(Drew Sheneman via Gocomics.com)
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With the ‘budget’ shutdown averted (for the moment), we can start dreading gearing up for the next battle. According to Treasury Secretary Geithner, the federal government will exhaust its ability to borrow money under current law during the second week of July:
The government will hit the debt limit — the maximum amount that it can borrow — “no later than May 16,” the letter said; after that, “extraordinary measures” can create roughly eight weeks of wiggle room.
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“The longer Congress fails to act, the more we risk that investors here and around the world will lose confidence in our ability to meet our commitments and obligations,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner wrote in the letter, sent to leaders of both parties in the House and the Senate.
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The dates in the letter represent the most precise estimate the administration has offered for hitting the debt ceiling. Congress sets a maximum amount that the government can borrow, which currently stands at $14.29 trillion.
The argument over “entitlements” has been postponed, not finished. It’s too useful a weapon for the Republicans to give up. Per Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone:
Every few years or so, the Republicans trot out one of these little whippersnappers, who offer proposals to hack away at the federal budget. Each successive whippersnapper inevitably tries, rhetorically, to out-mean the previous one, and their proposals are inevitably couched as the boldest and most ambitious deficit-reduction plans ever seen. Each time, we are told that these plans mark the end of the budgetary reign of terror long ago imposed by the entitlement system begun by FDR and furthered by LBJ.
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Never mind that each time the Republicans actually come into power, federal deficit spending explodes and these whippersnappers somehow never get around to touching Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. The key is that for the many years before that moment of truth, before these buffoons actually get a chance to put their money where their lipless little mouths are, they will stomp their feet and scream about how entitlements are bringing us to the edge of apocalypse…
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The absurd thing is that Ryan’s act isn’t even politically courageous. It’s canny calculation, but courage it is not. It would be courageous if Ryan were, say, the president of the United States, and leaning on that budget with his full might. But Ryan is proposing a budget he knows would have no chance of passing in the Senate. He is simply playing out a part, a non-candidate for the presidency pushing a rhetorical flank for an out-of-power party leading into a presidential campaign year. If the budget is a hit with the public, the 2012 Republican candidate can run on it. If it isn’t, the Republican candidate can triangulate Ryan’s ass back into the obscurity from whence it came, and be done with him.
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No matter what, Ryan’s gambit, ultimately, is all about trying to get middle-class voters to swallow paying for tax cuts for rich people. It takes chutzpah to try such a thing, but having a lot of balls is not the same as having courage.
tkogrumpy
I think it’s time for the masters of the universe to step up and help old uncle Sam in his hour of financial need. From those to whom much is given, much is expected.
Joseph Nobles
An interesting point made on one of Geithner’s recent trips to Capitol Hill – some wag of a Congress critter asked the Secretary about the assets of the United States. You know, when someone sits down and takes stock of their financial condition, they usually tabulate their assets in one column and their liabilities in another. They then subtract liablities from assets and gain a picture of their net worth. If their net worth is positive to a large degree, their credit worthiness is high and people have no trouble extending them more credit.
This Congressional scoundrel had the nerve to inquire the level of the United States’ assets, so as to gain some idea of the nation’s net worth in the upcoming debt ceiling discussions. The question must be an intemperate and non-serious one, since I never hear such a thing mentioned in all the usual places where seriousness is ascertained. Forget I even mentioned it.
Aaron
I suppose the one advantage the Ryan “plan” has is that at least it has words that are spelled correctly. Compared to the lunatics, grifters, and snake oil salesman the right has been offering Ryan looks positively intellectual.
Of course, the obvious problems with the plan are relatively unimportant in the political theater in which it is enacted. The same political theater that will deluge us with talking points and bluster about the debt ceiling, yet few honest debates regarding its implications. What passes for political debate currently is just a house of mirrors that distracts us from the fact that we now live in a corporatocracy.
The Ryan budget, and the fact that people can actually support it, has me quite depressed.
mclaren
The single biggest entitlement program is the Pentagon’s entitlement to waste 1.45 trillion dollars a year on endless war we never seem to win.
Cut that entitlement program. Then we’ll talk.
Ana Gama
The Ryan
budgetmanifesto.MikeJ
Open thread?
Is this Seddy or is Sam coming out and admitting her love for Carly?
I’m sick of Ryan. And Gibby now appears in lawn care commercials.
Yutsano
I’m afraid that cartoon is unserious and shall have to be taken down immediately.
