Considering they haven’t created one job since taking office, and haven’t so much as advanced one plan to create jobs since they took office, and, mind you, presided over the worst economic collapse since the Depression, it’s pretty clear the Republicans are very serious about killing the economy:
In a symbolic vote to send a message to budget negotiators, the House on Tuesday defeated a measure to raise the national debt ceiling without any accompanying deficit or spending reduction provisions.
The Republican-controlled House voted 318-97 on the legislation that would have raised the federal government’s debt limit by approximately $2.4 trillion.
Under rules for the vote set by the GOP leadership, the measure needed at least two-thirds support to pass, ensuring it had no chance for approval.
The vote was scheduled by Republican leaders to show that any attempt to divorce an increase in the debt ceiling from spending reduction efforts — a move initially favored by the Obama White House — cannot win congressional approval.
Democrats called the move a dangerous political stunt that could rattle financial markets.
Not sure why the markets care. If shit crashes, they’ll be made whole again by the taxpayers. Just like the last time.
Gotta love the 80 or so Democrats who voted with the nihilists.
Also, I blame Obama.
JPL
In Utah it’s not a problem because they are depending on gold and silver.
For the rest of us …f..k…f..k…f..k..f..k
I’m sure those dems are hoping for campaign contributions..yeah right . It worked out so good in 2010.
gypsy howell
I hate all these fucking assholes in our government. They really don’t give a shit what happens to us “little people.” Neither party has a serious jobs initiative going, They’re just playing games, at our expense.
Steve
The vote was so lopsided I don’t think the markets will care. I think, instead, this will be seen as a bipartisan consensus that there will be a deal to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for spending cuts. The market certainly didn’t seem upset today that this vote was widely expected to fail.
El Cid
Let ’em keep doing it. They’ll give in. They did on TARP. They showed their asses in the morning and voted no, and Democrats wouldn’t provide enough votes to pass without a Republican majority. They passed it on the 2nd vote. Some crazy people might think it ignoble to imagine, but I’d guess some rich people might remind them of who pays the bills.
Either that or let’s all be bipartisan and give them what they want or they’ll wear tricornered hats and sing Dixie while the economy burns. Well, not that it would instantly explode and no one could be corralled for yet another vote, but that’s what the party of neo-Confederate terrorbudgetism demands.
D-Chance.
You realize the debt ceiling is meaningless? The US is the only country with such a false premise. All it does is allow for more posturing among the Red and Blue teams. Nothing but fucking gamesmanship. With the economy a mess, all EITHER of them can do is play games and pander in front of the television cameras.
But, I can’t say we deserve better. Because, quite frankly, we don’t. We put them there. Now, bend over and say, “thank you”.
EDIT: #2, what he said (you just can’t ring in early enough on these threads…)
Suffern ACE
So, what exactly requires 2/3 majority for passage? The CNN article doesn’t say. Any debt ceiling increase or what else? All bills must now be veto proof? Our House makes no sense.
Spaghetti Lee
@El Cid:
This. For all the bluster, the Republicans haven’t gotten very much of what they wanted.
Larime the Gimp
Those who voted against it did so because the wording was a campaign trap. The specific wording was that we had to raise the limit because Obama’s budget overspends. Those who voted in favor will now be tarred in the election as having admitted Obama blew up the budget and supporting him anyway.
PeakVT
@Suffern ACE: It was brought up under “suspension of the rules” which adds the 2/3 requirement. It’s an internal House rules thing.
ETA: Roll call.
Davis X. Machina
In a symbolic vote to send a message to voters who can’t tell a debt from a deficit, or sovereign debt from the debt you and I are in, who think Velveeta™ is cheese, who have made millionaires out of Rascal Flats, and as far as I can tell, can’t tell their asses from 300 million holes in the ground….
Fixed on edit.
Democracy is tricky, except on days when democracy is ugly.
JGabriel
Michelle Bachmann on Democrats:
It’s true. We could die of laughter:
Edited To Add: In case it’s not clear: Yes, I’m drawing a metaphorical parallel between Michelle Bachmann and a vicious black pudding.
