The inmates have taken over the asylum.

[Guinevere]

McCarthy out of the Speaker contest (but is staying the Majority Leader (yeah, I bet)).

Vote delayed until who knows when.

The White Male (aka "freedom") Caucus pushes forward Dan'l Webster (who is no Daniel Webster).

[Econoline]

[Sue U]

I blame Obama.

[MajGenl.Meade]

... and he blames Hillary! Ha!

[wesw]

gee, the leadership doesn t like democracy. poor babies.

you need a majority assholes. if you don t have it you don t get to be speaker. put on your big boy pants and quit your whining

chaffetz for speaker!!!!!

[Lord Jim]

chaffetz for speaker!!!!!

I saw Chaffetz a few days ago saying he would have no problem with refusing to raise The Debt Ceiling limit, which disqualifies him in my view...

Of all the many things that the Tea Party types misunderstand, they probably misunderstand The Debt Ceiling the most...

This is not an authorization to allow the government to engage in new spending or borrowing...

It is a vote permitting the government to meet the spending authorizations and appropriations it has already incurred under existing law, passed by the Congress and signed by the President.....

Frankly, we shouldn't even be having "debt ceiling" votes...

It should be taken as a given that once spending is approved, the United States government will pay the bills incurred by that spending that has been approved...

This should not even be a debate topic...

The debt ceiling issue should not be confused (though it frequently is) with the government funding issue...

While "shutting down the government" over the government funding issue is embarrassing, and costly, and should be firmly avoided, it is a minor issue compared to failing to raise the debt ceiling....

In terms of ongoing economic consequences, a good analogy would be a mosquito bite versus a tiger mauling...

An order of magnitude many times greater...

It's absolutely unacceptable for a Speaker of The House to take the position that debt default would be ok...

I suspect that in light of what has happened with McCarthy, even though he's said he doesn't want it, the pressure will greatly increase on Paul Ryan to take the job...

I also suspect that there may be a move to get Boehner, if not to withdraw his resignation, to at least postpone it beyond the end of this month (which he can do)

[wesw]

he already has said that he would stay on until a new speaker was elected

if we are dumb enough to spend money that we don t have we deserve to face the repercussions

if you are in a hole stop digging

19 trillion ain t enough for you, jim

stop the madness

[rubato]

The Tea Party has won. The ignorant rump of the GOP whose policies are too idiotic even to be tried have seized control.



yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

if you are in a hole stop digging

Wes, that's a perfect illustration of what I'm talking about when I say the Tea Party types don't understand what raising the debt ceiling means...

It's NOT about continuing to "dig a hole"...

It's about sending the payment check to pay for the hole you've already dug...

To draw an analogy:

It's not like saying "okay, I'm not going to buy a new car"....

It's like saying, "okay, I'm going to default on the payments for the car I already bought"...

[Sue U]

I agree with you, Jim. Unfortunately, the Frankentstein monster loosed by the Kochs, Dick Armey and Faux News has taken up residence in the House and is preparing to murder its erstwhile masters. This is the GOP's very own self-inflicted injury, and you'll excuse me if I don't have any fucks to give about the party's disarray.

[wesw]

jim, it s not that I don t understand that.

how about we just cut our spending, and not incur new debt to cover the old debt, wouldn t that work too?

isn t it more like borrowing from peter to pay paul?

come on man, I m not dumb, I just think we need to face the music to cut our losses

quit throwing good money after bad

[rubato]

More than two years ago there was a crisis in the GOP when it became apparent that the Tea Party were not only embarrassing simpletons but harmful when they kept demanding government shutdowns which only hurt the GOP.

I thought then that the party elders would come up with a strategy to neutralize them, but I was surprised. What they did instead was only go after Tea Party candidates only in districts where extremist idiocy might cost them the seat but they let all the others go. A cowardly but practical solution. In the end it was leaving the toxin in their own system so that it could raise a nice carbuncle at the least convenient time; like now.

The complete veniality of Republican strategy so far argues against it but their best bet now is to form an alliance with the democrats to elect a speaker and then, one by one, remove the tumors from their own body.

