The great big, giant, huge, massive, gargantuan, titanic, behemouth, humongous fucking lie.

[Stinky The Clown]

The lie: "We need to do something about the deficit in order to pass a debt ceiling increase."

The two are only tangentially related. One causes the need for the other. But they are NOT connected.

This is how you raise the debt limit:



All the rest is 2012 political posturing.

Or a planned theft of our meager remaining wealth.

[Autumn]

1. They are playing a fucking game, both sides

and we are the pawns.

[CoffeeCat]

47. "Both sides"...that is important...

This whole disgusting theater is being perpetrated by BOTH SIDES, playing out their
dramatic roles.

It's all a big lie, as the OP said. And as you said, BOTH SIDES are lying bastards
who are not telling the truth--and covering up what they're true intentions and plans
are.

This includes Obama. He's got a major role in this. People need to remember that.

Congress and the President have raised the debt ceiling untold times--without the hysterics.

They're using the debt ceiling as an opportunity to create a manufactured crisis with
high-drama craziness--which clouds the real issues.

Pay attention to WHAT they do--not WHAT THEY SAY. The crisis is supposed to be at the
forefront, and the end result is supposed to be a whimper, so we won't notice.

It appears that the debt-ceiling manufactured crisis theater is being used to begin
dismantling Social Security and to continue the Bush tax cuts that are a windfall for
millionaires and billionaires during a time when the middle class is losing everything.

BOTH SIDES...are doing this. Thank you for pointing that out. The sooner that people
quit arguing a "side" the sooner the truth becomes more clear. Both sides are against
us and for the corporations/elites. The polarization is meant to cloud and obfuscate.

BOTH SIDES. Shame on the whole rotten lot of them.

[LuckyLib]

49. This is it: a "manufactured crisis with high-drama craziness--which clouds the real issues."

The Repugs didn't blink when the Bushistas raised the debt limit repeatedly. Now, all of a sudden, it's a "crisis"???? They are out to bring down Obama, and the war between them is theater while the rest of the country struggles to get things done. Shame on them is right.

[Myrina]

50. ... and media.

Watching Big Ed last night and he had Kucinich on, DK started to get into the facts and Ed cut him off, basically lobbing the potato back into Boehner's court and absolving the Dems and POTUS from any culpability in the big lie. You could see Kucinich was biting his tongue.

[Enthusiast]

57. Republicans continually make the claim

that Obama spent all the money causing the debt.

I certainly do not believe their claims have any validity. But how can they make such claims and yet no one calls them out for it. I believe they can sort of make a case because Obama put Iraq and Afghanistan "on the books".

I suspect the reason the Obama Administration felt it necessary to include the war debt run up under Bush was to share blame with the Republicans for this debt. Why would he do this? This seems a curious action by a Democratic Administration. WTF?

Am I missing something?

[RedCloud]

52. false equivalents. When did the repugs accept Obama as landslide President?

Oh that's right, not even for one fucking second. They have opposed everything he has wanted, even if he foolishly proposed what they wanted. They were just out to give him shit from day one.

There should be NO riders to the debt ceiling. Fix more important things. What you fail to see if that the repugs are filled with Armageddon lovers. The kind that sniff dog shit and just can't wait to destroy America to bring about the Rapture. Those crazy fucks should be Gitmoed.

[Autumn]

53. ?

I agree, they are crazy fucks. Not sure where the rest of your post applies to what I said.

[blkmusclmachine]

58. Two sides of the same filthy coin. We have no representation in DC.

[Ruby the Liberal]

2. The Congressional Black Caucus announced today that they will not vote

for any bill that ties the debt ceiling to the deficit/budget.

Only a standalone bill will be voted on.

[gateley]

4. Is Reid's a standalone, do you know? Thanks. nt

[Ruby the Liberal]

9. No. It is basically Boehner's plan without SS and Medicare cuts

and a promise to draw down the troops in Vietganistan and Iraqnam.

They are saying they will only vote on what Stinky posted - just raising the debt ceiling without any budget language attached (no cuts, no revenues)

[gateley]

13. I must admit, with all the threat of SS/Med "adjustments", if

they can just leave them alone and raise the ceiling this way, sounds good to me!

[robinlynne]

23. no. no. no.

