Say what?

[RunInRed 16,991]

Were Republicans for raising the debt ceiling before they were against it?

[au2004ece 30]

Obama has to veto any increase unless he is a flip flopper.

[Grumps 3,706]

You do understand that there is at least a little difference in raising the debt ceiling with a $14.3 trillion debt and climbing at unprecedented rate than vs. any other debt ceiling vote in history, don't you?

You do understand that Obama was against raising the debt ceiling in the past when things were not nearly as out of control, don't you?

[RunInRed 16,991]

I just think this whole thing is circular and childish. The time to have these discussions are at appropriation, not when the bills come due.

Mark it down - rightly or wrongly, the tea party will bear the brunt of the blame for this current fiasco and pay deeply in the 2012 elections. You don't govern like this and everyone is sick of it.

[AURaptor 1,137]

There has to be a line drawn somewhere.

Kicking the can down the road hasn't resulted in a solution. It's only delayed the inevitable.

The Dems aren't going to ever do anything about it. That much is clear. And the old guard GOP , they're not much better.

[au2004ece 30]

I just think this whole thing is circular and childish. The time to have these discussions are at appropriation, not when the bills come due.

Mark it down - rightly or wrongly, the tea party will bear the brunt of the blame for this current fiasco and pay deeply in the 2012 elections. You don't govern like this and everyone is sick of it.

What fiasco? This debate has caused no problems and the conservatives are getting 80% of what they wanted. Seems like the opposite of a fiasco to me, atleast for the conservatives.

You are misreading events. This debate will push more people to the tea party because it has been shown that neither democrats or non-tea party republicans really want to cut spending enough to matter.

Two thirds of this country supports a balanced budget amendment. The tea party is the only group pushing that idea.

[RunInRed 16,991]

Have you had a chance to look at the polling on what people want as it relates to Social Security, Medicare, etc?

[Auburn85 434]

And there's enough money to pay for Social Security.

Not all, but some of the tea party people don't care about being re-elected. Some of them aren't focused on polls. They were elected to stop this. Some of these tea party people are being lumped in with hypocritical votes and actions in the past when they weren't in congress or even focusing on politics.

Like with the blame of our current economic conditions- a majority can seperate it happened under Bush. We don't need to be lectured day after day and year after year by Obama and his administration, and press secretaries about losing 700,000 jobs a month. Or that they inherited this. The people know!

I'm tired of hearing the talking point of "the banks are sitting on all of this cash. They need to start lending again."

Well, we need a new talking point. The government is sitting on $100s of billion in gold that could go to pay for Social Security and Medicare that Liberals and Democrats would argue they care more about that Republicans. Would Democrats really sit on billions in revenue than pay for Senior benefits? That's how I would frame the debate and arguement.

And Obama and Democrats win no arguement on "exposing" hypocirsy on the right when POTUS Obama and Reid, Senate Majority leader argued against it for moral reasons and saying how more debt on our kids and grand kids is bad. Obama and Reid have no credibility on this issue.

Oh,well let's quick bickering and solve the problem (while simultaneously spending too much time trying to expose the otherside wink wink)!

Obama's budget got voted down 97-0

They haven't passed ,but Paul Ryan tried a "raising the debt ceiling several times" budget plan that would reform Medicare long term.

We had Cut,Cap, and Balance.

Gang of 6.

The Deficit Commission that Obama created came back and Obama wasn't fully supporting their findings.

Tom Coburn has presented a plan himself and worked with the Gang of 6.

The only thing from the Left I've seen is Monday Morning Quarterbacking and a token last second dtich effort by Reid.

Hell, Democrats won't fully support the Progressive Budget The writers of the PB they wasted no time presenting a framework of big numbers to get the job done. Instead, Obama wuld rather spend so much political energy on oil subsidies and corporate jet tax breaks which doesn't even cover 24 hrs of borrowing!

