House Rejects Obama Debt Ceiling Increase
[TheBlaze.com]
- Posted on January 18, 2012 at 9:17pm by
Tiffany Gabbay
WASHINGTON (The Blaze/AP) — The GOP-controlled House on Wednesday kicked off another session with a protest vote against raising the government’s borrowing cap by $1.2 trillion, but the maneuver amounted to political theater under a process stacked on purpose in President Barack Obama’s favor.
The nearly party-line 239-176 vote puts the House on record against Obama’s use of unprecedented authority – awarded to him through a mechanism devised by the Senate’s top Republican – to unilaterally raise the so-called debt limit unless Congress can muster the votes to block him.
The Senate is sure to kill the measure next week, and Obama‘s veto power serves as a final guarantee that the increase will go through as intended and that the nation won’t face another debt crisis like last summer.
The political dance choreographed under last summer’s Budget Control Act was designed to permit lawmakers, mostly Republicans, to vote against debt increases but not actually block them – and provoke a first-ever, market-rattling default on U.S. government obligations.
The debate offered tea party-backed GOP freshmen an almost three-hour opportunity before C-Span cameras to cast blame on the White House and Democratically controlled Senate for the nation’s fiscal ills. The national debt has skyrocketed during Obama’s first term – from $10.6 trillion on Inauguration Day to $15.2 trillion today.
Obama Asks Congress to Lift Debt Ceiling by Another $1.2 Trillion
[CNSNews.com]
President Barack Obama. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)(CNSNews.com) – President Obama has sent a letter to Congress saying that the government is within $100 billion of its $15.2 trillion debt ceiling and that it must be raised immediately.
“I hereby certify that the debt subject to limit is within $100,000,000,000 of the limit in 31 U.S.C. 3101(b) and that further borrowing is required to meet existing commitment,” the letter states.
Now that Obama has sent the letter, Congress has 15 days to pass a resolution of disapproval or the debt ceiling will rise automatically by $1.2 trillion, according to the terms of the August debt ceiling compromise.
When the August deal was cut between Republicans, Democrats, and the White House, the debt ceiling was immediately raised $400 billion and then another $500 billion in October. Now it is expected to be raised at least $1.2 trillion more.
Prior to the August deal, the largest increase in the debt limit was the $1.9 trillion increase passed by Congress and signed by President Obama on Feb. 12, 2010. That law increased the debt limit from $12.394 trillion to $14.294 trillion.
Boehner Blames Democrats for Credit Downgrade
Newsmax.com
By Dave Eberhart
U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, reacted to the news of Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the U.S.’s credit rating on Friday night, saying, “This decision by S&P is the latest consequence of the out-of-control spending that has taken place in Washington for decades.” He added that “the spending binge has resulted in job-destroying economic uncertainty and now threatens to send destructive ripple effects across our credit markets.”
Boehner made these remarks within a a broader statement distributed in a press release after the long-term credit rating slipped to AA+:
“This decision by S&P is the latest consequence of the out-of-control spending that has taken place in Washington for decades. The spending binge has resulted in job-destroying economic uncertainty and now threatens to send destructive ripple effects across our credit markets.
“Republicans have listened to the voices of the American people and worked to bring the spending binge to a halt. We are no longer debating how much to spend, but rather how much to cut. Unfortunately, decades of reckless spending cannot be reversed immediately, especially when the Democrats who run Washington remain unwilling to make the tough choices required to put America on solid ground,” he argued.
Obama on unemployment: Don’t forget that those ATMs are taking jobs too
HotAir.com
Via Fox Nation. See now why the DNC has to resort to running dumb ads like this? The alternative is to let this guy go out on the stump and explain America’s crippling unemployment in his own words. Here’s where that strategy gets you.
Who knows? Maybe he’s signaling an exciting new innovation in federal regulation. If the NLRB can tell Boeing where it has to build its planes, why can’t it tell Netflix to stop instant streaming in the name of saving jobs? Exit question via Twitter pal Nathan Wurtzel: Does this mean The One is trading in TOTUS for cue cards?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640
Who’s Up For Another Fannie Mae Bailout?
MichelleMalkin.com
**Written by Doug Powers
Thank goodness the Dodd-Frank bill took care of the problems, eh?
From Reuters:
Mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB) on Friday said it would ask for an additional $8.5 billion from taxpayers as it continues to suffer losses on loans made prior to 2009.
The largest U.S. residential mortgage funds provider reported a net loss attributable to common shareholders of $8.7 billion, or $1.52 per diluted share, in the first quarter.
Including the latest request, the firm has taken about $100 billion from the U.S. government since it was seized in 2008, though it has also paid about $12.4 billion to taxpayers in interest.
Obama Budget Underestimates Deficits by $2 Trillion
FoxNews.com
By Trish Turner
Published March 18, 2011
President Obama signs the two-week funding bill averting a government shutdown in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, March 2, 2011. (AP)
A new, nonpartisan analysis of President Obama’s proposed 10-year budget revealed Friday that the administration underestimated future deficits by more than $2 trillion.
In a preliminary report, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) calculated, “In all, deficits would total $9.5 trillion between 2012 and 2021 under the president’s budget.” The Obama budget projected $7.2 trillion deficits over the same period.
Even more alarming, the CBO estimates that the “federal debt held by the public would double under the president’s budget, growing from $10.4 trillion (69 percent of GDP) at the end of 2011 to $20.8 trillion (87 percent of GDP) at the end of 2021.”
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