Holy Mary, Mother of God - Boehner loses his ever-loving mind

[Stephanie]

from hyperventilating to cartoons..

 

[BillyV]

There's not another country that comes HALF way to having the GDP we have; spending for defense is what protects those interests globally. Lines on a map are only as valid as the ability and willingness of those behind them to defend them. We also are the world's policeman, like it or not, and the world economy is wildly better off for our being there. And frankly, I'd rather support an engineer's job at Lockheed-Martin or Raytheon than continue to increase spending for people whose greatest gift to society is increasing the ratings for daytime TV.

I've never read anything that was so contrary to Jefferson's views.
No, it is not our responsibility to police the world. How has that worked out for you so far? Korea, Viet Nam, Nicaragua, Iran, Columbia, Iraq, Libya... how did the US citizenry (not the Military Industrial Complex / politicians) benefit? How exactly has say, Iran, Iraq or Columbia shown their appreciation?
And while you talk about how these continual military engagements are good for our economy, perhaps you would like to explain how the cost of those wars helps us?
Seriously deep kool-aid drinking there.

I'm sorry; did I miss the part where we were asking WWJD (What Would Jefferson Do?) (OK, bad joke, couldn't resist).
I didn't say I have supported every war we've ever been involved in, did I? All I said was we have global interests and we must protect those interests, nothing about "War is good for the economy" as you seem to imply. As a side benefit, the world is a much more stable place under the blanket of protection we provide. Stability creates economic success, instability destroys it. So we have benefited from this role, although not to the extent that some of our allies have; some of them have been able to be greater producers of consumer goods because they don't need to invest as heavily in defense. We have been the greatest power for good in history, despite what the apologists think. In 50 years if the Chinese, as has been forecast, are the major superpower, I sincerely doubt it will be with the beneficence which we have shown.
As for my other comment, I would definitely rather support a skilled worker in the defense (or any other) industry with our scarce resources than someone who is just taking up space. We have a serious problem; I have heard our debt situation called "The most predictable financial crisis in history". We have only a short time in which to deal with it before it destroys us. Punishing the most productive members of our society to provide free cable and cell phones is insanity. Yes, we must find more revenue; preferably from economic expansion, but by raising rates if necessary. That should be a last resort after the government is re-sized, unnecessary departments are eliminated (and many if not most are unnecessary) and entitlements are reduced (yes, that includes means testing for both Social Security and Medicare; if you have succeeded and have provided comfortably for your retirement, congratulations. We shouldn't then have to send you checks to use to pay for your country club dues or Viagra). The debt ceiling debate is an arm-twisting method of getting the attention of those who would continue on, oblivious; I for one think if you can't get people to the table any other way, you use what's available.

 

[BDBoop]

"The GOP’s refusal to consider both spending and revenues – despite the recommendation of every bipartisan group that has looked at this issue – does nothing to bring us any closer to getting our fiscal house in order," he added.

Boehner's stance – the same one that eventual won Republicans a hard-fought deal with President Obama to raise the debt limit last summer – conjures a time when Republican demands on the debt ceiling sent Congress's approval rating plummeting into the single digits, crushed consumer economic confidence, and helped spur an unprecedented downgrade in America's credit rating.

In the speaker's mind, however, setting conditions to increase the debt limit forces a lethargic Congress to make tough choices.

"We shouldn’t dread the debt limit. We should welcome it. It’s an action-forcing event in a town that has become infamous for inaction," he said.

Democrats return fire after John Boehner's opening debt-ceiling salvo (+video) - CSMonitor.com

Ironic statement is ironic.

 

[Synthaholic]

Why do you choose to remian ignorant?

Why do you remain willfully ignorant. Why did we get downgraded. What was the specific quote. Oh, here. Let me supply that for you.