.
chopper
@El Cid:
an 800 point drop in the dow will do that.
Baud
@Larime the Gimp:
Those who voted in favor are probably from safe D districts.
Larime the Gimp
@Baud: Exactly. And those who didn’t will now get shit from the left.
Davis X. Machina
@JGabriel: Take the pudding, and give the points.
paradox
I blame my parents.
joes527
@chopper: So all we need is for the D’s to stand firm ’till the R’s start shitting themselves.
What could possibly go wrong?
OzoneR
@Larime the Gimp: The left isn’t exactly united on the idea of raising the debt limit either. Hell, the public is against it, even when warned with economic disaster. Because they probably think we can completely solve the debt if we cut foreign aid or some shit.
I still say let the Republican lay waste to Medicare and Social Security. Let them do it. Let the people see firsthand the consequences of their actions, because they’re not going to listen to hypotheticals, at least not until its too late.
They voted for these assholes, let them reap what they have sown.
MattR
@Larime the Gimp: Yep. This was a meaningless vote in terms of actual policy and was done purely to cause political harm to the Democrats. So no matter how they voted on this particular bill, I am not going to hold it against any Democrat. That just rewards teh Republican strategy.
BGinCHI
pulpit, Bully.
General Stuck
Don’t know about that. This time, the wingers will take our triple A credit rating with them when and if they burn it down.
We may all be reduced to a moonshining and lemon aid stand economy when the smoke clears. Who in their right minds would loan this lunatic country a red cent more just so they can default their loans due to partisan politics..
They mean to kill the ACA, and are willing to take us to the brink and maybe beyond to get that job done. They see it as a permanent loss of pol power when it is fully implemented and a grateful nation turns it’s eyes to dems for a thank you for giving Health care security. It may not turn out that way with the ACA, but the wingnuts think it will, just like medicare and SS.
We are seeing people behaving as though their lives depended on it, and such people are very dangerous, to all of us, and to the world. This isn’t a budget battle, so much as the republican dance with destiny as a viable American political party and ideology. Or at least that is how they are seeing it. They won’t go quietly.
El Cid
More propaganda from the big gubmit liars:
The problem is that taxes are too high, there’s too much inflation and there’s about to be hyperinflation because of all the spending, and with the debt we are about to go broke and China will own us all.
All that is true because SHUT UP.
We all know that the deficit is caused by too much spending, and deficits have nothing to do with revenue, because they don’t. Taxes aren’t revenue, they destroy revenue, because they do. SHUT UP.
If we would cut taxes on the most productive among us (those with the highest incomes) and eliminate for all time the estate tax, then they would be liberated to invest in the economy, whether or not there are customers to buy any of their goods and services. Because SHUT UP.
Ghanima Atreides
@Cole
its their only hope to get the WH.
btw, why another libertarian assclown frontpager?
Initially I thought Freddie might have something to contribute.
But Freddie’s just EDK with better hair, pimping Conor Friedersdorf and kumbayah, why we cant we be friends?
We can’t be friends.
Those glibertarian assclowns are just as responsible for destroying our country as Bush and Cheney.
Larime the Gimp
@OzoneR: And as a disabled person living on SS and only able to live because of my medicaid-paid care provider, I should just fuck off and die to prove a point?
Steve
@Larime the Gimp: This is the talking point of the day, but I’m not sure I buy it. The language strikes me as pure boilerplate of a type that might have appeared in every debt limit resolution in the past for all I know.
I think voting to raise the debt limit is the sort of thing that automatically gives rise to demagoguery. I don’t think the demagoguery depends on the GOP saying, “Look here, in subparagraph 1(b)(iii), it says the reason we’re raising the debt limit is the President’s budget request!”
In other words, my opinion is that pointing to this particular language is just a convenient excuse, no more persuasive to me than the GOP claiming they voted against TARP because Nancy Pelosi hurt their feelings with a partisan speech. I think most legislators base their vote on the big picture (“will it help me or hurt me in the next election if I vote to raise the debt ceiling?”) and we political junkies are way too eager to credit the nuanced excuses they offer.
