AP story on debt ceiling includes glaring inaccuracies.

[ProSense]

Obama Signs Debt Ceiling Measure Into Law

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. (AP) — President Barack Obama on Saturday signed separate measures into law to lift the federal debt limit and restore benefits that had been cut for younger military retirees.

Obama signed the bills during a weekend golf vacation in Southern California.

The debt limit measure allows the government to borrow money to pay its bills, such as Social Security benefits and federal salaries. Failure to pass the measure, which the Senate passed 67-31 earlier this week and sent to Obama for his signature, most likely would have sent the stock market into a nosedive.

The Treasury Department is now free to borrow regularly through March 15, 2015, meaning lawmakers won't have to revisit the issue until a new Congress is sworn in after the November elections.

Separate legislation passed in December would have held annual cost-of-living increases for veterans age 62 and younger to 1 percentage point below the rate of inflation, beginning in 2015. The measure was designed to hold the line on the soaring cost of government benefit programs, which have largely escaped trillions of dollars in deficit cuts over the past three years.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/obama-debt-limit-sign

Not only does it falsely claim that Social Security benefits are tied to the debt, but it also states that the bill passed 67 to 31.

Senate Approves Debt Limit Increase With Drama-Filled Vote

By Arlette Saenz

In a high drama vote Wednesday, the Senate approved a bill to extend the government’s borrowing authority until March 2015.

The Senate voted along party lines – 55-43 – to increase the debt limit. That result followed another vote to clear a procedural hurdle that resulted in some dramatic arm twisting between Republican senators after Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, required a 60-vote threshold in order to advance the bill.

What was supposed to be a 15-minute procedural vote lasted an hour, with Republican senators deliberating over who would vote to advance the bill. A large group of Republican senators, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was seen huddling on the Senate floor before deciding their votes.

In a move that could be used against them by their primary opponents in the 2014 campaign, McConnell and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, voted in favor of advancing the bill, opening the floodgates for other Republican senators who were wary of voting aye to join them.

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http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/02/senate-approves-debt-limit-increase-with-drama-filled-vote/

Roll call: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=2&vote=00034

[Scuba]

1. The free press is bought-and-paid-for.

[ProSense]

2. The media can make any claim. Apparently, most people aren't paying attention. n/t

[Igel]

3. The US *government* claims that SS benefits are tied to the debt.

This includes Obama.

Each of the last two showdowns the lack of authorization to engage in public borrowing was, Obama said publicly, going to lead to an inability to pay SS benefits.

No explanation as to the details--not that most would have followed them, even if Obama could. And you no, nobody challenged that assertion because it was useful for PR: Hey, Republicans, raise the debt ceiling so that our disabled and retirees can eat!

Whether it's true depends on the details. If the debt ceiling includes all the government debt, public and intragovernmental, then one isn't contingent on the other. If the debt ceiling places limits on the issuance of publicly held debt, then it would matter because part of the SS benefits, last I checked, required that government debt be reissued as public debt or repurchased by current revenues.

There's another possible claim, which is that SS can no more have its funds sequestered or spending prioritized than, say, the local USGS's purchase of gasoline for survey vehicles. Then any money taken in that's supposedly marked "SS" would have to be used for the first bill that's due; any SS debt that's converted would lead to money that would have to be used for the first bill that's due.

Don't know the details. The HR and SR as passed and engrossed aren't in Thomas yet, so I can't look at them. Heck, it used to be standard that newspapers said what the bill numbers were but I can't even find one that'll say the bill number.

[ProSense]

4. Can you

"The US *government* claims that SS benefits are tied to the debt. This includes Obama. "

...provide a source for that claim? Obama has never once said that Social Security is responsible for U.S. debt.

"Social security is not the source of our deficit problems," Obama told a White House press conference.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/11/us-usa-debt-socialsecurity-idUSTRE76A46720110711

FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenburg Public Policy Center, wrongly attacked a number of prominent Democrats for correctly pointing out that Social Security does not contribute to the deficit. The people attacked, included New York Senator Charles Schumer, Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, and President Obama’s Budget Director Jacob Lew, who had all correctly pointed out that Social Security does not contribute to the budget deficit.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/factcheck-gets-it-wrong-on-social-security-and-the-deficit