Then , after several weeks and a couple of months of trying to come up with a plan, Obama takes the same strategy like in the potential government shutdown from a few months ago. That strategy is wait, wait, wait, and then, when the deadlines get closer start rambling about not being able to pay Senior beneifts. And then, not stop long enough or speak up to debunk the spread to military personnel not getting paid while they are in a war zone?! Really?!

Obama and Democrats are of higher moral quality than Republicans really?

Obama is no better or any less a hypocrite than the vast majority in the congress.

Even those folks at Think Progress bend over backwards to find a hypocritcal story on Ron Paul when they have the freakin POTUS they could go after. That's just it. They are a left wing think tank. They do the same things right-wing think tanks do, but somehow Democrats and Liberals will try to argue that their think tanks are more credible than the other side.

Let's discuss how we're going to fix the problem.

Democrats and Liberals,should Obama be allowed to raise the debt ceiling as many times as Bush did without anyone saying anything? Is that would you really want? Is that the point? If not, a lot of time and energy is being spent on simply finding hypocrisy in Congress?. They are even passing out fliers with Reagan quotes about the debt ceiling. Obama is using them too. Tell me Liberals and Democrats, why won't Obama get up there day in and day out to quote himself on the debt ceiling? lol

[au2004ece 30]

The real fiasco is that democrats have no plan for cutting spending because they believe government spending is the economy and republicans won't cut defense because they don't believe the military is part of the government.

[Auburn85 434]

The real fiasco is that democrats have no plan for cutting spending because they believe government spending is the economy and republicans won't cut defense because they don't believe the military is part of the government.

And while I don't have polls numbers to show it, the status quo republicans not including defense to on the cutting table is a reason why people like Ron Paul are more popular now than 4 years ago. This is all part of the tea party voice getting louder. And that's why you see some on the right and several in the news media trying to chop the tea party down before it gets too "powerful" because it's framed about having control.

Fox has warmed up to Ron Paul to a degree, but make no mistake, they are still strongly part of the establishment.

[au2004ece 30]

The real fiasco is that democrats have no plan for cutting spending because they believe government spending is the economy and republicans won't cut defense because they don't believe the military is part of the government.

And while I don't have polls numbers to show it, the status quo republicans not including defense to on the cutting table is a reason why people like Ron Paul are more popular now than 4 years ago. This is all part of the tea party voice getting louder. And that's why you see some on the right and several in the news media trying to chop the tea party down before it gets too "powerful" because it's framed about having control.

Fox has warmed up to Ron Paul to a degree, but make no mistake, they are still strongly part of the establishment.

The tea party is up against entrenched forces on both sides that only care about the amount of power they can retain. Ron Paul is the worst candidate possible for the powerful on each side, and the best candidate for the average person. He is against liberal entitlements and neo con military industrial complex. He will have the kitchen sink thrown at him if he gets any momentum in the primaries.

[Tigermike 3,425]

I just think this whole thing is circular and childish. The time to have these discussions are at appropriation, not when the bills come due.

Mark it down - rightly or wrongly, the tea party will bear the brunt of the blame for this current fiasco and pay deeply in the 2012 elections. You don't govern like this and everyone is sick of it.

And the democrat budgets are where?

You are right the tea party will bear the brunt of the blame but not because of what they have done. Because they have the democrats scared $hitless. If they weren't scared $hitless they wouldn't have spent so much time blaming and denigrating the tea party. Many in the Republican party are scared $hitless as well. But the dems have gone overboard in taking every opportunity to knock the tea party members.

Who has been in control of congress for almost forever? It wasn't the tea party.

Which party is adamanatly against a balanced budget amendment? It's not the tea party or the Republicans.

Which party is still wanting to borrow and spend more money? It's not the tea party or the Republicans.

But Obama and the dims will continue their slanderous assault on members of congress elected by the tea party.

[Raven_tiger 5]

Ronald Reagan didnt have a problem raising the debt limit, he never submitted a balanced budget...

My link

Editor's note: John Avlon is a CNN contributor and senior political columnist for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. He is the author of "Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America."

