The GOP Debt Limit Success Charade
The political dust hadn’t even settled when all the principals were grinning and back-slapping over the snarky, bi-partisan debt suckering of the American people by those same national leaders. Barack Obama was elated, almost tearfully happy he had averted not the imminent default but at avoiding being labeled as The Default President.
Harry Reid was overjoyed, overjoyed for the funereal Harry Reid, at his coup. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell basked in what they erroneously called a Republican victory, of sorts.
Wisely kept out of the negotiating loop, Nancy Pelosi sulked and concurred that the deal was a “Satan sandwich” yet caved and voted to eat that delicacy rather than have to manufacture an original thought. With the triumphal Gabby Giffords in the House and in favor of the bill, Aunt Nancy couldn’t very well vote against her.
Actually, in a great and confused rhetorical leap, Democrat Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (MO) had termed the engineered debt agreement a “sugar coated Satan sandwich,” although it’s difficult for conservatives and anyone else interested in fiscal sanity to taste its sweetness.
Perhaps Cleaver had in mind the Urban Dictionary’s definition of a Satan sandwich as “The chiefest of hell’s dark delights, it is said that just one bite of it arouses an unspeakable lust of terrific potency,” although that’s unlikely since Cleaver is a minister and ministers aren’t supposed to think that way.
Whatever you choose to call the bill raising the nation’s debt limit, to term it a successful agreement would be subverting the meaning of success.
Can it be characterized as a success when the nation’s debt ceiling is raised by as much as $2.4 trillion, the largest increase by far in our history, second only to the 2010 increase of $1.9 trillion, both of which major gradations occurred under the careful watch of President Obama and his accomplished tax cheat Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner?
Can it be characterized a success . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5154)
Showing posts with label debt limit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label debt limit. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
The Impending Debt Star
The Impending Debt Star
Thomas Carlyle characterized economics as “the dismal science” in the eighteenth century. It hasn’t changed much in the twentieth, particularly as it relates to our federal government’s handling of the economy and most particularly as it concerns the current debt crisis.
That “handling” has, in fact, gone beyond dismal and has breached the realm of the hopelessly bleak as a result the ongoing, contentious debate over the so-called “debt ceiling,” that is, to raise it for the umpteenth time and burden our children and grandchildren with even more debt or to stop the fiscal insanity of borrowing even more money from people like the Chinese to pay our bills.
Running our households like government runs our government would eventually bankrupt individuals just as the feds and local politicians are bankrupting the country and any number of states.
Washington, of course, has a unique advantage over places such as New Jersey and Wisconsin in that in D.C. they have an alternative to all that borrowing: They can simply print more dollars when they exhaust the national treasury or when China indicates it holds too much of our insecure notes.
If Joe Blow or Joe the Plumber had access to dollar printing presses, both Joes would be accused of counterfeiting yet politicians get away with it.
The issues most Americans understandably refuse to confront are unpalatable and painful.
After all, this is America, exceptional, invincible, wealthy, and wise. We can’t, we refuse to believe we can go bankrupt! We can’t undergo anything akin to post-World War I Germany when it took a wheelbarrow full of virtually worthless papiermarks to buy a loaf of bread! We refuse to accept that our paper bucks, the value of which is based not on anything with intrinsic value such as gold but on the full faith and credit of the United States of America, will succumb to hyper-inflation!
It simply can’t happen here!
To paraphrase the chief architect of our fiscal plight: Yes, it can.
Daniel J. Flynn in “Five Falsehoods of the Debt Debate” lists only the most recent “falsehoods,” a euphemism for lies, perpetrated by that architect.
They include . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5037)
Thomas Carlyle characterized economics as “the dismal science” in the eighteenth century. It hasn’t changed much in the twentieth, particularly as it relates to our federal government’s handling of the economy and most particularly as it concerns the current debt crisis.
That “handling” has, in fact, gone beyond dismal and has breached the realm of the hopelessly bleak as a result the ongoing, contentious debate over the so-called “debt ceiling,” that is, to raise it for the umpteenth time and burden our children and grandchildren with even more debt or to stop the fiscal insanity of borrowing even more money from people like the Chinese to pay our bills.
Running our households like government runs our government would eventually bankrupt individuals just as the feds and local politicians are bankrupting the country and any number of states.
Washington, of course, has a unique advantage over places such as New Jersey and Wisconsin in that in D.C. they have an alternative to all that borrowing: They can simply print more dollars when they exhaust the national treasury or when China indicates it holds too much of our insecure notes.
