GOP dissension over debt-ceiling strategy

[TomCADem]

Source: Washington Post

There are early signs of division within the Republican Party over how to approach the upcoming debate over raising the federal debt ceiling.

On Friday, a top Senate Republican signaled that members of his party should be prepared to play hardball and be willing to accept the kind of consequences in each previous fight they’ve threatened but managed to avoid.

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) likewise insisted that Republicans hold the line, telling his members they must demand that every dollar they raise the debt limit be paired with commensurate spending cuts.

But other Republicans counseled caution, warning that pressure from the business community and the public to raise the $16.4 trillion federal borrowing limit renders untenable any threats not to do so and will weaken the GOP’s hand if their stance is perceived to be a bluff.


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-dissension-surfaces-over-debt-ceiling-strategy/2013/01/05/6dd24012-56ab-11e2-a613-ec8d394535c6_story.html

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How do you negotiate with a House that simply does not know how to govern? A large contingent of Republicans pledged NEVER to raise the debt ceiling, thus they even voted against the 2011 deal that Boehner negotiated. Thus, you have Republicans already trying to paint an upcoming default as a deliberate strategy: “It may be necessary to partially shut down the government in order to secure the long-term fiscal well being of our country, rather than plod along the path of Greece, Italy and Spain,” Cornyn wrote. “President Obama needs to take note of this reality and put forward a plan to avoid it immediately.”

Really? Even Gingrich would recognize the shutting down the federal government made him an incredibly unpopular figure, and Boehner already has the lowest popularity of any member of Congress.

[ChristineIAm]

1. GOP: The Party of Bad Ideas

The GOP has no ideas acceptable to the majority of the public, we the people.

When you have no ideas, you take hostages.
I say: Do NOT negotiate. Do not give their hostage taking of the Debt Ceiling power.

[Amonester]

2. 'Taking hostages' is what terrorists do.

The DHS should keep an eye on them...

[putitinD]

3. the GOP hasn't gotten anything right since1865.

[John2]

4. Think about

who the stupid GOP is comparing the United States to. The United States is being compared to Italy,Greece and Spain. These are old European Countries, that were World powers hundreds and thousands of years ago. That was a different World back then.

The United States today is the most powerful country in the World militarily and has over 300 million people. The U.S. has the World's largest economy which other countries depend on. The reason why is simple. You have American investors like GM and GE located in other countries. You have American Bankers in other countries and a lot of these over 400 American Billionaires have investments around the World. Think about Susan Rice's investments and Mitt Romney's investments. Romney even alluded to our own President might have some Foreign investments. We have over four million millionaires in the United States also.

The personal wealth by some people in this country far outweighs that in any other country. The people in our government are probably more wealthy than any people in any other government in the World. Need I say more? Where do people think they obtained all this wealth?

[GoCubsGo]

11. Yep. They don't even know how their own damn country is run.

Yet, they want the power to run it? We are NOTHING like Greece or Italy, and with their insistence on "austerity, THEY are the ones trying to turn us into another Greece.

[AlbertCat]

5. must demand that every dollar they raise the debt limit be paired with commensurate spending cuts

OK....

Cut the Defense Budget.

There will still be plenty of $$$$ for defense.

[Owl]

13. Absolutely right.

[jthompson]

6. We Don't Have To Raise The Debt Ceiling

All we have to do is take some of the 10 trillion America's wealthy have stashed in the Cayman Islands. You know, the money they stole by using "special" loopholes to avoid paying taxes like the rest of us. Or else we could use some of the 5.5 trillion American corporations have in cash by taxing them like other countries tax their corporations..... Maybe we could tax the 18,000 companies located in that Cayman Island building.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=21+trillion+offshore

America has plenty of money to pay it's bills. It is all held by the hoarders at the top. They pay 13.9% of their income in taxes, or possibly nothing, and we pay 50% or more sometimes.

Maybe they should do a hoarders reality show, and show America's wealthy, and how little they pay compared to what they take.