(CNN) -- As the debt-ceiling deadline ticks closer, conservatives in Congress are fighting among themselves. The civil war is between responsible Republicans and extreme ideologues. The question is whether the collateral damage will include the American economy.

House Speaker John Boehner abruptly abandoned his attempt to negotiate a "grand bargain" on the deficit and the debt with President Barack Obama because of a lack of support among tea party members, and now he is struggling to keep support for his Plan B intact in the face of an open rebellion.

A senior staff member of the Republican Study Committee was found to have been e-mailing conservative activist groups, encouraging them to attack Boehner's late-inning option as being insufficiently radical. The all-or-nothing impulse makes enemies even of allies.

In the face of this political crisis masquerading as a fiscal crisis, it seems that no one can unite the Republican Party, let alone the nation. If far-right conservatives can't listen to reason, maybe they will listen to Ronald Reagan.

Because Reagan had stern words for Congress when it tried to play political games with the debt ceiling in 1987. They still ring true today.

Pelosi: Boehner bill a no go for Democrats 'Marketplace' host: Default unthinkable Bachmann a 'no' on debt plan McCain criticizes tea party holdouts

I was at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, on Thursday to hear my wife, Margaret Hoover, speak in support of her new book, and I inquired about a Reagan quote that Obama referenced in his Monday night prime-time speech. Reagan offered this particular dose of common sense on September 26, 1987, in a national radio address. Here is the key part of the text:

"Unfortunately, Congress consistently brings the government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility. This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest markets would skyrocket. Instability would occur in financial markets and the federal deficit would soar.

"The United States has a special responsibility to itself and the world to meet its obligations. It means we have a well-earned reputation for reliability and credibility -- two things that set us apart in much of the world."

Congressional Republicans should read that paragraph out loud twice before going to vote on the debt ceiling in the next few days. It is essentially the same argument Obama has been making. But in our current hyper-partisan environment reason doesn't resonate across party lines. Instead, there is too often an overheated impulse to oppose Obama at any cost. Hearing the same argument from the Gipper might inspire a needed sense of perspective.

That loss of perspective is a key symptom of hyper-partisanship. It causes people to forget that the national interest comes before partisan interests. This affliction is epidemic at the moment. Whole segments of the GOP 2012 presidential field are debt-ceiling deniers, arguing that defaulting on our debt doesn't really matter.

Tim Pawlenty has said that he "hopes and prays" that the debt ceiling isn't lifted. Ron Paul made this approach the cornerstone of his first ads. Rep. Michele Bachmann says, nonsensically, that she doesn't believe the nation will default on August 2 but she'll vote against raising the debt ceiling anyway.

There are believed to be dozens of votes in the House Republican caucus who will also oppose any raising of the debt ceiling. They are like a person who refuses to pay a credit card bill after a spending spree and calls it a stand for fiscal responsibility.

The most insidious line of argument is one that encourages default for supposed political advantage.

This sentiment is most often articulated behind closed doors, but Donald Trump brought it out into the open, telling Fox News on Monday: "Unless Republicans get 100% of what they want -- and that may include getting rid of 'Obamacare,' which is a total disaster -- they should not make a deal other than a minor extension which would take you before the elections which would ensure that Obama doesn't get elected, which would be a great thing. ... The Republicans have the leverage. I don't care about polls. When it comes time to default, they're not going to remember any of the Republicans' names. They are going to remember in history books one name, and that's Obama."

What can you say about such a breathtakingly cynical and nihilistic approach to politics, other than it is the exact opposite of John McCain's 2008 campaign slogan, "Country First."

Responsible Republicans are beginning to understand that the conservative populist fires they have stoked to win elections can be the enemy of effective governance. Fiscal responsibility and fiscal conservatism have been effectively delinked. Even a conservative icon such as Reagan would not pass the litmus tests imposed today. After all, Reagan raised the debt ceiling successfully 17 times and increased the deficit during his term in office, a byproduct of his successful strategy to spend the Soviet Union into oblivion.