Ted Cruz rants against GOP supporters who have accepted political and scientific reality and would change the GOP Dicta because, gosh darn it, the facts are against them, he says they aren't "real" conservatives because they are able to learn from history and experience. But the party as a whole needs some way to admit that many of their policies are wrong and have failed and need to change. The Ted Cruzes and Tea Partiers will never admit reality.

If the GOP does not find a path through this which admits for change then they will fail. If they govern the United States when this happens then we will all fail. We will fall into a bleak future indeed.

Shadenfreude would be a comfort at this point but they have already hurt us too much to joke about.


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

jim, it s not that I don t understand that.
how about we just cut our spending, and not incur new debt to cover the old debt, wouldn t that work too?

No wes, I'm sorry, you're still not getting it...

If my wife and I decide as a household, that we need to "tighten our belts" and reduce our spending, we're not going to do it by saying, "Okay, let's not pay last month's PG&E bill" or "Let's not make our mortgage payment" or "Let's not make payments on our credit cards for stuff we already bought"

That would not be a particularly prudent course of action...(unless of course, we want to sit in the dark while we wait for the sheriff to evict us... )

That is a precise analogy to not raising the debt limit...

"Raising the Debt Limit" is an unfortunate phrase because it lends (no pun intended) itself to being misunderstood...

If they insist on continuing to have votes on it, (and as I've said I see no reason to have votes on it... we have an authorization and appropriation process in place, that should be sufficient... arguments about spending are properly hashed out at that point in the process...not after you've already made the financial obligation) they should change it to a vote on "Agreeing To Pay Outstanding Bills"...

[wesw]

I get it jim. I m not advocating not paying our bills.

of course you will pay the light bill and the mortgage.

but that vacation in Tahoe could go if necessary, right?

those car payments could be traded for a fifteen yr old car that you paid cash for, couldn t they?

you don t really need that new suit do you?

girl scout cookies are out.

the dinners at fine dining establishments could go

first class is out, heck coach is too much when things are tight.

the maid can be let go

the gardener is out

country club dues are an extravagance, not a necessity

you get the point.

[Lord Jim]

but that vacation in Tahoe could go if necessary, right?

Absolutely...

If I'm thinking about a new vacation in Tahoe...

If I'm thinking about paying off the bills owed on the vacation in Tahoe from last summer that we already incurred...

I still have an obligation to pay those bills...

You're just not going to get this, are you Wes?

Okay, now I understand why Ben Carson is so popular...

ETA:

I get it jim. I m not advocating not paying our bills.

That's great, we're having a break through...

In that case, you have to be in favor of raising "the debt limit"...

Because that's all that raising the debt limit does; it allows the federal government to pay its existing bills; it does not authorize one penny of additional spending....

[wesw]

jim jim jim....

I get it. it is impossible to ever get out of debt in jimland


no it is not. pay the debt that is due, but for god s sake we are taking new Tahoe vacations every friggin month.

cut spending and we will have the money to pay the debt down and not just struggle to service the interest

it ain t rocket science brother

[wesw]

please don t ask me to state which spending I would cut.

don t make me go all jim Coburn on yer ass

[Econoline]

Obama Saves America From Republican Failure
By Bringing Deficit Below 50 Year Average

“Big government and debt doubled under a Republican administration,” 2016 Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul said. “And it’s now tripling under Barack Obama’s watch.”

Those are some scary words, and they feed the willfully ignorant frenzy driving Republicans to refuse to raise the debt ceiling. That and their failure to understand what the debt ceiling actually is.

As we head into yet another GOP shutdown showdown allegedly over Republicans unwillingness to pay off the debt they’ve already spent, it’s worth noting reality for a moment. The Congressional Budget Office put the deficit for the just ended fiscal year at 2.4% of GDP, below 50-year average, and also, 2015 was the sixth consecutive year in which the deficit declined as a percentage of GDP.