If Joe Blow or Joe the Plumber had access to dollar printing presses, both Joes would be accused of counterfeiting yet politicians get away with it.
The issues most Americans understandably refuse to confront are unpalatable and painful.
After all, this is America, exceptional, invincible, wealthy, and wise. We can’t, we refuse to believe we can go bankrupt! We can’t undergo anything akin to post-World War I Germany when it took a wheelbarrow full of virtually worthless papiermarks to buy a loaf of bread! We refuse to accept that our paper bucks, the value of which is based not on anything with intrinsic value such as gold but on the full faith and credit of the United States of America, will succumb to hyper-inflation!
It simply can’t happen here!
To paraphrase the chief architect of our fiscal plight: Yes, it can.
Daniel J. Flynn in “Five Falsehoods of the Debt Debate” lists only the most recent “falsehoods,” a euphemism for lies, perpetrated by that architect.
They include . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5037)
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Lies, Race, and the Debt Ceiling
Lies, Race, and the Debt Ceiling
President Barack Hussein Obama’s alternate universe is catching up with him. Being an inveterate and practiced liar can do that to a person. Such people eventually tend to an inability to distinguish truth and facts from fiction and fantasy.
Obama demonstrated reality slippage when he misstated his daughter’s age and even seems confused as to his own age. Those examples are relatively harmless, except to his daughter and birthday planners. However, his flight into fantasy on public support for higher taxes in lieu of massive spending cuts is positively dangerous, disturbing, and symptomatic of his allegedly massive brain in disarray, or his continued baldfaced lying.
Fortunately–for Barack–his back is well-covered with the race card supplied by black racist Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas). And, here I thought America was beyond all that race crap thanks to our first semi-African-American president!
Having already scared the bejesus out of elders by threatening to cut off their Social Security checks, just one day following the publication of a highly reputable Rasmussen Report showing that barely a third of Americans favor raising taxes to pay for more Democrat profligacy and that 55% oppose that insanity, Obama announced at a press conference that 80% of the public is “sold” on the necessity of tax hikes.
As I said, baldfaced lying or alternate universe. I’m not sure which is worse.
Neither Rasmussen nor the president made crystal clear the source of their percentages. The Rasmussen survey was based on a telephone sampling of a thousand likely voters taken July 12-13. See all the Rasmussen Report numbers here: http://bit.ly/o9Kaxl
Obama didn’t poll anyone. His 80% “sold” was predicated on wishful thinking.
Neither officially factored in the 45% of Americans who pay no federal income taxes or the one-seventh of the public that collects food stamps, groups which overlap and which couldn’t give a damn about the national debt or taxes since they don’t pay any taxes and are living on the public dole.
Further illustrating his reality disconnect, or blatant lying, or both, the ideologically-driven leftist Obama also pointed out the essential cause of the D.C. stalemate on the debt limit: ”The problem is [Republican] members of Congress are dug in ideologically” and virtual slaves to lobbyists and “special interests.”
He made no mention of his own locked-in special interest constituencies, the tax-free 45% and the food-stampers. (http://bit.ly/rq8lt2)
Our leader has no worries, though. Astronomical national debt, record deficits, the potential bankruptcy of the United States of America are of little consequence. All of this partisan brouhaha has nothing to do with the issues at hand, according to Rep. Jackson Lee. It all has to do with race. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5015)
President Barack Hussein Obama’s alternate universe is catching up with him. Being an inveterate and practiced liar can do that to a person. Such people eventually tend to an inability to distinguish truth and facts from fiction and fantasy.
Obama demonstrated reality slippage when he misstated his daughter’s age and even seems confused as to his own age. Those examples are relatively harmless, except to his daughter and birthday planners. However, his flight into fantasy on public support for higher taxes in lieu of massive spending cuts is positively dangerous, disturbing, and symptomatic of his allegedly massive brain in disarray, or his continued baldfaced lying.
Fortunately–for Barack–his back is well-covered with the race card supplied by black racist Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas). And, here I thought America was beyond all that race crap thanks to our first semi-African-American president!
Having already scared the bejesus out of elders by threatening to cut off their Social Security checks, just one day following the publication of a highly reputable Rasmussen Report showing that barely a third of Americans favor raising taxes to pay for more Democrat profligacy and that 55% oppose that insanity, Obama announced at a press conference that 80% of the public is “sold” on the necessity of tax hikes.