S&P officials defend US credit downgrade - Yahoo! Finance

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Standard & Poor's says it downgraded the U.S. government's credit rating because it believes the U.S. will keep having problems getting its finances under control.S&P officials on Saturday defended their decision to drop the government's rating to AA+ from the top rating, AAA. The Obama administration called the move a hasty decision based on wrong calculations about the federal budget. It had tried to head off the downgrade before it was announced late Friday.But S&P said it was the months of haggling in Congress over budget cuts that led it to downgrade the U.S. rating. The ratings agency was dissatisfied with the deal lawmakers reached last weekend. And it isn't confident that the government will do much better in the future, even as the U.S. budget deficit grows.David Beers, global head of sovereign ratings at S&P, said the agency was concerned about the "degree of uncertainty around the political policy process. The nature of the debate and the difficulty in framing a political consensus ... that was the key consideration."S&P was looking for $4 trillion in budget cuts over 10 years. The deal that passed Congress on Tuesday would bring $2.1 trillion to $2.4 trillion in cuts over that time.Another concern was that lawmakers and the administration might fail to make those cuts because Democrats and Republicans are divided over how to implement them.

hey moron,, why have a debt ceiling at all if all we intend to do is raise the mother fucker?

 

[Synthaholic]

The Repug's were never willing to negotiate what w/ Grover's zany pledge. It was a stunt by Boehner (R) & co.

Remember the 10-1 question at the debate?

 

[BDBoop]

The Repug's were never willing to negotiate what w/ Grover's zany pledge. It was a stunt by Boehner (R) & co.

Remember the 10-1 question at the debate?

Remember it? It was like being mooned by the GOP. I've never seen so many people show their ass, simultaneously.

 

[candycorn]

I've long been on record saying that W. was just as bad as the Democrats when it came to spending. The reason the Republicans lost their asses in 2008 was because they were no longer perceived as the party of fiscal responsibility. The only reason that the Democrats were crushed four years later was that THEY were even worse.

Well the 2012 elections haven't taken place yet.

The 2010 elections were more or less a referendum on the Affordable Care Act and were bathed in the hysteria created by the TEA party. Now that it has passed and the world hasn't come to a screeching halt, you won't see the same activist-inspired hysteria that you saw in '10. Budgets had little to do with the 2010 election.

Seriously? That's because ObamaCare hasn't really fired up yet. Have you had your head in the sand while story after story has come out about the problems with it when it does hit. Had we been able to see it before it got passed (remember that), it might have died on the vine as it should have without having to have all of these legal challenges and the SCOTUS decide.

The legal challenges are ones I think will stand--especially the one about mandating the purchase of health insurance; I don't see how that is constitutional.

As for the other issues, the hysteria that was there in 2009-10 is now a whisper. 'Nuff said on that. But I do think the insurance mandate will be struck down.

 

[ClosedCaption]

More bombs for war, less assistance for the warriors.

If we can issue warnings to people about possible harmful side effects involved in using certain drugs, we should also be able to warn people about the possible side effects of marrying in a military that does not provide adequate financial support for married junior enlisted personnel that can result in divorce, higher rates of abuse and suicide, and children growing up in broken homes who themselves become prone to a variety of problems. If military leaders really believe, as they often say, that their people, and not their weapons, are their most important assets, then they need to either increase pay for junior enlisted personnel, or warn them about potential financial problems involving married personnel under E-5 with children.

 

[candycorn]

I've long been on record saying that W. was just as bad as the Democrats when it came to spending. The reason the Republicans lost their asses in 2008 was because they were no longer perceived as the party of fiscal responsibility. The only reason that the Democrats were crushed four years later was that THEY were even worse.

Well the 2012 elections haven't taken place yet.

The 2010 elections were more or less a referendum on the Affordable Care Act and were bathed in the hysteria created by the TEA party. Now that it has passed and the world hasn't come to a screeching halt, you won't see the same activist-inspired hysteria that you saw in '10. Budgets had little to do with the 2010 election.

Sorry but I think you've totally missed that the American people were and still are, extremely concerned about our mounting deficits, Candy. They didn't like ObamaCare and didn't want ObamaCare but Barry, Harry and Nancy ignored them and pushed a horrendously written piece of legislation through anyways because the writing was on the wall that they were about to lose the supposed "mandate" they thought they were given in 2008.

President Obama, former Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid must have done something right; it passed.

The writing of the bill has little to do with it; Americans were whipped up into a frenzy about it by the TEA party and rhetoric that was nowhere near the truth.