Most significantly, he closed dozens of tax loopholes as a means of lowering tax rates while still raising revenues -- the same approach that was labeled an unacceptable tax hike by anti-tax absolutists and killed the prospects for a grand bargain with Obama and Boehner.

Reagan governed effectively with a Congress controlled by Democrats. There were principled differences and heated debates, but in the end, the two sides were able to reason together and negotiate in good faith, understanding that all or nothing is not a practical option between fellow countrymen. By demonizing people we disagree with -- especially the president of the United States -- we demean our democracy.

We are playing a dangerous game right now. Republicans do not know what will happen in their own conference, let alone what plan might pass both the House and Senate. And even if we avoid default, this Kabuki theater could have the consequence of downgrading our credit rating. The alleged purpose of this fight has been essentially forgotten -- tax and entitlement reforms are not on the table right now. This will eventually be seen as a lost opportunity. We are just fighting to avoid default.

The dysfunctional debt-ceiling debate needs a dose of common sense before it is too late. Perhaps the unifying figure of Reagan will provide a reinforcement of reason. It's sad and stupid to have to say, but conservatives might accept an argument made by the Gipper, even as they ignore the same appeal made by the current president of the United States.

[au2004ece 30]

Duh, and because every president since Reagan has run a deficit, we have this problem that we have to solve.

The author of your article demonizes those that he disagrees with and then says that we should not demonize those that we disagree with. That's an easy to read signal that he is a bias liberal elitist (he believes he is allowed to do things others should not be allowed to do), crying about not getting his way.

Obama was always going to have to agree to whatever the republicans put up because he was the one that said we would default if the debt ceiling was not raised (which is a lie because 2.5 trillion in revenue would cover our interest payments and plenty of government spending. Not raising the debt ceiling would have led to a balanced budget, not a default.)

[Tigermike 3,425]

Containment, Rollback, and the Debt Compromise

John Podhoretz 07.31.2011 - 9:12 AM

As of now—Sunday morning—word is there’s a deal between the White House and Republicans on a deal to raise the debt ceiling. No tax increases. $1 trillion in immediate budget cuts. A required $1.5 trillion in cuts by November as designed by a bipartisan committee or (if the House and Senate do not agree on them) automatic cuts to Medicare (to scare Democrats) and Defense (to scare Republicans).

If the details are true, and the deal holds, it’s an astonishing achievement for the Right—the most significant conceptual shift in American politics since Bill Clinton​ announced his support for ending welfare in 1996. Without question, there are elements on the Right that will not see it this way—that will say the deal is a sellout, that John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are craven, they are enablers, they are carrying Obama’s water. I’d like to suggest a political analogy from the past that might help explain why they are wrong and why they are being unjust to those who support a deal.

In the wake of the effective Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe after the second world war, the fall of China to Mao, and North Korea’s invasion of South Korea, American anti-Communism split into two camps. One camp actively advocated what was called “rollback”—the application of military force to force the Soviets and their clients to retreat from the countries they had overrun. The other camp supported the doctrine of “containment,” which argued for quarantining Communism within the countries that had fallen under Soviet domination and remaining in a state of cold war with the Soviets and their proxies.

Both rollback and containment had as their goal the defeat of the Soviet Union and world Communism. But the strategies were different. The rollbackers said the peril was so imminent the failure to effect the change immediately would lead to the inevitably victory of the Communists. The containment advocates said we did not have the means to roll back Communism militarily, but if we held the line, over time Communism would self-destruct owing to its evil, its impracticality, and its inability to compete with the free peoples of the West.

The rollbackers thought containment was nothing short of capitulation. In 1952, a firebrand senator from California named Richard Nixon denounced those who had degrees from what he called “Dean Acheson’s cowardly college of Communist containment” as he ran for vice president on the GOP ticket with Dwight Eisenhower. Acheson, a towering figure in American political and diplomatic history, had been Harry Truman’s secretary of state.

