U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urged Congress to raise the national debt limit, now at 8.965 trillion dollars, saying the country may be unable to pay its bills this fall.
“I am writing to request that Congress raise the statutory debt limit as soon as possible,” said Paulson in a letter to Congress. He estimated that the government is likely to bump into the statutory debt limit in early October.
The national debt limit has been boosted several times since President George W. Bush took office in 2001. The last time was in March 2006 when [rubberstamp] Congress agreed to raise the debt ceiling by 781 billion dollars.
In February last year, the Bush administration said it had begun to use a government employee pension fund to avoid hitting the then national debt limit of 8.184 trillion dollars.
This is getting lots of coverage abroad – especially in China where Paulson is handing out free advice on how to run their economy.
#31
Call me a perv, but I’d actually like to see someone artificially inseminate a mosquito! Lulu – get the popcorn!
#31 – Steve,
If you’re trying to sell people on the fiscal conservativeness of Republicans, you might want to selectively avoid mentioning the Bridge to Nowhere. It’s a purely Republican project.
http://tinyurl.com/dem6f
#33 – Misanthropic Scott,
Nope, my point is that I do better when there is a fiscal conservative in the Whitehouse. I don’t two two shits about WHICH party is building a road/bridge/colon to nowhere I just get tired of them doing it with our money.
Republican or Democrat, I have yet to see one who was honest and that could keep from spending their ass off with our money.
#31, Steve,
It has pissed me off to the point where I voted against Republicans in the last local elections.
Halleluja !!! A convert !!!
*
Why point out only Jack Murtha’s name? The Bridge to Nowhere, was Don Young and Ted Steven’s doing, both Republicans. You didn’t mention any of Murths’s sponsored earmarks. Isn’t that a little disingenuous. Were you trying to insinuate Murtha had something to do with the Bridge to Nowhere? What are his earmarks and are any of them justified? BtoN is bad.
Research into mosquito control is good; most of mankind’s deadliest diseases are carried by mosquitoes. Mosquito research is good.
So let’s get this into perspective. You falsely attribute one ear mark then miss the point of a second. But, both are bullshit. Let me guess, you are wildly in favor of a huge spending increase for the military, higher subsidies for farmers not farming, more tax incentives and exploratory grants to the oil industry, and more free research for drug companies.
#35
I point Murtha out because I dislike him and his name popped into my head. As for Stevens if he did the BtoN then he is just as bad. I wasn’t picking on one party at the expense of the other since I am pissed off at both.
As for budgets I am for the troops to get a pay raise but not all the crap the military wants and no subsidies to the farmers period or grants to drug cos or oil companies either one.
#36
meh — under hw bush i had to work in a warehouse even with a degree in compsci, lots of people were outta work because the economy was still rattled by the s&l crisis caused by reagan’s shady bank policies, under clinton, tech took off and things got better, the debt reagan/bush racked up went away and i was proud to be an american
now i find myself again in fear that the national debt will suck the wind right out of the economy.
face it man — republicans are bad for the economy, the environment, our constitution, our morals (torture is now good), and our freedom
they give people each a few hundred bucks and in return they get total control — what a bargain
p.s. — please spare me about slick willie’s philandering — you can be a freakin virgin and still be a liar, a thief, and a murderer
#30
Again, you are showing your ignorance about economics. It has nothing to do with whether Congress is Constitutionally authorized to impose a progressive tax. It has everything to do with whether it is effective in increasing tax revenue. Raising taxes on the rich encourges them to move their money into investments that are shielded from taxes. The Reagan years and now the Bush years have proven that to be true. You act as if you think that economics is a zero sum game: if the rich get richer then everyone else must be getting poorer and that is simply not true. The middle class improved tremendously during the Reagan years because the overall economy improved.
I never said the rich should not pay any taxes. However there is an optimal tax rate above which you decrease the tax revenue because the benefit gained by putting money into non-taxable investments exceeds that of taxable ones. That means less taxable money available and thus less tax revenue.