Chicken sausage and kale fettuccine in cream sauce. I r a happy duck.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Nom nom nom. That sounds yummy. Though, I misread your last word, and I was going to demand details!
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Small waterfowl, nothing more. And this one goes to BHF for sure.
Well at least I get paid to work on Monday. That will calm a few folks down.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Yeah, ME. Now that I know you’re not about to be not paid, I can go shopping!
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Really good hockey final tonight. Minnesota-Duluth beat Michigan in overtime. Well played by both teams, but couldn’t get a change and Duluth scored on the tired players.
Petorado
The Dems should gird for the debt ceiling debate by expressing the next Republican phase of budget demands not as spending cuts or budget cuts, but as service cuts and standard of living cuts. There are places in this nation heading to pre- WWII economies — with no economic value to others, people are living without running water and electricity. How far back in time do the R’s want to go?
ericblair
I’m expecting the debt ceiling fight to be a bunch of bullshit bluster and a quick cave by the goopers. Beating up on poor folks and wimmenfolk is one thing, but threatening the main asset of large corporations and rich people is another. I’m squirreling away some cash just in case shit gets fucked up due to sheer incompetence, but the truly laserlike focus the goopers have maintained on comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted isn’t going to turn around any time soon.
I’m not looking forward to the next budget fight. There won’t be any sort of sanity until the teabaggers either get bought off good and proper or get voted out for serial assholery. We’re going to go to the eleventh hour a few more times before 2013, and get damn sick of it.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Yeah that too. :) It’ll just be nice to also be able to do work since from what I understand only my division was planned to be open. But we work with other divisions of the IRS all the time. That would have made my job almost impossible to do.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Yooo-hooo, Yuuuutsy! Aren’t these boots the cutest? And, I think this pair of earrings would be a perfect bride’s gift from you to me.
You better open that wallet reeeeeally wide.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: :: faints ::
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Kiss kiss!
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@asiangrrlMN: Are you two a couple? I am so confused.
FlipYrWhig
@asiangrrlMN:
I used to live in Philadelphia and read the local alt-weeklies. Alt-weeklies are, or were, heavily sponsored by adult businesses. I remember one phone-sex ad that said to call 1-800-HOT-DUCK. Before I thought of the standard phone keypad, I thought, “Well, that’s certainly a different fetish than usual.”
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@FlipYrWhig: LOL! I thought “poor duck” before I finished reading your post.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@asiangrrlMN: Cuuuute boots. kinda pricey, though.
J.W. Hamner
This nonsense has got me so rageaholic that I’m honestly worried… I think I need a new hobby.
I’m not going to comment on another thread about this budget situation. Ever.
asiangrrlMN
@FlipYrWhig: Bwahahahhahahahha! I like it!
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland: Yeah, they are. Heh. Yutsy and I are fake-married, but we’re getting married for realz so I can run for president–as a Republican. And, anything that has to do with him buying me stuff is a joke (or so he thinks!).
asiangrrlMN
@J.W. Hamner: Yeah. When I reach that point, I pretty much just check out of that topic. Really. You gotta take care of you first.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Poor duckies.
And be honest: I’m being dragged down the aisle kicking and screaming going into a sham marriage for your selfish political ambitions. That and the presents.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Like a true Republican marriage!
Kane
Taibbi money quote:
Omnes Omnibus
@asiangrrlMN: Thank god those boots don’t come in size 5.
asiangrrlMN
@Omnes Omnibus: Mrs. Omnibus has expensive tastes, eh?
To be honest, I just picked out one of the most expensive boots on the site that I thought were cute. I would never wear them, though. I would kill myself in heels like that.
Omnes Omnibus
@asiangrrlMN: MME Omnibus has both expensive taste and a collection of footwear that, while it does not rival that of Imelda Marcos, is quite extensive.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Oh I know you would never WEAR them. You would just HAZ them. That’s the true mark of Republican greed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: I have never understood hoarders.
J.W. Hamner
@asiangrrlMN:
I don’t think posting should ever make you angry. But here I am. However, I’m not trying to make a living at this, so why should I stress?
Deep breathes… none of this matters.
Apsalar
I came across this argument between Megan McArdle and Kurt Harris (a doctor who blogs about nutrition, basically the paleo diet). I always enjoy finding people arguing with McMegan since it means I can comfortably assume the other person is right and I can believe whatever they say.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: The need to acquire is genetic I think. The need to acquire for the sake of acquisition is a personality flaw somewhere. I’m pretty sure it’s a learned behavior.