It wasn't Tea Party "hysteria" that made Americans dislike the Affordable Care Act...it's the Act itself. It's bad legislation. The American people wanted something done to lower the cost of their healthcare and instead they got a bill that makes the average American's healthcare costs higher while at the same time lowering the quality and availability of that care.

Not true at all. You have access and can't be denied insurance due to PEC's now. Emergency room visits will drop and waiting times will drop as well when it's fully implemented; even now our average wait times are almost in the 10 minute range for self presenters at the ER.

Healthcare costs will continue to rise due to supply and demand but now more Americans than ever have access to insurance. Which is a good thing. Its' a much larger issue--Health but the back end is being covered. What we need is mobilization on the front end more than anything else but I'm sure that will be resisted at every turn by the conservatives as well.

The 2010 elections were about progressives run amok with spending.

The 2012 election will be somewhat about budgets...namely the inability of the Democrats to even do something as basic to good governing as passing one.

[/QUOTE]

The polls are telling a very different story right now but the only one that matters is one on a Tuesday in November.

 

[Oldstyle]

Well the 2012 elections haven't taken place yet.

The 2010 elections were more or less a referendum on the Affordable Care Act and were bathed in the hysteria created by the TEA party. Now that it has passed and the world hasn't come to a screeching halt, you won't see the same activist-inspired hysteria that you saw in '10. Budgets had little to do with the 2010 election.

Sorry but I think you've totally missed that the American people were and still are, extremely concerned about our mounting deficits, Candy. They didn't like ObamaCare and didn't want ObamaCare but Barry, Harry and Nancy ignored them and pushed a horrendously written piece of legislation through anyways because the writing was on the wall that they were about to lose the supposed "mandate" they thought they were given in 2008.

President Obama, former Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid must have done something right; it passed.

The writing of the bill has little to do with it; Americans were whipped up into a frenzy about it by the TEA party and rhetoric that was nowhere near the truth.

It wasn't Tea Party "hysteria" that made Americans dislike the Affordable Care Act...it's the Act itself. It's bad legislation. The American people wanted something done to lower the cost of their healthcare and instead they got a bill that makes the average American's healthcare costs higher while at the same time lowering the quality and availability of that care.

Not true at all. You have access and can't be denied insurance due to PEC's now. Emergency room visits will drop and waiting times will drop as well when it's fully implemented; even now our average wait times are almost in the 10 minute range for self presenters at the ER.

Healthcare costs will continue to rise due to supply and demand but now more Americans than ever have access to insurance. Which is a good thing. Its' a much larger issue--Health but the back end is being covered. What we need is mobilization on the front end more than anything else but I'm sure that will be resisted at every turn by the conservatives as well.

The 2010 elections were about progressives run amok with spending.

The 2012 election will be somewhat about budgets...namely the inability of the Democrats to even do something as basic to good governing as passing one.

The polls are telling a very different story right now but the only one that matters is one on a Tuesday in November.[/QUOTE]

It passed because the Democrats had super majorities in the Senate and House. Even then Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi had to bribe members into voting for it with outright payoffs. The reason it's such a badly written piece of legislation is that the Democrats knew they couldn't send it back for reconciliation because of Scott Brown's election in Massachusetts so they went with what they KNEW was bad legislation just to get something.

As for emergency room times dropping? Are you seriously smoking crack? We're adding millions of people to an already crowded health care system where a visit to the ER can take 10 hours before you're seen by a physician and you think the wait time is going to decrease? How...pray tell? ObamaCare did nothing to address the cost of illegals who use the ER's for free medical care. They aren't going to go elsewhere. And to make it even worse ObamaCare will be paying those same hospitals and doctors less money. You think that's going to increase coverage? I swear to God, Candy...some of you progressives live in a fantasy world that's just mind boggling to observe.

 

[M14 Shooter]

I've long been on record saying that W. was just as bad as the Democrats when it came to spending. The reason the Republicans lost their asses in 2008 was because they were no longer perceived as the party of fiscal responsibility. The only reason that the Democrats were crushed four years later was that THEY were even worse.

well history has proven you wrong. Bush upped the deficit about 4.8 T in eight years,, and obama has upped it 5T in 3 short years.. so W isn't and wasn't just as bad.

