Tag Archives: political parties

What Americans Are Saying

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…about the Democrat-manufactured debt ceiling impasse:

A Fox News national poll asks voters to imagine being a lawmaker and having to cast an up-or-down vote on raising the debt ceiling:  37% would vote in favor of it, while 58% would vote against it.

That includes majorities of Republicans (78%), Independents (57%), and Tea Partiers (88%, and which includes a considerable overlap with Republicans).  It’s only the Democrats who are willing to borrow and borrow and borrow with debt moving on in its rapid pace (57% of them).

A majority of Americans, not entirely contradictorily, also say it would be acceptable to raise the debt ceiling if “major cuts in government spending” accompanied the ceiling raise—62%.  Only 27% think it’s a good idea without accompanying spending cuts.

On the standard Who Do You Trust question, 48% of Americans trust Republicans to “cut government spending enough to make a difference in the budget deficit while at the same time not cutting so much that valuable programs are hurt,” compared to 39% trusting President Barack Obama to do that.  This is a sharp shift from last spring, when the split was 42% Republican and 45% Obama.

Obama and his Democrats need to get off their high horse and listen to the American people, their collective boss.

What the Democrats’ Shutdown is Demonstrating

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Following is a partial list, in no particular order, of Federal Cabinets and agencies whose leadership has deemed significant majorities of their work force nonessential.  There are more listed over at Slate:

Office

Per Cent Nonessential

White House

74

Treasury

82

Labor

82

Interior

81

EPA

94

NASA

97

Housing and Urban Development

96

Education

94

Commerce

87

Smithsonian

84

There are others, also, with a different per centage of nonessentials:

Office

Per Cent Nonessential

U.S. Commission of Fine Arts

100

U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness

100

USDA Risk Management Agency

100

Federal Maritime Commission

100

Economic Development Administration

100

Minority Business Development Agency

100

And in a telling comment on the Obama administration’s attitude, over at the Ag Department all of the employees—every one of them—in the Office of Ethics have been deemed nonessential (along with those of the Offices of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights and of the Chief Economist).  Go figure.

Plainly, all of these Cabinets and agencies could do with some serious downsizing.  Sure, sure, a significant per centage of these nonessentials really are essential over a long run—the admin assistants, for instance, who are the true heart of any office in which they work—but plainly another significant per centage of these nonessentials are nonessential, over any time frame.

There’ve also been some small moves to eliminate/privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two Federal Agencies Government Sponsored Enterprises whose misbehaviors contributed so heavily to the housing market bubble and burst that occurred on the front end of the Panic of 2008.  Now we see, courtesy of the Democrats’ shutdown (maybe these guys are doing us a favor, after all) another Federal housing agency that’s in the way of our economy:

Housing-industry officials, for example, predict a lengthy shutdown could make it tougher for home buyers to secure mortgages, in part because of reduced staffing at the Federal Housing Administration.

This is another Federal facility that’s plainly in the way of our economy.

“Negotiations”

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President Barack Obama often publicly chants his mantra of “[I] will not negotiate over the terms of debt limit legislation…[I am] willing to discuss a range of issues once the government is reopened and the Treasury able to borrow freely again.”

Given Obama’s credibility, though, on what basis can he be trusted to negotiate in good faith when there’s no pressure on him?  More, recall that in the last debt ceiling fiasco just a couple of years ago, Obama personally (and cynically, say I) blew up one deal very near to completion with a deliberately late demand for $1 trillion in higher taxes.

Here are further examples of Obama’s willingness to negotiate:

In a 2011 address to Congress:

[Republicans’] vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America [and] children with autism or Down’s syndrome [should] fend for themselves.

At a Rockville, MD rally a few days ago:

single-greatest threat to our economy…the unwillingness of Republicans in Congress to stop refighting a settled election.

And

John Boehner…doesn’t want to anger the extremists in his party.  That’s all.  That’s what this whole thing is about.

And

Republican obsession [with] denying affordable health insurance to millions of Americans.  That’s all this has become about.  That seems to be the only thing that unites the Republican Party these days.

In a recent NPR interview covering, among other things, the then-imminent government shutdown:

Interviewer: What can you offer [to Republicans]?

Obama: [W]hen you say, ‘What can I offer?’—I shouldn’t have to offer anything.

Yeah, those are sound negotiating ploys, all right.

Finally, and not too unrelated, as Congressman Louie Gohmert (R, TX) says,

The [Obama] hissy fit is going to have to end[.]

Debt Default Redux

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) continuing his meme of refusing to negotiate, says

We not only have a shutdown, but we have the full faith and credit of our nation before us in a week or ten days[.]

Never mind that this could have been settled much earlier in the year, but for Democrats’ and President Barack Obama’s intransigence:

Reid and other Democrats blocked numerous attempts…to approve House-passed bills reopening portions of the government.

And there’s that whole “Presidential” series of “veto threats against GOP spending bills” thing.  The “GOP” part is the kicker.

In the end, it’s clear that, having gotten the government shutdown for which the Democrats have fought so hard, they’re now bent on default.

Again, I ask, why?  I also ask against this backdrop: from Section 8 of our Constitution we have

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States….

Paying the national debt isn’t just one of only three purposes for which the Federal government is permitted to “lay and collect Taxes;” it’s the first purpose.

And from the 14th Amendment we have

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.

The Federal government collects in tax revenue roughly 10 times the amount of money required to make the payments on the national debt as they come due.  Suggesting that that’s in danger, that debt default is a risk, is dishonest.