Anne Laurie
@asiangrrlMN: “Portrait shoes” is the name I’ve heard for boots like that. You wear them to have your picture taken, not for walking or standing. If you look great
totteringstrutting from the limo down the red carpet thru the gantlet of paparazzi to the bouncer’s velvet rope — or just imagine that you would — they’ve served their purpose.The latest sale catalog from the Container Store claims the average American woman owns 40 pairs of shoes, and the average American man 20. I’m not holding up my end of the gender curve, although I’ve got more pairs than I ever visualized when I was young & frugal (i.e., poor). Since it’s not easy to find shoes that fit both my short, fat, flat feet & my style, I tend to hoard what I can find on sale. Over a period of decades, they will add up enough to appall the Spousal Unit, who resents just having to wear black New Balance walking shoes instead of his favorite grey NBs to the office.
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
Just did a full Danny Thomas spit-take. (Do the yoots even remember what that is?) I own seven pairs of shoes, and that’s including the pair of $6 water-slipper-type things from Target that I originally got to protect my feet while teaching/coaching swimming all day but that I found are great for padding around the man-cave with occasional forays outside. If someone held a gun to my head and told me I had to buy 13 more pairs, I don’t know what I would do. I am lusting for a really nice pair of Merrell hiking boots, but beyond that I’m drawing a blank. (And three pairs of the shoes I currently have are worn infrequently.)
ETA: One of my frequently worn pairs are black NBs, like your spouse’s. LOL.
sukabi
@Anne Laurie: shit I’ve got maybe 3 pairs that I wear… and I need to replace one of them… those rich bitches must have wings of their mansions devoted entirely to shoes for the “average” to be 40 pairs / woman…
here’s a question… how many Imelda Marcos’ does a country of 300 million have to have for the average shoe ownership among the adult female population to equal 40 pairs?
Mark S.
@Apsalar:
Dear God, is there any topic Megan doesn’t think she’s a fucking expert on?
I realize she isn’t an expert on anything, but god she looks like an even bigger idiot when she tries to tackle science.
thalarctos
@sukabi: “how many Imelda Marcos’ does a country of 300 million have to have for the average shoe ownership among the adult female population to equal 40 pairs?”
Exactly. Along those same lines, when I read that Americans read, on average, 1 book per year (don’t remember where I saw that)–given how many books my friends and I read, there’s an awful lot of people reading no books to average us out.
piratedan
http://www.stonekettle.com/2011/04/jackass-government.html
SixStringFanatic
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Hey, thanks for the spoiler warning. Guess that’s what I get for working a job that took me away from the tv set on a Saturday night. I DVR’d the game and had planned on watching it once I got home but I thought I’d check in with the Balloon Juice set for a few minutes first. That’ll teach me.
Asshole.
SixStringFanatic
COLLEGE HOCKEY SPOILER ALERT
See how easy that was? Short enough to fit on fucking Twitter.
And if you’ll notice, nobody on this comment board gave a flying fuck about that outcome except for one shmuck with the bad taste to work ten hours on a Saturday night (that would be me) and one loudmouthed, inconsiderate fucking asshole (that would be you).
Thanks, dick.
Aimai
Everyone should read apsalars link to the Mesolithic slap fight between Megan and some guy about the paleo diet. Lesson learned:don’t argue with a free market libertarian who slaughters his own bison to prove a point. The guy brings monomania to punishing heights.
rikyrah
the debt ceiling ‘fight’ is going to be patently absurd, and I think I’m being kind. but, if the Dems don’t get out there, with one voice and say,
” a lot of things will happen if the debt ceiling is not raised, but let’s talk about A,B,C,D.”
and, if they don’t say this over and over and over, picking the same A,B,C,D —- NO MATTER WHAT…..and hang the debt ceiling all on Orange Julius..
they are fucking morons.
AND any Dem who doesn’t want to go along needs to grasp that they’ll get no help in 2012.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: They would look right purty on my feet. As long as I didn’t move in them. ‘coz then I would break something.
@Anne Laurie: Huh. I have three that I wear. Boots for winter (practical ones. This is figging MN after all); walking sandals for summer (like sukabi below, I need to get them repaired); my NB black sneaks for athletic stuff. I have one friend who MIGHT have that many pair of shoes, but none other. So, yeah, some women are in the hundreds, for sure.
@Omnes Omnibus: Make sure you don’t show her those boots, or she may find ’em in her size elsewhere.