El Cid
@OzoneR:
If we’d cut the education department and the NEA and paying all this money for these silly studies from the NSF, that’d be half the national debt right there. Pretty sure. That’s what I heard. From that local AM guy on in the afternoons.
El Cid
Oh, joy, our principled non-paragraphing analyst has reappeared.
MikeJ
The roll call if anyone is interested. Warning: gets served weird on ffx with ecmascript turned off.
Montysano
Great title, and a good excuse to listen to some Alice.
Maude
@Larime the Gimp:
This
OzoneR
@Larime the Gimp:
I hate to break it to you, but at this point, you’re going to end up fucking off and dying either way. No one is going to protect you and those who will are quickly being sidelined by fake penis picture scandals.
Your fellow Americans, they couldn’t give two shits about you. Now lets all sing a rendition of “God Bless The USA” and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.
Ghanima Atreides
@El Cid: guess what el Campeador?
WE. CAN’T. BE. FRIENDS.
Asshole libertarians like EDK and Freddie want to clean, skin, and eat us.
Otherwise they would switch sides.
General Stuck
The wingnuts can hold all the silly gotcha votes they want in the House, but none of it will undo the damage they have done to themselves with their vote putting medicare on the chopping block. This vote was a feeble snark fart in comparison.
OzoneR
@General Stuck:
no, but they can destroy the country on the way out, making it even more difficult for Democrats to fix in two years before, they to, suffer at the polls again for not fixing everything overnight.
General Stuck
@OzoneR:
you mean like your wish they destroy medicare and SS just to educate the public how destructive they are on the way out. Don’t think I agree with that theory.
Gustopher
318-97 is enough to override a veto.
I wish the Democrats had just voted present, rather than showing that they are willing to compromise at all.
OzoneR
@Gustopher:
They don’t have a choice, it’s either compromise or default. Neither are good options, compromise is probably better actually.
The idiot public made it very clear they agree with the Republicans on this, give them what they want and let them eat the shit they ordered. Really, enough, stop trying to protect people who don’t want to be protected.
b-psycho
I don’t get how the same people can bitch about a weakening dollar AND oppose the debt “ceiling” being raised. If you operate on the assumption that the other choice is to pay off the debt, how the fuck else do they think it’d be done on such short notice?
OzoneR
@General Stuck:
I mean like letting the country go into default, destroying medicare and ss anyway.
I’m for giving them what they want, at this point is the lesser of two evils, and maybe the public will wake the fuck up and never elect these monsters again
or maybe they won’t, and they can have their fascist Randian paradise and we all can go somewhere else.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@JGabriel:
Yes, I’m drawing a metaphorical parallel between Michelle Bachmann and a vicious black pudding.
That’s extremely unfair. While both lack brains entirely, a black pudding has both substance and utility.
Caz
It’s been over 700 days since the democratic controlled Senate proposed or passed a budget.
The D’s were in control of everything for 2 years, and still control two of three (pres and senate), so where are you getting that the GOP is the problem???
Both parties have no clue what’s good for the economy, or both of them don’t care. But to single out the R’s when the D’s are more culpable is totally dishonest, and you know it.
Since Obama took the oath of office, our country has steadily declined on just about every front. He has broken just about every promise he made, and his policies have done nothing but curb freedom, hurt the economy, cost American soldiers’ lives, and left more people unemployed than before he took office.
Unless you are in favor of destroying our country and rebuilding it into some quasi-socialist nation, I don’t see how you can possibly say that the D’s have done anything to help this country.
Balloon Juice should be renamed Useful Idiot Juice.
kestral
@OzoneR: I didn’tv ote for those morons with Rs in front of their names. Plenty of other people didn’t, either.
If SS and Medicare/Medicaid go, my grandpa will probably wind up dead. My cousin will wind up with no way to support herself and her baby daughter.
No way, man. Giving in like that isn’t a strategy. Pardon my language, but that’s just petty, douche-y spite.
Hawes
I would like the market to plunge 800 points tomorrow. Show those fuckers what’s up.
But it likely won’t because the Wall Street sharps have all got short plays on the American economy at this point. If it all burns down, they’ll be fine.
Maybe this is all some plan to help the Paulites get us back on the gold standard.
