[FULL STORY]
WASHINGTON—A “real solution” to U.S. fiscal problems isn’t possible as long as President Barack Obama remains in office, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday, heightening the rhetoric surrounding the debt-ceiling debate.
“This debt-limit increase is his problem,” Mr. Boehner said after a morning meeting with Republican House members. “The president talks a good game, but when it comes time to actually putting these issues on the table, making decisions, they can’t quite pull the trigger.”
Mr. McConnell said he concluded after the latest negotiations that the administration had “expressed a fundamental unwillingness” to agree to significant spending cuts.
What the actual fuck. Boehner and his cohorts have voted to increase the debt ceiling every time it has come up in the past unilaterally, no strings attached, every time it’s come up before, and what the hell does he mean “This debt-limit increase is his problem,” - it’s fucking EVERYONE’S problem, this entire fucking country’s problem, yet they want to sit back, play games and point fingers.
I seriously don’t understand how fuckers like this stay in office and how so many people can’t see past their game playing bullshit.
Surveying the scene, perhaps everyone should take a deep breath and recall the traditional way the country has avoided default when the debt ceiling needs raising: Congress raises the debt ceiling.
It’s that simple. The same kind of “clean” debt ceiling increase that’s passed repeatedly over the past 100 years will allow the country to avoid default without tax increases, without defense cuts, and without slashing entitlement spending. Education will be spared. So will transportation, health care, farm subsidies, and everything else. The interest rates investors are charging the American government to buy our debt are extremely low right now. The world economy is suffering from an excessive demand for American debt, not by reluctance to lend. All we need to do to keep our finances flowing is to raise the statutory debt ceiling…. Right now, though, the only crisis we face is an entirely self-created one. - Matt Yglesias
Yeah, I’m trying to wrap my head around why all of a sudden the right acts like they don’t want to raise the debt ceiling.
It’s almost like they want to destroy the economy so they can blame it on the left…
(Source: liberalsarecool)
[SOURCE]
In an interview with CNBC, Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha and one of the world’s wealthiest men, took sharp shots at politicians in Washington negotiating over raising the debt ceiling. Buffett said if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, the U.S. would default on its debt and that is unprecedented and we simply don’t know how that would turn out. That’s why he compared the situation to a game of russian roulette. He said five times out of six everything would be fine but that one bullet could do a ton of damage. Playing, he said, is “silly.”
“We raised the debt ceiling seven times during the Bush administration” he said. “Now in this administration they are using it as a hostage. You don’t have any business by playing russian roulette to get your way in some other matter. We should be more grown up than that.”
Buffett said Congress is playing with “fire when you shouldn’t be playing with fire.” He said corporate America should be telling Congress, “shame on all of you.” And said that Republicans and Democrats are both to blame. There is “enough blame to go around.”
[Video of CNBC interview @ NPR.org]