The damages done by the Bush Administration will be felt for generations due to unfunded wars and an unfunded Medicare Part D entitlement.

If you belieeve that these things are the driving force of our current fiscal issues, you are so very impossibly ignorant.

 

[BDBoop]

well history has proven you wrong. Bush upped the deficit about 4.8 T in eight years,, and obama has upped it 5T in 3 short years.. so W isn't and wasn't just as bad.

The damages done by the Bush Administration will be felt for generations due to unfunded wars and an unfunded Medicare Part D entitlement.

If you belieeve that these things are the driving force of our current fiscal issues, you are so very impossibly ignorant.

Yes, we're all impossible. I can't believe I found my way here from the basket-weaving class, ffs.

Why you're still here trying to deal with us retards is beyond me.

Unless that makes you - wait for it!

Even more retarded than we are.

 

[kwc57]

Sorry but I think you've totally missed that the American people were and still are, extremely concerned about our mounting deficits, Candy. They didn't like ObamaCare and didn't want ObamaCare but Barry, Harry and Nancy ignored them and pushed a horrendously written piece of legislation through anyways because the writing was on the wall that they were about to lose the supposed "mandate" they thought they were given in 2008.

President Obama, former Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid must have done something right; it passed.

The writing of the bill has little to do with it; Americans were whipped up into a frenzy about it by the TEA party and rhetoric that was nowhere near the truth.


Not true at all. You have access and can't be denied insurance due to PEC's now. Emergency room visits will drop and waiting times will drop as well when it's fully implemented; even now our average wait times are almost in the 10 minute range for self presenters at the ER.

Healthcare costs will continue to rise due to supply and demand but now more Americans than ever have access to insurance. Which is a good thing. Its' a much larger issue--Health but the back end is being covered. What we need is mobilization on the front end more than anything else but I'm sure that will be resisted at every turn by the conservatives as well.

The 2010 elections were about progressives run amok with spending.

The 2012 election will be somewhat about budgets...namely the inability of the Democrats to even do something as basic to good governing as passing one.

The polls are telling a very different story right now but the only one that matters is one on a Tuesday in November.

It passed because the Democrats had super majorities in the Senate and House. Even then Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi had to bribe members into voting for it with outright payoffs. The reason it's such a badly written piece of legislation is that the Democrats knew they couldn't send it back for reconciliation because of Scott Brown's election in Massachusetts so they went with what they KNEW was bad legislation just to get something.

As for emergency room times dropping? Are you seriously smoking crack? We're adding millions of people to an already crowded health care system where a visit to the ER can take 10 hours before you're seen by a physician and you think the wait time is going to decrease? How...pray tell? ObamaCare did nothing to address the cost of illegals who use the ER's for free medical care. They aren't going to go elsewhere. And to make it even worse ObamaCare will be paying those same hospitals and doctors less money. You think that's going to increase coverage? I swear to God, Candy...some of you progressives live in a fantasy world that's just mind boggling to observe.[/QUOTE]

We actually have a hospital here that advertizes ER "appointments" to "reduce" your wait time. Appointments for emergencies?! WTF? I plan on stepping on a board with a nail in it and running it thru my foot next Thursday, I'd like to make an appointment. I'm going up on my roof this afternoon to put up Christmas lights and will probably fall off, so I want to make an appointment. Of course, that isn't what the appointments are for. They're for our illegals and entitlement folks who clog the ER's as a clinic for rashes and sniffles. ER appointments. Damn!

https://saints.inquicker.com/?gclid=CNO9mdLMh7ACFSdjTAod0lt3Ag

 

[kwc57]

It appears that the quote feature is broken. I deleted my last message and posted it again making sure I used the quote feature correctly and it's still screwed up.

 

[BDBoop]

It appears that the quote feature is broken. I deleted my last message and posted it again making sure I used the quote feature correctly and it's still screwed up.

What's it doing?

 

[BDBoop]

SSDD.

John Boehner, Mitch McConnell Refuse To Budge On Debt Positions

Both sides showed they had little appetite for compromise last week, when Boehner insisted at a meeting with President Barack Obama on Wednesday that he would seek spending cuts to offset an increase in the nation's borrowing limit. Obama warned he wouldn't accept more cuts without also extracting tax increases on the wealthiest Americans.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, speaking on ABC's "This Week," said that Boehner "wants to go over the edge."