Today we remember Truman (and Acheson) as heroes of the Cold War for standing up to the Soviets, saving Western Europe from the advance of Communism, and being so stalwart that they committed U.S. forces by the hundreds of thousands to prevent Stalinist North Korea from breaching the laws of containment and subsuming the South. But to the supporters of rollback in 1952, they were sellout squish liberals and the unwitting (or witting!) agents of Soviet design.

The supporters of rollback were uninterested in the political reality of that moment. They believed the U.S. was locked in a titanic moral struggle literally between the forces of evil and the forces of good, and anything less than the commitment of all available resources to win the battle was a form of surrender. They were morally in the right, but practically in the wrong.

Today those who oppose raising the debt ceiling on the grounds that we need to solve the debt crisis immediately or we will be destroyed by it are the direct descendants of those who supported rollback.

Everyone on the Right agrees that the U.S. is on an unsustainable fiscal path that must be altered. The difference comes down to the acceptance of political realities. Just as the United States could not effect rollback in the late 1940s (or any time thereafter), so too the Right and the Republican Party cannot effect a revolutionary change of course on July 31, 2011 with the Senate and the White House in liberal Democratic hands. The strategy, like containment, must have a longer time horizon, though it has the same goal: Ending the entitlement state before it swallows up the rest of the country.

The conceptual triumph of the Right is evident in two elements of the supposed deal. Take the fact that there are no new tax hikes. It was only 12 days ago that Barack Obama warned House Majority Leader Eric Cantor not to “call my bluff” and said he would go to “the American people on this.” He did; his poll numbers tanked. The “balanced approach” he advocated backfired on him even though he and his people continued to claim it had overwhelming popular support.

Now take the fact that in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling of $2.5 trillion, there will be corresponding dollar-for-dollar cuts. That establishes a new budgetary precedent, a rational and sound one, on the question of the national debt ceiling, one that will restrain presidents of both parties as we go forward.

So who are Obama and the Democrats in my analogy? They are the accommodationists of the early 1950s (and their progeny throughout the Cold War) who declared that the anti-Communist right was a hornet’s nest of crazy people who would ignite a war and get us all blown up. They wanted peace and harmony and cordial relations with the Soviets and their proxies just as the accommodationists today want to put their heads in the sand and refuse to face the moral and political and fiscal threat emanating from the entitlement state. Whereas the rollbackers were wrong strategically but right morally, the accommodationists were wrong strategically and wrong morally.

But those who advocated containment were right strategically and right morally. And their descendants are right to support the debt-ceiling deal.

link

[jj3jordan 2,125]

Ronald Reagan didnt have a problem raising the debt limit, he never submitted a balanced budget...

My link

Editor's note: John Avlon is a CNN contributor and senior political columnist for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. He is the author of "Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America."

(CNN) -- As the debt-ceiling deadline ticks closer, conservatives in Congress are fighting among themselves. The civil war is between responsible Republicans and extreme ideologues. The question is whether the collateral damage will include the American economy.

House Speaker John Boehner abruptly abandoned his attempt to negotiate a "grand bargain" on the deficit and the debt with President Barack Obama because of a lack of support among tea party members, and now he is struggling to keep support for his Plan B intact in the face of an open rebellion.

A senior staff member of the Republican Study Committee was found to have been e-mailing conservative activist groups, encouraging them to attack Boehner's late-inning option as being insufficiently radical. The all-or-nothing impulse makes enemies even of allies.

In the face of this political crisis masquerading as a fiscal crisis, it seems that no one can unite the Republican Party, let alone the nation. If far-right conservatives can't listen to reason, maybe they will listen to Ronald Reagan.

Because Reagan had stern words for Congress when it tried to play political games with the debt ceiling in 1987. They still ring true today.

Pelosi: Boehner bill a no go for Democrats 'Marketplace' host: Default unthinkable Bachmann a 'no' on debt plan McCain criticizes tea party holdouts

I was at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, on Thursday to hear my wife, Margaret Hoover, speak in support of her new book, and I inquired about a Reagan quote that Obama referenced in his Monday night prime-time speech. Reagan offered this particular dose of common sense on September 26, 1987, in a national radio address. Here is the key part of the text:

"Unfortunately, Congress consistently brings the government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility. This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest markets would skyrocket. Instability would occur in financial markets and the federal deficit would soar.