[mod mom]

5. good for them!

[dana_b]

10. they have guts

I wish all of the Dems would follow suit.

[indurancevile]

19. good.

[robinlynne]

22. RIGHT ON! I love the Black CAucus. The only group who stood up in 2000

when the presidency was stolen.

[freshwest]

26. And it was a shame Gore didn't take them up on their support. Of course the brownshirts were cursing

And scaring his children in their house at night...

[robinlynne]

45. I'm guessing it was the Democratic party, not Gore personally. but I don't know.

[peacetalksforall]

51. The reason Gore gave sounded right. The decision was called by the DLC, imo - the.

Republican-Bilderbergers who call themselves Democrats - now disbanded and reborn under a new name. Gore is also DLC. There was a lot we didn't know back then. Such as: the DLC selecting Leiberman.

[dgibby]

30. In the immortal words of the USMC,

OOOOOOOOOOOOOORAH!

[Divernan]

42. Good for them! Would that Obama had their integrity!

[DearAbby]

3. Just who are these people working for?

[girl gone mad]

8. The banks.

It comes down to this:

There are only two sources of money in the economy - government spending and bank lending. The less money the government puts into the economy (by running a deficit), the more people will have to borrow from banks.

[woo me with science]

35. [phone] This is exactly what everyone should understand.

They are running a scam through debt, and we are the losers.

[midnight]

37. This is interesting... Walker and other ALEC mouth pieces get rid of govt.

workers, sucking out more money from the economy, and banks hold on to tarp funds and will not lend money to the working people.. What a mess. Case in point about this is how the High speed rail system in Wisconsin was being funded by govt. money. Walker shut it down... it ended up actually costing the tax payers a million plus badly needed jobs that were being situated in a neighborhood that is suffering from high unemployment....

[lunatica]

6. Abe Lincoln said it:

You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time

Or maybe it was P.T. Barnum or Mark Twain. No one can decide.

[RobertSeattle]

7. Exactly - anything else is extortion.

I wish Reid would force this through the Senate so it is on the table.

[gristy]

18. Yes, indeed. The Senate should simply write and pass one of these.

Why haven't they?

[Cali_Democrat]

11. Great post title

Great post also.

K&R

[VWolf]

31. Not to nitpick, but

it's spelled Behemoth, and it's not an adjective.

Ok, I am nitpicking.

:hide:

All kidding aside, I couldn't agree more with the O/P.

[originalpckelly]

12. Yep, they are just fucking us over with a manufactured emergency.

[SammyWinstonJack]

36. Kinda like the bankster bailout.

THANK GOD IT PASSED! :evilgrin:

[Capitalocracy]

14. Amend the end of your post to add:

Or both.

[ZombieHorde]

15. Recommended. nt

[Igel]

16. Seriously, you picked January 1996 as your example?

The budget ceiling impasse that really hamstrung the federal government for months as Clinton and the (R) fought a pitched battle over it and appropriations in the press?

*That* Jan. 1996 debt ceiling increase?

The one that set the GOP back on its heels over all the 'balanced budget' crap, but also made Clinton suddenly the proud owner of a balanced budget initiative?

http://www.gao.gov/products/AIMD-96-130

http://www.cnn.com/US/9601/budget/01-14/index.html

And my favorite bit of trivia:
"In early 1996, Bill Clinton warned that because the debt ceiling had not been raised, Social Security cheques might be late. This scared Congress into passing a small increase in the debt ceiling solely to meet Social Security payments. Treasury could acquire considerable additional borrowing room by not issuing non-marketable debt to the Social Security and Medicare Trust funds and by failing to rollover existing issues as they come due, and issuing IOUs in their place, as it does with the civil-service pension funds. While it seems to have rejected that option in the past, I’m not sure it is legally off limits. (Though this simply means replacing one IOU with another, it would be politically explosive; the public thinks of the trust funds as inviolable lock boxes, not accounting entries.)" http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/01/americas_debt

[sad sally]

20. Add to what we should learn from history:

So in 1978, Dick Gephardt quite sensibly tied the debt ceiling to the budget: Once Congress decided how much we were going to tax, spend and borrow, the Treasury Department was authorized to carry out those instructions.

