28 Replies to ““Obama requests $1.2T increase in debt ceiling””

1. leigh says:

   January 12, 2012 at 2:17 pm

   That doesnn’t sound very obstructionist to me. I think Obama is lying to us.

2. newrouter says:

   January 12, 2012 at 2:19 pm

   i have $0.86 in the couch if that helps

3. charlesaustin says:

   January 12, 2012 at 2:23 pm

   Fund it one day at a time at 90% of current budget levels. Keep the debt in the public eye every single day and use this to effect Congress’ own version of the line item veto or make Obama and Harry Reid responsible for the cuts. It also has the side benefit of keeping Congress from much other mischief.

   In other news, cold and snow and ice hit St. Louis last night and today. Those in charge here deicded not to treat the roads to save money. Really bad idea, but entirely consistent with the first cuts causing the most pain so as to avoid any reduction in spending.

4. Bagehot99 says:

   January 12, 2012 at 2:24 pm

   Wait. Didn’t we just increase the debt limit? In return for immediate spending cuts? So how come we need to borrow more? I’m not sure I am fully understanding the Boehner/McConnell 3D chess game that is going on here….

5. proudvastrightwingconspirator says:

   January 12, 2012 at 2:33 pm

   Of course they need more money.
   Mrs. Worf and the baby Romulans still have lots of exotic, expensive vacations yet to take!

6. Ernst Schreiber says:

   January 12, 2012 at 2:41 pm

   This is why focusing on defeating Obama himself is an underpants gnome strategy. He doesn’t need a second term.

7. And pigs could fly, too, if they could only get out of that stupid poke » Cold Fury says:

   January 12, 2012 at 2:56 pm

   […] update! Sigh. “Obama requests $1.2T increase in debt ceiling” And why wouldn’t he? But don’t worry: […]

8. JHoward says:

   January 12, 2012 at 3:08 pm

   From the pledge:

   (3) repeal and replace Obamacare,

   It’d all be tragic if it weren’t so funny. Hahahaha.

9. JHoward says:

   January 12, 2012 at 3:13 pm

   This is why focusing on defeating Obama himself is an underpants gnome strategy. He doesn’t need a second term.

   Hey there; Team R don’t need that kind of unhelpful talk around here.

10. Ernst Schreiber says:

    January 12, 2012 at 3:24 pm

    Well, you know me, Mr. unhelpful SoCon racistsexistbigothomophobe zealot.

    thanks for the needed laugh

11. motionview says:

    January 12, 2012 at 3:25 pm

    Damn. If we just outnumbered them 2 to 1 or something. Then they would show Obama what-for!

12. Jeff G. says:

    January 12, 2012 at 3:39 pm

    You’re unhelpful, motionview. The numbers may say we’re the majority, but our leaders know we’re fringe, and that if we don’t listen to them we’ll have to live in a socialist state and it will be our fault.

13. mojo says:

    January 12, 2012 at 4:22 pm

    “Never tease an old dog. He might have one good bite left in him.”

14. RI Red says:

    January 12, 2012 at 4:28 pm

    What, is it Ground Hog day again? Tell me when they agree to appoint a Super Committee.

15. motionview says:

    January 12, 2012 at 4:28 pm

    Happy to be unhelpful. These numbers really are just unreal. Two times as many conservative independents as liberal independents. Five times as many conservative Democrats as liberal Republicans. Three to one conservative to moderate among people who think of themselves as Republicans.

    Gallup does not provide a partisan breakdown but I think I backed it out correctly, R/I/D of 31/34/35. That is different than Rasmussen’s from Dec 2012, 35/32/33 R/I/D. If Gallup normalized the survey to get his party ID numbers, this poll is concealing even more conservative sentiment.

16. JHoward says:

    January 12, 2012 at 4:33 pm

    It seems you’re saying we’ve been royally bullshat, motionview. Heaven help us if we ever bullshit one another before a presidential election.

    On a national scale and per the strategies we openly regard as those of our lying adversaries.

17. dicentra says:

    January 12, 2012 at 4:39 pm

    OMG! OMG! OMG!

    Why didn’t I know that the next Transit of Venus is June 5, 2012???

    I’m currently reading Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon, where they go to Cape Town to view it, and it’s all kinds of weird. (The novel, that is, not the transit).

    If it’s cloudy that day, I’ll have no further reason to live.

18. charlesaustin says:

    January 12, 2012 at 6:17 pm

    What is buying this $1.2T herd of unicorns to maintain the status quo going to do for us that the last three herds didn’t?

19. JD says:

    January 12, 2012 at 7:05 pm

    Motionview – I think a big problem with that identification thing is that many proggies self identify as independents. They either believe it, are ashamed to admit it, and/or are just dishonest.

20. Swen says:

    January 12, 2012 at 7:17 pm

    I’d be more heartened by their pledge to find “common sense solutions” if they actually appeared to have any common sense. Pledging to cut a relatively trivial $100 billion from their proposed $1.4 trillion in deficit spending tells me that they’re still far from serious. Clearly these guys aren’t the answer, they’re part of the problem….

21. motionview says:

    January 12, 2012 at 8:42 pm

    Rush mentioned today, after debating with himself whether or not to discuss it, that the Republican freshmen had been completely marginalized. We’re losing 3 Republican party hacks due to redistricting here in CA; 2 of those districts could readily go to a conservative. We need a new big class of TEA Party freshmen.

22. Ernst Schreiber says:

    January 12, 2012 at 9:28 pm

    We need a big class of TEA Party freshmen, a resentful class of TEA Party sophomores, and some ambitious upperclassmen willing to put principle before the Seniority system and leapfrog into leadership and chairmanships.

    Anything is possible when the House votes on the rules for thenext Congress, but only then.