"My response to what the speaker said is, `Here we go again.' This is not a responsible, mature, sensible place for us to go," Pelosi said. "There has to be more reductions but we have to have revenue and have to have growth."

The most obvious showdown will happen soon after the Nov. 6 election. Unless a lame-duck Congress can strike a deal, the economy will suffer a double whammy of large tax increases and spending cuts starting Jan. 1. The tax increases would hit virtually every working American and the spending cuts would affect both military and domestic programs.

On top of that, perhaps by late January or so, Congress and the president – be it Obama or Republican Mitt Romney – will again confront the need to raise the country's borrowing limit or else trigger a first-ever government failure to pay its debts.

Boehner, on ABC's "This Week," said Congress should begin tackling those issues now.

"Why do we wanna wait and rush this through at the end of the year, after the election?" Boehner said.

 

[BDBoop]

Of course he will. For one thing, it worked well for him in 2011. Republicans got more than $900 billion in immediate spending cuts, as well as $1.2 trillion in triggered spending cuts -- though they don't much like the $500 billion or so of those cuts scheduled to fall on the Pentagon. They also drove President Obama's approval ratings beneath 40 percent. And while I'm not one who thinks Republicans intentionally tank the economy to undermine Obama, there's little doubt that the effect of the debt-ceiling debacle was to set back the recovery, brightening Republican prospects and darkening Democratic ones. The fact is that it's easier to be sanguine about economic showdowns when you're not the ones in charge.

For another, it's Boehner's only option in 2012. The Democrats, for once, have nothing but fiscal leverage. They've got the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, which all Republicans would hate and many Democrats would welcome. They've got the aforementioned spending trigger, which Republicans really have begun to fear for its cuts to defense spending. They can do nothing -- or, more likely, offer Republicans a deal they can't accept -- and the resulting paralysis will swing fiscal policy far, far, far to the left. Threatening to default on the national debt is Boehner's only piece of counter-leverage.

So of course Boehner will try and use the debt ceiling as leverage again. And again. And again. It's pretty clear that, at this point, there's no going back to the time when debt-ceiling increases came smoothly. If I were the market, I'd take the fact that the leader of one of the two parties has publicly said that he "welcomes" debt-ceiling showdowns as evidence that the United States is almost certain to default on its debt -- if only temporarily -- within the next decade or so.

The question is what, aside from complain, Democrats and the business community will do to stop him. Somehow, the debt ceiling needs to be taken off the table once and for all, either because Republicans forced a default in a way that they were blamed for the consequences and scared into never doing it again or because the president successfully pulled off one of the more creative maneuvers suggested during last year's showdown (Bill Clinton, for instance, argued that Obama should invoke the Fourteenth Amendment -- which says "the validity of the public debt of the United States ... shall not be questioned" -- to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally).

Wonkbook: Of course Boehner wants another debt-ceiling showdown - The Washington Post

 

[grunt11b]

I should be grateful. I know he's throwing the election. But it's like watching a train wreck.

Taxmageddon sparks rising anxiety - The Washington Post

In the meantime, political leaders are focused less on finding solutions than on drawing lines in the sand. In a speech Tuesday, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) plans to address the issue of national debt, which will once again be nearing its legal limit in January, just as the tax hikes and spending cuts are due to hit.

According to advance remarks provided to The Post, Boehner will insist that any increase in the debt limit be accompanied by spending “cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase” — the same demand that pushed the Treasury to the brink of default during last summer’s debt-limit standoff.

“This is the only avenue I see right now to force the elected leadership of this country to solve our structural fiscal imbalance,” Boehner plans to say at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation fiscal summit. “If that means we have to do a series of stop-gap measures, so be it.”

Last week, the House approved a plan to protect the Pentagon in January by reconfiguring $110 billion in across-the-board spending cuts — known as “sequestration” — so they would fall exclusively on domestic programs, such as food stamps and health care for the poor.

I'm sure the Washington post in no way shape or form tried to make anyone look bad or anything.