As I said, baldfaced lying or alternate universe. I’m not sure which is worse.
Neither Rasmussen nor the president made crystal clear the source of their percentages. The Rasmussen survey was based on a telephone sampling of a thousand likely voters taken July 12-13. See all the Rasmussen Report numbers here: http://bit.ly/o9Kaxl
Obama didn’t poll anyone. His 80% “sold” was predicated on wishful thinking.
Neither officially factored in the 45% of Americans who pay no federal income taxes or the one-seventh of the public that collects food stamps, groups which overlap and which couldn’t give a damn about the national debt or taxes since they don’t pay any taxes and are living on the public dole.
Further illustrating his reality disconnect, or blatant lying, or both, the ideologically-driven leftist Obama also pointed out the essential cause of the D.C. stalemate on the debt limit: ”The problem is [Republican] members of Congress are dug in ideologically” and virtual slaves to lobbyists and “special interests.”
He made no mention of his own locked-in special interest constituencies, the tax-free 45% and the food-stampers. (http://bit.ly/rq8lt2)
Our leader has no worries, though. Astronomical national debt, record deficits, the potential bankruptcy of the United States of America are of little consequence. All of this partisan brouhaha has nothing to do with the issues at hand, according to Rep. Jackson Lee. It all has to do with race. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5015)
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Defrocking the Obamessiah
Defrocking the Obamessiah
While it’s true that “to err is human, to forgive divine,” it’s still shocking, I tell you, when our president admits to making mistakes.
After all, he was sold to the American people as someone different from other pols, a man who not only looked different but thought and acted on a higher plane, a flawless man cast by the media as a virtual messiah who would save us from the evils of George W. Bush, who could do no wrong, who had an unparalleled vision of America’s future.
We have now seen that vision and it is more akin to a nightmare.
Now, I don’t suggest that making errors is grounds for impeachment or anything of the sort. Obama’s impeachable offenses may never come to light. What I am implying relates to the mighty falling, the collapse of an icon. With his flimsy resume’, virtually nothing was known about the man so his handlers were free to create an unreal figure who stood–soared–above the fray, whose mellifluous words captivated millions, whose vague “vision thing” enthralled and bewitched the rabble.
The president’s less-than-divine gaffes and errors, everything from his claim to have visited all 57 states, to his nomination of a tax cheat, Tom Daschle, as HHS Secretary, to picking Bill Richardson as Commerce Secretary, to his closed-door meetings on Obamacare, to the BP Gulf oil spill, to the Cambridge cop debacle, to closing GITMO, etc. have all been fully documented.
His latest confession of error is noteworthy not because of the admission itself or because he made a mistake. We all make mistakes, even presidents, even, as we have seen over the past 27 months, presidents on pedestals. His concession of an error made five years ago when, in one of his first votes as junior senator from Illinois, he voted against raising the national debt ceiling is less significant than his reasons for that vote. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4145)
While it’s true that “to err is human, to forgive divine,” it’s still shocking, I tell you, when our president admits to making mistakes.
After all, he was sold to the American people as someone different from other pols, a man who not only looked different but thought and acted on a higher plane, a flawless man cast by the media as a virtual messiah who would save us from the evils of George W. Bush, who could do no wrong, who had an unparalleled vision of America’s future.
We have now seen that vision and it is more akin to a nightmare.
Now, I don’t suggest that making errors is grounds for impeachment or anything of the sort. Obama’s impeachable offenses may never come to light. What I am implying relates to the mighty falling, the collapse of an icon. With his flimsy resume’, virtually nothing was known about the man so his handlers were free to create an unreal figure who stood–soared–above the fray, whose mellifluous words captivated millions, whose vague “vision thing” enthralled and bewitched the rabble.
The president’s less-than-divine gaffes and errors, everything from his claim to have visited all 57 states, to his nomination of a tax cheat, Tom Daschle, as HHS Secretary, to picking Bill Richardson as Commerce Secretary, to his closed-door meetings on Obamacare, to the BP Gulf oil spill, to the Cambridge cop debacle, to closing GITMO, etc. have all been fully documented.
His latest confession of error is noteworthy not because of the admission itself or because he made a mistake. We all make mistakes, even presidents, even, as we have seen over the past 27 months, presidents on pedestals. His concession of an error made five years ago when, in one of his first votes as junior senator from Illinois, he voted against raising the national debt ceiling is less significant than his reasons for that vote. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4145)
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