[jthompson]

7. Make Them Happy

For every dollar the debt ceiling is raised, we cut the military, and corporate pork by $1. Everybody is happy right?

My idea is all US corporations pay a 40% minimum corporate tax on their profits, and we eliminate stupid writeoffs like writing off moving offshore. They only way they lower their rate is by hiring Americans and paying them well.

Five problems all solved at the same time.....

Ten million Americans would be hired in a week. Maybe more.

"But what about the stockholders!" I hear them screaming.

You mean the hoarders.....

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=21+trillion+offshore

[PADemD]

9. +1000

Just saw your number of posts. Welcome to DU!

[Volaris]

12. and speaking of the stockholders...

I say, we define "PROFIT" as the amount of money that you report to your stockholders that you made for them the previous year. No more of this "well, we SPENT that money, so we dont actually HAVE it on the books as PROFIT, you see, so it doesn't get to be TAXED the same as the OTHER money we have, etc, ad nausem..." bullshit. If you report it to your shareholders, it counts as profit, no matter what your books might otherwise say.

If Obama REALLY wants to re-work the Tax Code, I'm all for that. But if a fifth-grader can't file my taxes when he is done (and a high school graduate can't do goldman-sachs') I would rather him not bother. It will just create more opportunity for the theives to lobby for ways to skim off the top.

[AlbertCat]

16. corporations pay a 40% minimum corporate tax on their profits

Clinton made them pay something around the European Corp Tax....about 17% I think... as a mandatory minimum tax.

We had a surplus.


Everyone that was rich then remained rich. So will it be again.

[John2]

8. If ordinary

Americans have any sense of reality, they would see the farce our Government is perpetuating on us. We have our military in over 150 countries with large presence in Germany, Japan, South Korea, Kawait, Afghanistan,and a significant presence in Great Britain and Italy. Italy is one of the countries the GOP mentioned. Our country is the present day Rome and the wealthy is benefiting off our Empire. You want to know who runs Japan? And the GOP insults us by comparing the United States to Greece, Spain and Italy?

[DCBob]

10. Dear Sen Cornyn, The President is well aware that there are psychos in the House.

Thats why he said he wont negotiate the debt ceiling.

[samsingh]

14. kick

[alcibiades_mystery]

15. They're going to fold on that: Dow's at its highest point in two years

The automatic actions that will have to take place (because of triggers written into securities contracts, especially bond and derivative deals) should the US be downgraded again will jam up the Wall Street guys like nothing else in recent history. They're going to be on the phone with any serious Republicans telling them that the spigot goes off if they let this happen.

The deficit is a con game for these guys. They use it to lower taxes on themselves, period. Yes, they might have an eventual fear of crowding out and similar fiscal issues, but it's really just a way of benefiting themselves. They don't really believe that the deficit is actually a structural problem at this level; only the suckers who fall for the deficit con believe that. So to send everything over the edge for the deficit? That would defeat the very purpose of the deficit con game.

So, they're going to be on the horn with Boehner and others, and they're going to stop this nonsense.

[cascadiance]

17. Then ask the GOP bums to raise taxes by their own recommendation to avoid the "path to Greece"...

Since one of the primary reason that Greece is in trouble is that they didn't collect enough taxes from their wealthier citizens, unlike the other European countries that did that are in better shape.

Tell the bastards that if you REALLY want to avoid Greece, then YOU should recommend us collecting MORE taxes from the wealthy to fix the SIMILAR problems of not having collected enough taxes in recent history from the wealthy just like Greece hasn't! If you can't recommend that, sit down and shut up as you don't know how to govern!

[JDPriestly]

18. "plod along the path of Greece, Italy and Spain"

Each of those countries mercilessly slowed its economy to a near-stop by imposing austerity instead of raising tax rates on the rich and then enforcing them.

[Morganfleeman]

19. This is overly simplistic

I live and work in Europe and deal with multinationals in the EU. The problem in Europe runs far deeper than not taxing the wealthy. It's also failing to tax the underground economy, excessive borrowing, excessive overbuilding, corrupt bureaucrats, uncompetitive labour markets, to name a few.