Hope Social Security isn't messed up!

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The word "President" does not occur once in the 14 th amendment.

Art I section 8 puts the power to raise taxes and appropriate monies squarely in the hands of Congress.

Section Eight gives to the Congress certain broad enumerated powers. Among these are the power to lay and collect taxes and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; to borrow money on the credit of the United States, to regulate interstate, foreign, and Indian commerce; and to create courts inferior to the Supreme Court among many others. The section also gives to Congress the power to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States."

The Sixteenth Amendment in 1913 extended congressional power of taxation to include income taxes.[56] The Constitution also grants Congress the exclusive power to appropriate funds, and this power of the purse is one of Congress's primary checks on the executive branch.[56] Congress can borrow money on the credit of the United States, regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the states, and coin money.[57] Generally, both the Senate and the House of Representatives have equal legislative authority, although only the House may originate revenue and appropriation bills.[58]

So how do you come to your conclusion? Can you read plain English. Have you bothered to read the Constitution?

Do you think the President is an Elected King or and Elected Dictator?

ruveyn

No more worries, for now. They've reached the expected last minute deal. Not a bill that is going to solve our debt problems though, in the long run. Sooner or later there will be a consequence to someone. It will likely be people under the age of 30, and their future that will see the real everyday consequences of a continued lack of real action by congress to resolve our financial problems.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/07/obama-back-in-the-debt-talks/1




Don't worry, it's going to pass, with an agreement between leaders of both parties and Obama, they'll get the votes they need. There is no other realistic scenario.

Couldn't agree more.


Speaking of President Clinton, what happened to that budget surplus? I tell you what. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security, tax cuts and two invasions, one in Afghanistan, the other Iraq and that's not even counting the trillions spent on bailing out Wall Street.

I remember the election between Gore and Bush, and how close it was, wondering what the effect the decision would have on the future.

I can't help but to think how different things might have been with an administration with a sharp pencil for details that Gore had, starting another administration with a surplus.

One thing I am certain of is we wouldn't have gone to War with Iraq and we wouldn't have had the massive tax cuts. The whole future of the country might have been at stake at that time with a difference of relatively few votes. Hopefully we can find a way to solve the problems we have, and that vote from 11 years ago will never be thought of as the initiating factor of what eventually lead to the country's decline.

Those idiots got elected because the average voter is an idiot like them. I hate to think that the concept in Idiocracy is becoming true, but it sounds like it is.

As for SSI checks, I don't know about anyone else, but mine has arrived for August and it was on time.

We wouldn't default if we hadn't raised the debt ceiling...

As far as Social Security checks, pay for our soldiers, etc. that would have depended on how hard Obama wanted to make it for the American people.

There was credible evidence that interest rates on loans, etc. would have gone higher if we hadn't raised the debt ceiling. That scenario in itself would not have been politically acceptable. No one had any clear idea exactly what cuts, where would of had to of been made, because we were moving into new territory that hadn't been explored before.

Obviously, though, it's no real long term solution, only another band-aid among many others and many more likely to come in the next few years.

The fix was too easy, for it not to happen this go around.

Sooner or later reality is going to catch up with mathematics and band-aids.

They could have raised interest rates regardless, but the fact of the matter is, we had enough money to pay the interest on the money we owe creditors.

Then it would have came down to what the Treasury/White House considered the priorities were. In other words the Obama Administration could have chosen not to issue the Social Security Checks as a way to make life difficult for Americans in an attempt to both demonize Republicans, and hold the country hostage.

The risk was that the credit rating of the United States was in jeopardy. If the credit rating was lowered everyone's interest on loans would have likely risen. We are not going to see interest rates rise for no reason.

I never suggested we were at any immediate risk of going into default. If a compromise hadn't been met, cuts would have likely been made somewhere; we won't ever know what cuts would or would not have been made, but the contigencies involved were enough for another compromise that has no real promise of yielding results to solve the long term financial problems in the US. Lots of strong political rhetoric among the Obama administration and the Republicans, but business as usual.

Did you expect any other result? It's no wonder not many people pay attention to politics anymore, it's as predictable as a soap opera. When it comes to actual political solutions there are not many discernable differences between either party.

