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badgenome on 31 July 2011
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Akvod said:
badgenome said:
Akvod said:


The Democrats never dragged out a debt ceiling debate until 2 days before the treasury runs out of money.

This is madness. The damage is already done, whether we raise the debt ceiling or not. If our legislative branch is going to put the world economy at risk until (?) the last minute, who knows if they're going to do it again in the future.

Firstly, the treasury cannot run out of money unless it chooses to. And if having billions of dollars flowing in every single day is "running out of money", then I only wish I could run out of money. Second, I would argue that the Democrats are doing exactly that, just as much as the Republicans. After all, it's the Republican House which has produced two bills, both of which were immediately killed by the Senate without even taking them up for debate. Maybe there are good reasons not to "rush" a balanced budget amendment through like this, but the second bill was pronounced dead on arrival even before Boehner had to tack on a BBA, and that despite the fact that it was remarkably similar to Reid's own bill - aside from the fact that Boehner's bill has, you know, actual cuts (to the extent we are even talking about cuts, since these are all actually only reductions in the growth of spending) instead of bullshit accounting tricks. Reid couldn't even muster a substantive reason as to why, unless you count "EWWWW IT SMELLS LIEK TEH T PARTY!!111" as substantive (which you might).

If you really think the damage done by these dickheads squabbling over the debt ceiling is worse than that done by the debt itself... I really don't know what to say to that. That's pretty out there.

The treasury is running out of money... that's a fact. Unless you're proposing that the platinum coin idea is a viable one. Still doesn't change the fact that we're trying to avoid having to resort to extreme measure to pay our obligations.

A balanced budget adment is completely out of the question. It's not a matter of "rushing" it. It's simply radical.

The squabling is ultimately due to the Republicans. The President initially wanted to just have a debt ceiling raise, no strings attached. Just like all the other times. The Republicans are the ones that actually tied this to the deficit. Not the Democrats. The Republicans wanted to use this as an opportunity to enact spending cuts.

Uh... no. Even leaving aside the fact that American fiscal policy has long boiled down to, "Fire up the presses, boys!" - which risks inflation, sure, but you've long argued that we're facing deflation, not inflation, no? - failing a debt ceiling deal, we can still easily meet our real obligations with the money that continues to come in on a daily basis.

I mean, I know you're this diehard believer in Keynesian nonsense who hangs onto the every utterance of Paul Krugabe like it's the fucking Gospel, but in what way is a balanced budget amendment (especially one with so many exemptions for defense and entitlements as the Republicans' worthless attempt at one) more "radical" than this ruinous deficit spending? When so many Democrats agree that spending needs to be cut, to the point that even Obama professes to not want a clean debt ceiling raise anymore, what on Earth is the argument against agreeing to cuts now? Given the similarities between the Reid and Boehner bills, Reid's entire reason for killing Boehner's bill boils down to, "I don't wanna!" That doesn't exactly jibe with his stance that we're facing ahhhhhhhh, financial armageddon! If anything, not only are the Democrats playing politics with the situation just as much as the Republicans, they're playing an even stupider game here.