• The federal government ran a budget deficit of $435 billion fiscal year 2015, CBO estimates—$48 billion less than the shortfall recorded in fiscal year 2014, and the smallest deficit recorded since 2007. Relative to the size of the economy, that deficit—at an estimated 2.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)—was slightly below the average experienced over the past 50 years, and 2015 was the sixth consecutive year in which the deficit declined as a percentage of GDP since peaking at 9.8 percent in 2009. By CBO’s estimate, revenues were about 8 percent higher and outlays were about 5 percent higher in 2015 than they were in the previous fiscal year. CBO’s deficit estimate is based on data from the Daily Treasury Statements; the Treasury Department will report the actual deficit for fiscal year 2015 later this month.

We can’t have an honest discussion about the deficit without noting that “the FY2009 federal deficit was running at a rate of $1.2 trillion on the day he (President Obama) took office in the midst of a financial crisis.”

Also, Factcheck continued (note this was written in 2014):

• But a fact that may surprise Obama’s critics is that Obama’s spending increases have been historically modest — much smaller than his predecessor’s, and well below the rate of inflation. Federal spending in the current fiscal year, which ends this month, is running only 7.9 percent higher than it was when the president took office. This increase is well below the 12 percent rise in the Consumer Price Index, which we’ve mentioned.
  …
  But the spending increase under Obama would be even lower — only 5.9 percent — if we used the most recent estimate of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office from August 27. CBO puts the current year’s outlays at just over $3.5 trillion. The final, actual spending figures for this year should be announced sometime next month, and we’ll report on them in our next update.

And right when I was about to credit Republican austerity for some of this:

• To be sure, some of the spending restraint has been forced on Obama by a Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Even so, the contrast with the Bush administration’s spending increases is quite dramatic. Federal outlays rose nearly 33 percent during the first four fiscal years for which Bush signed the appropriations bills (FY2002 – 2005) and rose again by another 34 percent during the next four fiscal years, even subtracting $203 billion from FY2009 to adjust for Obama’s additions that year.

PolitiFact checked Rand Paul’s claim and found “Quite a few readers asked us if the debt has tripled since Obama took office in January 2009. We took a look at the numbers, and it hasn’t. It’s increased about 1.7 times.”

Want to know how Rand Paul’s “office” justified his claim? Watch the shells move (my bold):

• Looking at the whole statement — not just the second clause — Paul wasn’t saying the debt has tripled under Obama alone. Instead, he was saying that it doubled under President George W. Bush. And since Obama took office, it has risen to a point that is triple what it was when Bush first took office. By this measure, Paul’s statement is closer to accurate. Let’s go through the numbers.

Jobless claims also fell to near a 42-year low today, after the Department of Labor released their update:

• In the week ending October 3, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 263,000, a decrease of 13,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised down by 1,000 from 277,000 to 276,000. The 4-week moving average was 267,500, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised down by 250 from 270,750 to 270,500.

So what we have here is a President who has set historic records for continuous private sector job growth, has lowered spending increases dramatically – in fact they have been “historically modest”, and the deficit for the just ended fiscal year is at 2.4% of GDP, below 50-year average.

What’s it all mean? It means that President Obama is not the big spender Republicans make him out to be, unless they really want to blame him for picking up the tab for their 2007 financial crisis and the two unfunded wars they started and put on a credit card. So when Republicans talk about not raising the debt ceiling due to their objections to “spending”, not only is this irresponsible because the money has already been spent, but it’s irrational and ridiculous. For a big spender, see Obama’s predecessor – the entitled “decider”.

In other words, President Obama is the only adult in the room.

[Lord Jim]

Obama Saves America From Republican Failure
By Bringing Deficit Below 50 Year Average

Okay, well that's also a lot of crap, because the largest reasons for that are The Sequestor (that Obama fought against tooth and nail) low interest Fed policies, and the fundamental underlying strength of the US economy...

[wesw]

sheesh econo, grown folks are having a reasonable civil discussion of political policy and philosophy.

back to children s table please


anyway jim, I am not saying that we should miss any payments, the debt ceiling needing to be raised is a symptom, not the underlying problem.

if we don t cut spending the only alternative is to raise taxes