THE MENTALITY OF THE TURTLE

Despite agreeing to a budget this month, it seems Congressional Republicans are not yet done holding the economic fate of the country hostage in order to pass aspects of its agenda. In an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told host Chris Wallace that it would be “irresponsible” for Republicans not to try to add amendments to a bill raising the debt ceiling, which they may need to pass as early late February. Failure to pass a debt ceiling increase would be catastrophic for the economy, forcing the country to default on its obligations:

WALLACE: So are you saying right here, “We are going to attach something to the debt ceiling”? And if so, what? 

MCCONNELL: What I’m saying is we ought to attach something significant for the country to [President Obama's] request to increase the debt ceiling. That’s been the pattern for 50 years, going back to the Eisenhower administration. I think it’s the responsible thing to do for the country. 

We’re never going to default — the Speaker and I have made that clear. We’ve never done that. But, it’s irresponsible not to use the discussion — the request of the President to raise the debt ceiling — to try to accomplish something for the country.

THE TURTLE





Asked for a “good example” of what Republicans could demand in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, McConnell cited the Keystone XL pipeline because it would “create jobs.” In truth, though the project would create nearly 4,000 temporary construction jobs, it would ultimately only create 35 permanent jobs, resulting in “negligible socioeconomic impacts." Upgrading existing pipelines instead would both create more jobs and help protect the country’s drinking water supply from contamination from leaks.

Since 2011 — motivated in part by the growing influence of the Tea Party — Republicans have viewed the debt ceiling as what McConnell called “a hostage worth ransoming.” It was because of that very brinkmanship that Standard & Poor’s lowered the country’s credit rating, which cost taxpayers $19 billion and lost the country over a million jobs.

NFTOS
STAFF WRITER

SEQUESTRATION, WHAT IT MEANS TO YOU

SEQUESTRATION COMING TO A TOWN NEAR YOU

It's looking increasingly like the US Congress is about to impose on its citizenry, a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head of its own Government - to the tune of $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts. So as part of its strategy to pressure the American Taliban into accepting new revenues as part of a deal to prevent the sequester from taking effect, the White House released new reports on Sunday that outline the ugly effects those cuts would have in individual states.

Below are links to each of the White House reports detailing how the sequester will impact individual states:



1. Alabama 

2. Alaska

3. Arizona

4. Arkansas

5. California

6. Colorado

7. Connecticut

8. Delaware

9. District of Columbia

10. Florida

11. Georgia

12. Hawaii

13. Idaho

14. Illinois

15. Indiana

16. Iowa

17. Kansas

18. Kentucky

19. Louisiana

20. Maine

21. Maryland

22. Massachusetts

23. Michigan

24. Minnesota

25. Mississippi

26. Missouri

27. Montana

28. Nebraska

29. Nevada

30. New Hampshire

31. New Jersey

32. New Mexico

33. New York

34. North Carolina

35. North Dakota

36. Ohio

37. Oklahoma

38. Oregon

39. Pennsylvania

40. Rhode Island

41. South Carolina

42. South Dakota

43. Tennessee

44. Texas

45. Utah

46. Vermont

47. Virginia

48. Washington

49. West Virginia

50. Wisconsin

51. Wyoming


Boy howdy, you just have to love how these self-serving trolls continue to hold our country hostage. Remember readers, 2014 is right around the corner, at which time we vote these leaders out of office, for if not, you get what you deserve!





NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

 

DEBT CEILING MAYHEM

The 14th Amendment, Giving The GOP The Right To Sit Down And STFU!

Often the case, we hear the GOP complaining about two amendments, the first and the second - as if these where the only amendments to the United States Constitution.

Speaker of the House, John Boehner, and house teapublicans have made it clear of their intent to, once again, hold our country hostage, with future debt ceiling deals. The last time they did this, in August 2011, it resulted in the downgrade of the credit rating, and huge losses in the stock market.

Lying within this next major battle is one simple solution, the President's ability to use the 14th Amendment to declare the debt limit unconstitutional. This constitutional right is a welcome development in a debate too often characterized by fly-by night economics and outright demagoguery from the radical GOP. If the President seizes the moment, we could not only end this damaging political grandstanding, but redirect the national conversation to what really matters: fiscal policy that addresses the needs of ordinary Americans.

Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan admin official wrote an essay on the subject, "The Debt Limit Option President Obama Can Use," which of late has started to gain significant policy traction. More recently, Treasury Secretary Geithner has made much the same point:

The budget/debt ceiling negotiations have focused on spending cuts and tax hikes which are neither necessary nor desirable at this juncture. This is not the time to invoke reduced government spending, especially when our economy is nowhere near operating close to full capacity. Progressives need to stop accepting the false logic that we "need to be responsible" and "deal with the budget deficit at some point in the future" on the spurious grounds of "affordability", solvency", or "because the bond markets won't fund us any longer." That's all malarkey!

Here's an idea; Invoke the 14th amendment and then stop talking about the budget deficit altogether. The US is not broke and cannot go bankrupt. Let go of that myth. When invoking the 14th amendment, the President could argue that the deficit reduction principles embodied in the debt ceiling limit should never be an object of government policy. He can point out that non-discretionary elements of the budget -- the automatic stabilizers like unemployment insurance -- will fall as economic growth resumes, thereby reducing the deficit. He can remind us that there is only one reason why growth slows relative to productive capacity: Some sector spends less than before while another sector does not plug the spending drain.

The American Taliban is trying to strap yet another bomb to the torso of America. The fourteenth amendment section four says:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Furthermore:

In Freytag v. Commissioner (1991), the Supreme Court held that the president has "the power to veto encroaching laws . . . or to disregard them when they are unconstitutional." The final word still may lie with the Supreme Court, but in the interim, the president need not wait for its opinion. "As a simple matter of constitutional logic, the president can refuse to enforce a statute he believes violates the Constitution," said Professor Barry Friedman of NYU Law School in a telephone interview with me...

It is also unlikely that the action would be successfully challenged in court. Only Congress would have standing to sue, but doing so would require a joint resolution, something a Democratic-controlled Senate would almost certainly block.

You know how you control overreaching radical congressmen and women? You give them benchmarks, guidelines, and requirements. You give them very little variance for screwing up. Warren Buffett, in a recent interview with CNBC, offers one of the best quotes about the debt ceiling:

"I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC. "You just
pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more
than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible
for re-election.

Defuse this bomb that the American Taliban has strapped on our country Mr. President, use the very documents that the American Taliban so profoundly misunderstands, and give them a dose of their own medicine….. Go “Constitutional” on them!

A petition is making its round this am, be a true patriot and send the American Taliban a message, “not on our watch”!




NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West