In 1995, House Republicans wanted leverage over President Bill Clinton, so they brought the debt ceiling back.

It’s easier to get people to listen to you if you threaten to destroy their credit rating if they don’t. And now, in 2011, they’re doing it again.

(from Ezra Klein)

[WillyT]

17. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

:yourock:

:hi:

:kick:

[MadMaddie]

21. Exactly!

The sitting Republicans have voted many times to pass it. All of sudden now they have to do something.


They said nothing while they passed the two wars and Medicair Part D and pushing paying for them in the future....which is now..

[Major Hogwash]

24. Didn't Cheney say "Deficits don't matter."?

I distinctly heard him say that so why isn't the mainstream media, who supported Bush/Cheney, supporting Obama wholeheartedly?

Because they are not liberals, there is no such thing as "a liberal media".
That's just a 30-year old lie.

[grahamhgreen]

25. The solutions are simple, the lies are to hide that fact. Kick.

[tavalon]

27. Oh, you let the carefully kept secret out of the bag!

How are we going to get our daily dose of "As Washington Turns Our Stomachs", if you reveal this?

[orbitalman]

28. K & R

[liberalla]

29. That's an important distinction that escapes the T-bag newbies.

That's an important distinction that escapes the T-bag newbies.

The budget is where you work on the deficit, not the debt ceiling.

[mmonk]

32. You're last two sentences I think are both correct.

For both politics and looting.

[WinkyDink]

33. Both. BOTH.

All the rest is 2012 political posturing.

Or a planned theft of our meager remaining wealth.

[dgibby]

34. Yep-that's what Lawrence O'donnell has been driving home

on his program for about 2 weeks now. That's probably how it's going to get done, too, about 2300 hours on 01Aug, with a coalition of the more sensible members of both parties.

[myrna minx]

38. K&R n/t

[kenfrequed]

39. A planned theft

Of social security.

[Jakes Progress]

40. You are not being served. A grand theft by both parties

is under way. Shock. Scare. Distract.

[theophilus]

41. Mr. Obama should have been strongly stressing this BEFORE the Republicans

started pushing this "crisis". THEY tanked the economy and are using the tankedness to push their agenda. What's wrong with that? Everything. Mr. Obama seemed to accept the idea that we are spending way too much and must tighten our belts. (Of course the very wealthy are doing better than ever and don't get any tax hikes, of course.) No, this all stinks Stinky.

[lark]

43. Impossible, how could he cut SSI & Medicare if he did that?

Two of his prized targets could only be put on the line if there was a crisis, so he got his crisis. Still hoping he doesn't get his fondest wish.

[hfojvt]

44. it's not even close to a lie

not if you replace the word "need" with the word "should".

As far as political posturing, any politician is gonna claim that they are in office to do the right thing for the country. It's not an effective argument, IMO, to call that political posturing. Especiallly since many of the rightwing wackos are representing rightwing doofie who have been frightened by the rightwing noise machine about the deficit under their beds who will get them if they don't eat the foul tasting medicine of benefit cuts.

[on point]

46. Repukes ned to get of the debt because it documents their failures!

Fact is the debt was run up by repuke mistakes.

Unneeded wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, the economic fraud called supplyside economics.

Dems always work on erasing the repuke debts, it is always the repukes that run up the debt

[Jim_Shorts]

48. This is all just kabuki theater

Repugs have just as much to lose if the markets start tanking, probably more. Bama could have started the debate by saying he wouldn't sign any debt ceiling bill unless it was accompanied by higher upper end tax rates and an increase in the SS cap. (even though SS has nothing to do with the debt ceiling)

The lines NEVER had to be drawn inside the repukes tent.

[valerief]

54. I'm assuming it's the latter. nt

[lonestarlib]

55. Just another stage in the slow motion coup taking place.

[louis-t]

56. I hope Obama has a copy of this on his desk

ready to go on Aug. 1.

[Mosaic]

59. Class war

Of course it's a class war, started by w bush, and obama wants to institute it. On an even deeper level, as msnbc reports yesterday on the economic racial divide, it is a race war. All unspoken by the vampires fighting the war like cowards behind their thug representatives, the teabaggers, secret societies, etc. Tribalism at its core, fear of the white man losing his northern position, figuratively and literally, in the limelight of God's world history.