Alan in SF
Obama could have made it clear, as even the moderate Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias recommended, that he wasn’t going to negotiate with hostage takers. Instead, he made it clear that he would. But of course that doesn’t make him any more blameworthy than anyone else. It’s not like he’s some kind of “leader” or something.
El Cid
@Ghanima Atreides: You had to say “El Campeador” because I had bested you. It’s true because I tagged you first.
WyldPirate
@General Stuck:
You naive fuckwit, the Dems will help them do exactly that… right after they get done helping the Rethugs eviscerate Medicare for everyone under 55.
General Stuck
@WyldPirate:
No they won’t. Now go to hell you crazy motherfucker.
WyldPirate
@Caz:
Hammer. Nail. Head.
WyldPirate
@General Stuck:
You obviously haven’t paid any attention to the Capitulator-in Chief, Stuck. You must be too busy whacking off to all of the captioned propaganda over at
Leni Riefenstahl’sBlackwater Dog’s juvenile hero-worship site.Shoemaker-Levy 9
Why don’t you just be honest and admit that you applaud Dems when they hold gimmick votes like this.
General Stuck
@WyldPirate:
I just hope the local authorities are keeping an eye on you Wildypirate, as you just don’t seem all that well.
Not at all well.
Splitting Image
I thought budgetary measures had to originate in the House….
Triassic Sands
The only reason the Republicans haven’t led a historic jobs renaissance is because they aren’t free to reduce tax rates on the wealthy to zero. If they could do that, there would be a vigintillion new, high-paying jobs created over night. That’s how the economy works. Just look at history. (Or maybe you shouldn’t.)
Bender
So when it’s a Republican President and Democrat Congress and the economy tanks, it’s the fault of the Republican President. But after a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress spend two years and a few trillion and make unemployment worse, the economy worse, and the deficit worse, that’s also the Republicans fault. Then, with a Republican Senate and a Democratic House and President, the still-tanking economy is… wait for it… the Republican Senate’s fault.
You are a serious political mind, John. Everyone should take your insights very, very seriously.
Church Lady
@Splitting Image:
The Senate has some responsibility in the budgetary process. Wikipedia has a decent overview of how it works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_budget_process
General Stuck
jeebus, everything went midget
Karen
I’ve reached a point where I say that merciful killing should be legal. Not just medically.
Hear me out.
The GOP and their fuckbuddies are determined to kill the middle class and plunge everyone into poverty. Then they’re determined to take away every safety net until everyone is dying and starving. Wouldn’t it just be more humane for there to be a merciful killing of everyone but just the top 1%?
They’re trying to kill us anyway, what the fuck is the difference?
Wouldn’t it be better to just have all but the top 1% drink some kind of cynanide laced drink and all die at once?
Then let’s see what kind of world they’re in. Because without all the peons like us, who would do their grunt work? Who would clean their houses? Who would take care of their kids?
Who would bury all of our bodies?
And if there are, just to provide a figure, 1,000 people in the top 1%, wouldn’t the first hundred people declare themselves the top 1% and the other 900 become the peons?
If it’s not to be the only kids left in the sandbox, then what the hell is their endgame?
JITC
Could this really be why so many Democrats voted against it? http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/31/980818/-House-Democrats-should-vote-no-on-Republican-debt-limit-ploy
Mnemosyne
@Caz:
The Senate doesn’t propose budgets. Budgets have to originate in the House of Representatives as spelled out in the Constitution.
I didn’t bother to read the rest since you embarrassed yourself in the very first line.
El Cid
@Bender: The odd thing about such things is that you can actually analyze what is being done and the effects of those actions.
It’s odd, I know, but there really is a greater ability of seeing causes and effects beyond the name of the party next to a name.
At present, for example, the party named “Democratic Party” isn’t demanding idiot “cuts” in the successful and efficient program called Medicare so that the “debt ceiling” can be allowed to rise, so that deficits can be addressed by continued and increased tax benefits to the wealthiest and their corporate animated offspring.
Mnemosyne
@Bender:
Which Democratic President and Congress are you talking about? Because it’s not the one we had from 2008 to 2010.
