to the national debt expressed in absolute dollars.

The debt ceiling has been raised 74 times since March 1962,[1] including 18 times under Ronald Reagan, eight times under Bill Clinton, seven times under George W. Bush, and three times under Barack Obama.