Last week this is what a gleeful John Boehner had to say about the GOP having their ransom demands met on the debt deal:
When you look at this final agreement that we came to with the White House, I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I’m pretty happy.
And tonight, for the first time in this country’s history, “S&P cut the long-term U.S. credit rating by one notch to AA-plus,” because:
The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy … It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options.
Congratulations, Mr. Speaker.
Think S&P got it right?
Wave a fond goodbye to our AAA rating. We’ll never see that again. Another legacy of Cheney’s bonehead war. Money is still going down that rat-hole & others. We can’t stop ourselves from our absurd, profligate spending & will never be able to un-ruin ourselves.
Oh, by the way:
claim its the entitlements sb it’s
didn’t loose his job sb lose
put in jail or hung sb hanged
American got 100% of what it did not want. Which was more Political BS with no real solutions. Just bail themselves out by giving the Country another debt extension!
Since when does S&P run the world? Why are we giving so much credence to one of the outfits that put us all in this mess to begin with?
Now that Republicans got 98% of what they wanted, I’m sure the disaster in front of us will be attributed to the 2% he didn’t get.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/6911-why-i-voted-no-on-the-deficit-deal
S&P downgrade? You mean that Murdoch company that failed to do their job by not downgrading the firms owning toxic assets leading to the meltdown? Oh yeah. Great to have them on board now to raise the interest on the debt by another $150Billion.
So Puke’s, how are you explaining this 98% success plan with your spawn when they look for work in 5 years?
Downgrade means nothing unless the yield on US bonds goes up.
It has been going down, as John C. Dvorak (JCD) said on the last No Agenda.
That should add about a trillion to our debt without our having to spend a single cent.
Boehner is an absolute short-sighted idiot. So’s Obama. So’s the whole lot of them.
Fuck political parties.
They’re all out to grab whatever they can and they owe allegiance to the party first and to the country second.
I’d like to line them all up against a wall and use them as a urinal instead of the other way around. Shooting’s too quick for ’em.
If an individual had the financial situation of the US, would they have a good credit rating?
Of course not.
So everybody stop bitching. This country is in deep shit,and it is not the fault of the Speaker.
Y’all are forgetting… what the Republicans want is for the economy to go into the shithole so people will vote against Obama in 2012. Any good news in the economy would be credited to (rightly or wrongly) Obama and the Democrats. The Republican politicians don’t care about any recession. They’re rich! They’ll do just fine.
98% of what they want is for the economy to tank. So they can blame Obama. And if the American people are lazy and inattentive enough to buy it, then we deserve what we’ll get with Republicans running things: another 8 years of Dubya-esque rape and pillage.
S&P are the same guys that gave Enron a triple A rating.
I say we vote every one of those bastards out of office, and start over with fresh political minds.
#43 Politicians are politicians, in or out of office. We vote this batch out, we’ll get some more of the same. The only real solution is people paying attention to the political process. But as long as we want government benefits without paying for them, our problems will continue: politicians will get elected by telling us we can have something for nothing. The ones who tell us we have to tighten our belts will NOT get elected.
S&P Got it right. The US is rapidly reaching the point that anyone that can do math understands it is going to start breaking obligations. Five years tops most likely less.
One interesting point is we are required by the Constitution to honor our national debts.
#10 gemini “This is really biased reporting.”
I am surprised you can find anything on here that you can call reporting. You will NEVER find anything without bias.
“If the US Government was a family, they would be making $58,000 a year, they spend $75,000 a year, and are $327,000 in credit card debt. They are currently proposing BIG spending cuts to reduce their spending to $72,000 a year. These are the actual proportions of the federal budget and debt, reduced to a level that we can understand.” ~ Dave Ramsey
This is why the US got downgraded.
The Obama, Boehner “grand bargain” debt limit deal with would have been better for the country and it’s credit rating but 95% of what they wanted wasn’t good enough for the those who have been duped by the Koch/Murdoch TEA-had to get that extra 2% and be sure Obama didn’t look like the leader.
Now we all get to choke on their 2%, thanks fools.
Lets just hope China thinks we are to big to fail or we get going on Bowles-Simpson.
“Unfortunately, decades of reckless spending cannot be reversed immediately, especially when the Democrats who run Washington remain unwilling to make the tough choices required to put America on solid ground,” Speaker John A. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said in a statement. From the NY Times.
Uh, Mr Boehner, the US debt was going in the right direction in 2000 under Clinton and we actually had a surplus. Its not decades of reckless spending.
In 2001 we got Shrub foisted on us and the economy went to hell, we just masked it with deficit spending on a scale that was entirely unprecedented.
Was Afghanistan unnecessary? Probably. The Taliban were shouting that the Arab world had to feed them and would probably have turned Bin Laden over since it was not playing well with the Wahabi Sheiks until we showed up and shifted rubble around.
Was Iraq unnecessary? Totally. WMDs were Bush bullshit that Fox foisted on the American public.
Mr Boehner, your sudden discovery of fiscal responsibility was about a decade late.
Suck the cum out of my fully hard dick, eat my shit and die you slimy weasely grandstanding hypocritical scumbag
In # 46 deowll said: One interesting point is we are required by the Constitution to honor our national debts.