Of course, I don’t know why I bother. You don’t do facts, only Just-So stories.
El Cid
I usually don’t mean it, but there are certainly times when I’d like my idiot, lazy, uninformed fellow Americans to get what it is they’re demanding. (Yes, I know the Mencken quote.) And then see exactly how much they like all the things they denounce the political system for not giving them.
And I mean idiot and lazy and uninformed because I continually hear my coworkers’ and neighbors’ bullshit excuses about how they don’t have all the luxury of knowing exactly what’s going on blah blah blah, as though I’m some rich potentate because I spend some time looking for actual sources of info rather than glancing at the right wing talk show host station after I’ve visited the Golf Network update.
But then I get better.
Also I realize that nothing sane would be learned, it would just be more of the Mad-Max-but-Lazier reaction, rather than a fantasized scales falling from the eyes.
OzoneR
@Bender:
When this actually happens, we’ll talk, kthanxbye
El Cid
@Mnemosyne: TARP was passed under Obama. Because it was the economy’s worry about a future government and Fannie-Freddie which kilt the economy in fall of 2008. Because it was. SHUT UP.
OzoneR
@WyldPirate:
Good, the more they can make Americans suffer, the better. They need to be taught a fucking lesson.
OzoneR
@kestral:
Well, that sucks, but like I said…IT’S GOING TO HAPPEN ANYWAY.
It’s not giving up, it’s pressing the reset button, it’s putting America back to factory settings. We need a restart if we’re going to make this godforsaken hellhole a reasonable place to live.
OzoneR
@Alan in SF:
anyone who thinks this would have made a lick of a difference needs to be smacked right across the face twenty five times.
AlladinsLamp
The Dem controlled Senate can’t/couldn’t pass a budget bill (the House version or their own) over a Rep filabuster.
Also too, Lieberman, Nelson, etc.
lol
@WyldPirate:
After you claimed that Obama was getting ready to announce drastic cuts to Social Security and Medicare:
during the lame duck session
during the state of the union
during the budget negotiations
during the response to the Ryan plan
Excuse me for not taking you too seriously.
mclaren
The Republicans have adopted Lenin’s motto: “The worse, the better.”
John Puma
The problem is that cuts to the bloated spending on our perpetual war machine (50+% of budget) is NEVER considered among “spending reduction provisions.”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/13-4
TenguPhule
Do any of these Republicans own a horse they can find the head of in their bed?
Subtle isn’t going to cut it with these lunatics.
Rabble Rabble Rabble!
Nemesis
+1 for Alice In Chains reference.
Government debt/business debt is being intentionally conflated with personal debt, which is a different animal completely.
Obama will in fact support changes to SS and Medicare. Im guessing that changes to benefits will be unacceptable. Locating and reducing unnecessary expenses will be targeted. It could become a bit tricky, if the gop claim that the president indeed did cut social programs. But our superior messaging machine can brush aside such claims…
grandpajohn
@Caz: Well after reading your first sentence its apparent that you are not even useful, just an idiot. Senate doesn’t introduce budgets, the house does.
grandpajohn
@Bender: and the march of the fucking strawmen begins from the guy who can’t post with out the lying gene in his DNA manifesting itself
Alan in SF
@OzoneR: I agree, the President of the United States is the least powerful person in the country, perhaps the least powerful person in the world. The most popular by far of any national political figure has no influence whatsoever on public opinion. The leading figure in the Democratic Party has no influence on other Democratic elected officials. It was all revealed in Obama’s book, “The Audacity of Why Bother Trying.”
If only there were some way that the President could prevent a bad bill from becoming law.
LittlePig
@JGabriel: Oddly, that’s the only episode of the The Goodies I can remember (bearing in mind I saw it in 1981).
It was a demonstration of the art of attacking a person with a blood pudding – ‘Icky Thump’.
Berial
@El Cid: Have you looked at the comments from that Bartlett piece? You’ll laugh, you’ll think about them and then you’ll cry. You can tell people ‘taxes are at a historic low’ and they simply WILL NOT BELIEVE YOU no matter how many facts you back that up with.