"The United States has a special responsibility to itself and the world to meet its obligations. It means we have a well-earned reputation for reliability and credibility -- two things that set us apart in much of the world."

Congressional Republicans should read that paragraph out loud twice before going to vote on the debt ceiling in the next few days. It is essentially the same argument Obama has been making. But in our current hyper-partisan environment reason doesn't resonate across party lines. Instead, there is too often an overheated impulse to oppose Obama at any cost. Hearing the same argument from the Gipper might inspire a needed sense of perspective.

That loss of perspective is a key symptom of hyper-partisanship. It causes people to forget that the national interest comes before partisan interests. This affliction is epidemic at the moment. Whole segments of the GOP 2012 presidential field are debt-ceiling deniers, arguing that defaulting on our debt doesn't really matter.

Tim Pawlenty has said that he "hopes and prays" that the debt ceiling isn't lifted. Ron Paul made this approach the cornerstone of his first ads. Rep. Michele Bachmann says, nonsensically, that she doesn't believe the nation will default on August 2 but she'll vote against raising the debt ceiling anyway.

There are believed to be dozens of votes in the House Republican caucus who will also oppose any raising of the debt ceiling. They are like a person who refuses to pay a credit card bill after a spending spree and calls it a stand for fiscal responsibility.

The most insidious line of argument is one that encourages default for supposed political advantage.

This sentiment is most often articulated behind closed doors, but Donald Trump brought it out into the open, telling Fox News on Monday: "Unless Republicans get 100% of what they want -- and that may include getting rid of 'Obamacare,' which is a total disaster -- they should not make a deal other than a minor extension which would take you before the elections which would ensure that Obama doesn't get elected, which would be a great thing. ... The Republicans have the leverage. I don't care about polls. When it comes time to default, they're not going to remember any of the Republicans' names. They are going to remember in history books one name, and that's Obama."

What can you say about such a breathtakingly cynical and nihilistic approach to politics, other than it is the exact opposite of John McCain's 2008 campaign slogan, "Country First."

Responsible Republicans are beginning to understand that the conservative populist fires they have stoked to win elections can be the enemy of effective governance. Fiscal responsibility and fiscal conservatism have been effectively delinked. Even a conservative icon such as Reagan would not pass the litmus tests imposed today. After all, Reagan raised the debt ceiling successfully 17 times and increased the deficit during his term in office, a byproduct of his successful strategy to spend the Soviet Union into oblivion.

Most significantly, he closed dozens of tax loopholes as a means of lowering tax rates while still raising revenues -- the same approach that was labeled an unacceptable tax hike by anti-tax absolutists and killed the prospects for a grand bargain with Obama and Boehner.

Reagan governed effectively with a Congress controlled by Democrats. There were principled differences and heated debates, but in the end, the two sides were able to reason together and negotiate in good faith, understanding that all or nothing is not a practical option between fellow countrymen. By demonizing people we disagree with -- especially the president of the United States -- we demean our democracy.

We are playing a dangerous game right now. Republicans do not know what will happen in their own conference, let alone what plan might pass both the House and Senate. And even if we avoid default, this Kabuki theater could have the consequence of downgrading our credit rating. The alleged purpose of this fight has been essentially forgotten -- tax and entitlement reforms are not on the table right now. This will eventually be seen as a lost opportunity. We are just fighting to avoid default.

The dysfunctional debt-ceiling debate needs a dose of common sense before it is too late. Perhaps the unifying figure of Reagan will provide a reinforcement of reason. It's sad and stupid to have to say, but conservatives might accept an argument made by the Gipper, even as they ignore the same appeal made by the current president of the United States.

Reagan believed Tip O'neill but whereas Reagan delivered on his tax increases, Tip never delivered on his 3 dollars of cuts for every dollar of tax increases. More lies from democrats. That is why Reagan's budget did not balance.