I fully expect to hear republicans to remark Fuck that! If we don’t respect our citizens, seniors and veterans, what the fuck would make you think we’d respect our constitutional obligations?
If you lent the US money, you’re fucked.
Jason, what you didn’t point out is that the Liberals got the debt under control in Canada during the 90’s. And put in banking governance. And cut the size of the federal workforce. You should be thanking Paul Martin.
Try not to rewrite history too much.
#50 well said and very hot reading!
Much as I like and admire President Obama, more and more I remember a line from irrepressible journalist Molly Ivins (except she was talking about President Clinton):
… weak as truck stop coffee
Patso
“The first rule of holes: when you’re in one, stop digging.”
Molly Ivins
#36, S&P downgrade? You mean that Murdoch company that failed to do their job by not downgrading the firms owning toxic assets leading to the meltdown?
#42, S&P are the same guys that gave Enron a triple A rating.
Yes, it is. Interesting they grouped the US in that same rating. I wonder if they were wrong with the US’s rating as well and are just now heading in the right direction . . .
#44, Politicians are politicians
I agree 100%.
Another problem with voting them all out is we are now on the hook for another 537 LIFETIME “salary-equivalent” retirement package.
I’m not even going to do the math on that one. It would just be too depressing, I fear.
#46, One interesting point is we are required by the Constitution to honor our national debts.
And THAT is why we would never have defaulted unless the President directed the treasury to do so. We might have had to cut some pork out of the budget, but we would not have defaulted.
#50, In 2001 we got Shrub foisted on us and the economy went to hell, we just masked it with deficit spending on a scale that was entirely unprecedented.
That isn’t entirely accurate. He didn’t cause it all by himself. In fact, government revenue was higher vs. GDP than it was during Clinton — and that was with TWO economic downturns.
Did that save us? No. He increased regulations (look at the national registry) and increased government borrowing (look at the numbers).
If you are going to bash, please use the correct facts.
Shrub inherited a pretty damn good balance sheet, debt at 30% GDP and falling, and the Congressional Budget Office projecting public debt eliminated by 2009.
#57, You lay too much blame/praise on the President, a single man.
People trying to lay blame and point fingers at single persons or a separate chapter of the false left/right cult need serious mental hospitalization and care.
This is a collective problem that began more than a decade ago (some would say it began with the formation of the privately held bank called the federal reserve) and was brought on by not only each president but also every member of both houses that sit on their thrones in the district of criminals. With that it boils down to the citizens that elected these cultists.
The credit rating should have been lowered far lower than it has been. AA+? Please, what a joke.
With our collective history of increased borrowing and ever increasing debt limit it is clear that we all are dead beats with zero intention or ability to pay it back.
If I was the creditor I would grant this one final debt increase with an increased interest rate. Then I would put the US on notice; This is your final increase. If you come back begging for more you will be notified that you have 30 days to pay all outstanding debts in full or face liquidation.
#56, Another problem with voting them all out is we are now on the hook for another 537 LIFETIME “salary-equivalent” retirement package.
Well, now. Let this be a lesson for me. I should have done my regular research before popping off here.
http://tinyurl.com/3c6gtjx
From what this website says, members of congress don’t serve one term and then get their salary for life. They are treated like any other federal employee. They can’t retire until they are 50 either.
Counting congressional/senatorial/Pres/VP and current retirees, I get a total of about $118M/yr.
That doesn’t even fit into the round-off error of the budget.
My apologies, guys.
#57 foobar said, …
“Shrub inherited a pretty damn good balance sheet, debt at 30% GDP and falling, and the Congressional Budget Office projecting public debt eliminated by 2009.”
Maybe the debt would have had a chance of being eliminated if the DotCom boom of 1999 had never ended. More likely, the dotcom boom would have had to continue ramping up at its dizzying pace all the way to 2009 to have had any chance of that occurring.
As it was, Congress made the temporary influx of DotCom revenue a permanent presumption of annual income from the 1990’s on. Sadly, that was far from the reality. This permanent increase in spending of temporary money had occurred before Bush became President. Also note that the ONLY reason that Clinton had a “balanced” budget in 1999 was that dotcom boom money kept rolling in faster that Congress anticipated for several years running. If they had anticipated it, they would have preemptively spent it so there would have been no chance for Clinton’s “balanced” budget to occur.
#48, its actually worse than that since what they are saying are cuts are not actually cuts, since they are not off the current budget, but off the myth that is baseline budgeting.
A better analogy would be, a family Making $58,000 a year, and spending $75,000 with $327 grand in credit card debt. Instead of cutting 3 thousand from the 75 thousand, instead they say we project that we will be spending $80,000 in 10 years, but instead we are going to cut from that and only spend $77,000, and acting like they have really cut anything, instead of actually adding $2,000 in extra spending.
Any budget that includes “baseline” spending increase should be killed and never see the light of day, and those that proposed it should be run out of town.
Drive by Poster, so you’re saying that Bush was handed a raw deal? Or you’re saying that the ballooning defects had nothing to do with policy?
Certainly there was a recession, but it was a rounding error compared to other factors.
Until someone in Washington cares enough to stop the bleeding of USA jobs overseas, the economy is going to tank. We must rewrite the unfair trade agreements.