While Obama may have believed that, it isn't actually true. There are two major misconceptions involved.

First off, the reason the U.S. credit rating is in doubt is mostly because of the long term debt and deficit problem, and that has not gone away. In fact, if the debt ceiling had not been increased, but the U.S. continued to pay the interest on its bonds, that would have been the best result from a credit rating standpoint. With no debt limit increase, the deficit would have been eliminated, which is the main thing making the situation worse from a ratings perspective.

That's not to say there wouldn't have been a lot of pain - there would have - but it wouldn't have been pain for the bond holders, and thus it wouldn't have been a credit rating issue.

Secondly, just because the government is paying a higher interest rate doesn't mean that everyone pays a higher interest rate. Even if the government did default on its debt, that doesn't mean a homeowner would default on his mortgage. If the government actually defaulted, their interest rates would increase, but individuals might see their interests rates decrease as banks found it safer to lend to individuals than to lend to the government. We've already seen that happen in California, where the state has to pay higher rates than individual homeowners do there - we'd just see the same thing on a national level.

It wasn't just Obama's belief it has been widely reported as fact for weeks and is still an area of concern, as you state. The report below talks to how it would likely effect consumer borrowing if the credit rating of the US is lowered.

Do you any links to economic reports that supports this on the national level. I haven't heard any credible reports that suggest our credit rating would be less likely to have been lowered if an agreement wasn't reached to raise the debt limit. And no reports that suggest that the lowering of the credit rating wouldn't affect interest rates for people that seek loans.

However, I agree with your point that the credit rating was in jeopardy regardless of the debt ceiling issue.

http://www.necn.com/searchNECN/search/v/43409137/u-s-credit-rating-still-in-jeopardy.htm



The transcript is a little fuzzy but the video is clear.

More accurately, it was widely reported as bald assertions by journalists who know nothing about economics and have never bought a treasury bond in their lives.

Here's a typical article:

http://www.businessinsider.com/sp-priva ... ade-2011-7

Here's what it provides as known facts:


In other words, the important part isn't raising the debt ceiling, but paying the interest payments on the bonds to avoid a technical default.

Of course, "things might not be so bad" doesn't make for a grabby headline. So the journalist goes on and talks about things that are rumors instead of fact:


In other words, he has no idea what S&P, the ratings agency, is really saying. Instead, he cites a political source who is putting his own spin on stuff that he probably heard second hand, too. This is a rumor, not a fact.

And then he says:


This is less than a rumor: it's an unfounded guess. The fact that S&P was meeting with the Democrats suggests that they were actually putting pressure on the Democrats and not the Republicans, which makes it likely they were emphasizing that the important part was the deficit reduction, not the debt limit increase. We don't know for sure, though, because reporters weren't in the meetings. Instead of admitting that, he makes a guess - and of course guesses in the way that makes for the most exciting headline.

The only fact in the article was that even if there hadn't been a debt limit increase, there might well be no downgrade, as long as interest payments were made. The rest is spin. Of course, the spin was more attention grabbing than the facts, so the headline was based on the spin.

The same thing happened with most or all news sources, in most cases even more egregiously. The facts, though, are as I presented them: what the bond market cares about is making the interest payments now and in the future, and slashing other expenditures is seen as a good thing rather than a bad thing.

There is no way that Social Security will be messed up because it is a separate trust fund from the main government loans. Same for Student Loans.

That makes sense; many were reporting that not raising the debt would result in our inability to pay the interest on the bonds and a certain lowering of our credit rating. So, I guess that was just opinion, rather than fact.

I suppose if we made enough cuts elsewhere that the interest could have been continued to be paid. I can see where they would have done it, to avoid a default if they hadn't come to an agreement.

And now here's the other half of the facts:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-0 ... ccord.html

Sounds like the only way they were not going to lower the rating would be if the politicians had come up with a serious plan to reduce the deficit.

They do mention that although there is still a demand for treasuries do to the issues in Europe that the downgrade may eventually result in higher mortgage rates and auto loan rates.

Do you still think that won't happen?