Debt Ceiling Showdown: GOP Pledges To Extract Cuts From Obama (with partial government shutdown)

[onehandle]

Source: Huffington Post

WASHINGTON -- The just-completed deal to resolve the so-called fiscal cliff has created an even greater cliff down the road. By the end of February, lawmakers will have to grapple with $1 trillion in sequestration cuts that are scheduled to take effect and the need for a debt limit increase. Shortly thereafter, they will have to deal with the end of a continuing resolution to keep the government funded

Any one of these issues on its own would be difficult to resolve. Taken together, they could produce complete gridlock, which itself would have deep economic consequences.

President Barack Obama has pledged that he won't negotiate over the debt ceiling as a matter of principle. But Republicans are still insisting that they will extract as many concessions from the talks as they can.

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" this week, "we Republicans need to be willing to tolerate a temporary, partial government shutdown" in order to achieve spending cuts and entitlement reforms.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/04/debt-ceiling-showdown_n_2409656.html

[BlueNoteSpecial]

1. Just keep opening those pie holes, geniuses.

[still_one]

2. It screwed them when they did this the last time, and it will again. I hope if they try to use it

as a hostage situation the President uses the 14th amendment.

I also hope they do filibuster reform

[KansDem]

3. "...in order to achieve spending cuts and entitlement reforms"

Start with the Pentagon, corporate subsidies, billionaire tax breaks, and Wall Street banksters and keep your f*cking hands off Social Security and Medicare!

Savvy, GOP?

[peacebird]

13. +a million. Please call Congress and tell your reps the same thing.

[Garion_55]

4. 'our wall street CEO corporate masters

wont mind us bring the economy to a halt and costing them billions of dollars for no good reason either. they will support that'

[SCVDem]

5. Mint the Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin

Then shove it up McConnells ass!

Traitors all, who would purposefully damage the integrity of our country!

[mostlyconfused]

16. The trillion dollar coin is probably more likely than any real cuts

It doesn't seem like there is a politician in Washington that will actually cut anything....and that's a problem, because this budget gap cannot be closed on the revenue side.

[EC]

6. Boehner better be ready to

pigeonhole these guys and work with Nancy to get things done. If he wants to go down in history as the worst - he's got that pegged, but if he wants to change that and be at least an average, he better learn how to scrap the Hastert rule forever.

[jwirr]

7. Partial government shutdown? What do they mean by that - withhold social security checks?

[starroute]

12. Social Security would still go out -- but new applicants would not be processed

There are summaries of likely effects at these links:

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/federalbudgetprocess/a/Government-Shutdowns.htm

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2011/02/18/133868759/if-government-shutdown-happens-prepare-for-collateral-damage

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/02/what-would-a-government-shutdown-look-like.html

The most obvious impacts on the ordinary citizen would be on applications for new services, processing of income tax refunds, and possibly applications for passports and visas. National parks and monuments would be closed, and certain services to veterans would be curtailed.

The second of those links also notes that in 1995, "the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ceased disease surveillance; hotline calls to NIH concerning diseases were not answered; and toxic waste clean-up work at 609 sites reportedly stopped and resulted in 2,400 Superfund workers being sent home. ... Delays occurred in the processing of alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives applications by the Bureau of Alcohol,Tobacco, and Firearms; work on more than 3,500 bankruptcy cases reportedly was suspended; cancellation of the recruitment and testing of federal law enforcement officials reportedly occurred, including the hiring of 400 border patrol agents; and delinquent child-support cases were delayed."

[jwirr]

14. Thank you.

[veganlush]

8. Just let the sequester cuts occur

that should be plenty enough to offset the the debt ceiling increase

[Yo_Mama]

9. No, it won't be

The "trillion dollars" in sequestration is over the course of ten years. The debt ceiling needs to be raised to cover about 900 billion in excess spending (over revenues) in one year.

So they'd be about 800 billion short this year. Obviously we are going to borrow most that money, sooner or later. The Fed is pushing cuts to entitlement to make the future debt trajectory look better.

[DallasNE]

10. My First Question For Toomey Would Be

Where was he when Bush took budget surpluses and turned them into trillion dollar deficits. This is like closing the barn door after the horse has gotten out.

That is not to say that spending doesn't have to be scrutinized but that the debt ceiling is not the proper vehicle for doing that. The appropriation process is the place to extract these "reforms".

[samsingh]

11. i hope social security and medicare are not reduced in anyway

[Historic NY]

15. If they really want to go there...defense should not be a scared cow..

Scrap the F35 JSF, Canada and now others may backpeddle on purchasing them. With Canada backing out their costs will rise. The costs has alreay risen. The entire program is expected to run at 1.45 trillion over is lifecycle. The F22 Raptor program needs to be straighten out and fixed before we start down the un-need and un-necessary expanse.

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2012/12/13/canada-puts-breaks-on-f-35-program/

http://www.businessinsider.com/canada-backs-out-of-f-35-deal-2012-12