23. newrouter says:

    January 12, 2012 at 9:47 pm

    Labor Day Speech at Liberty State Park, Jersey City, New Jersey

    September 1, 1980

    It is fitting that on Labor Day, we meet beside the waters of New York harbor, with the eyes of Miss Liberty on our gathering and in the words of the poet whose lines are inscribed at her feet, “The air bridged harbor that twin cities frame.”

    Through this “Golden Door,” under the gaze of that “Mother of Exiles,” have come millions of men and women, who first stepped foot on American soil right there, on Ellis Island, so close to the Statue of Liberty.

    These families came here to work. They came to build. Others came to America in different ways, from other lands, under different, often harrowing conditions, but this place symbolizes what they all managed to build, no matter where they came from or how they came or how much they suffered.

    They helped to build that magnificent city across the river. They spread across the land building other cities and towns and incredibly productive farms.

    They came to make America work. They didn’t ask what this country could do for them but what they could do to make this refuge the greatest home of freedom in history.

    They brought with them courage, ambition and the values of family, neighborhood, work, peace and freedom. They came from different lands but they shared the same values, the same dream.

    Today a President of the United States would have us believe that dream is over or at least in need of change.

    Jimmy Carter’s Administration tells us that the descendants of those who sacrificed to start again in this land of freedom may have to abandon the dream that drew their ancestors to a new life in a new land.

    The Carter record is a litany of despair, of broken promises, of sacred trusts abandoned and forgotten.

    Eight million out of work. Inflation running at 18 percent in the first quarter of 1980. Black unemployment at about 14 percent, higher than any single year since the government began keeping separate statistics. Four straight major deficits run up by Carter and his friends in Congress. The highest interest rates since the Civil War–reaching at times close to 20 percent–lately down to more than 11 percent but now going up again–productivity falling for six straight quarters among the most productive people in history.

    Through his inflation he has raised taxes on the American people by 30 percent–while their real income has risen only 20 percent. He promised he would not increase taxes for the low and middle-income people–the workers of America. Then he imposed on American families the largest single tax increase in history.

    His answer to all of this misery? He tries to tell us that we are “only” in a recession, not a depression, as if definitions—words–relieve our suffering.

    Let it show on the record that when the American people cried out for economic help, Jimmy Carter took refuge behind a dictionary. Well if it’s a definition he wants, I’ll give him one. A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. Recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.

    I have talked with unemployed workers all across this country. I have heard their views on what Jimmy Carter has done to them and their families.

    They aren’t interested in semantic quibbles. They are out of work and they know who put them out of work. And they know the difference between a recession and a depression.

    Let Mr. Carter go to their homes, look their children in the eye and argue with them that in is “only” a recession that put dad or mom out of work.

    Let him go to the unemployment lines and lecture those workers who have been betrayed on what is the proper definition for their widespread economic misery.

    Human tragedy, human misery, the crushing of the human spirit. They do not need defining–they need action.

    And it is action, in the form of jobs, lower taxes, and an expanded economy that — as President — I intend to provide.

    Call this human tragedy whatever you want. Whatever it is, it is Jimmy Carter’s. He caused it. He tolerates it. And he is going to answer to the American people for it.

    Last week, more than three years after be became President, he finally came up with what he calls a new economic program. It is his 5th new economic program in 3 ½ years. He talks as if someone else has been in charge these past few years. With two months to go until the election he rides to the rescue now with a crazy-quilt of obvious election-year promises which he’ll ask Congress for–next year. After three years of neglect, the misery of unemployment, inflation, high taxes, dwindling earning power and inability to save–after all this, American workers have now been discovered by this administration.

    Well it won’t work. It is cynical. It is political. And it is too late. The damage is done and every American family knows who did it.

    In 1976 he said he would never use unemployment as an economic tool to fight inflation. In 1980 he called for an increase in unemployment–to fight inflation.

    In 1976 he said he would bring unemployment and inflation down to 3 percent.

    Who can believe him? Unemployment is now around 8 percent, inflation is 12 ½.

    link

24. geoffb says:

    January 12, 2012 at 10:05 pm

    A piece on the shift in Party identification that I saw several days ago.

    According to the latest Rasmussen Poll, 21% — more than one in five — Democrats have abandoned the Party since Obama’s election as president. While most have become Independents, identification with the Republican Party has also risen not only since 2008 but also even since the GOP’s 2010 victory.
    […]
    So dramatic a shift, totaling eleven points since Obama’s election (Dems down by 8, Republicans up by 3) means that had Obama faced McCain in the current political environment, he would have won by five rather than losing by six.

    But even that doesn’t tell the story. Surveys of Independents find that they have long since jumped from the Obama ship. His job approval among Independents consistently ranks in the low 30s. He cannot expect much relief from that corner.

25. happyfeet says:

    January 12, 2012 at 11:32 pm

    here is the viral video thing

26. Les Nessman says:

    January 13, 2012 at 5:07 am

    “We need … some ambitious upperclassmen willing to put principle before the Seniority system …”

    Hahaha. Ain’t no such thing.

    Retain and add to the number of Tea Partiers in Congress is our only hope for the short term. Longer term our only hope is reforming our education system.

27. motionview says:

    January 13, 2012 at 10:14 am

    Les where’s your bandaid today? On second thought don’t tell me.

28. Some Experience Really Is More Equal Than Other Experience | Daily Pundit says:

    January 13, 2012 at 12:30 pm

    […] Really Is More Equal Than Other Experience Posted on January 13, 2012 11:30 am by Bill Quick “Obama requests $1.2T increase in debt ceiling” And why wouldn’t he? But don’t worry: Boehner and McConnell were quick to tell the President he […]

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