Having spent the first 200 days of his Presidency ruining the good name of the United States and fucking all of our allies, it looks like the goal of the third 100 days is to ruin the full faith and credit of the United States:
Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said Tuesday that he is unlikely to support a “clean” measure to increase the nation’s debt limit.
Cole, like many other House Republicans, wants to include spending cuts or other language that would reduce government spending in any measure raising the government’s borrowing limit.
“Most Republicans want to do something to lower the trajectory of the debt,” Cole said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I mean, a clean debt ceiling hike is like having a credit card and saying ‘I’ve reached my limit, I’m just going to change the limit higher without changing any of my spending habits.'”
“That’s a tough sell to Republicans,” he added. “Democrats seem to be fine with that, but I think most of my colleagues aren’t.”
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has called for Congress to approve a clean hike to the debt ceiling, a position somewhat reluctantly joined by White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, a former House Republican who initially suggested it should be paired with spending cuts.
Democrats have warned that they will not accept spending cuts tied to the debt ceiling bill.
Since Democrats could filibuster a bill in the Senate, this gives the minority plenty of leverage in the upcoming fight.
Congress faces a Sept. 29 deadline for lifting the ceiling. If it does not, markets are likely to suffer and the government could shut down and risk defaulting on its debt.
This is going to require the Republicans to work with the Democrats because of wingnuts who are ready to blow shit up, but here is the catch. Even if they manage to pass a clean debt ceiling bill, what’s to say Trump doesn’t say “fuck it, let it burn?” He doesn’t care about governing, just keeping his tiny lunatic base happy. And he might just do it.
Frankensteinbeck
Most of your colleagues don’t have to accept a clean raise, Cole. All it has to do is be introduced on the floor, and all Democrats and a few Republicans will vote for it. Ditto the Senate. Same for a continuing budget resolution. This decision is entirely up to whoever has the power to introduce a bill.
EDIT – Not that that means we’re home free, since Paul Ryan is a lunatic, evil zealot, and McConnell is going to be spiteful as shit after being humiliated on Obamacare repeal. But getting it on the floor is the issue, not your precious feelings, congressman.
Villago Delenda Est
Tom Cole needs to find a fire to die in. Along with every other sack of teabag shit in the House.
I might note that one way to alter the trajectory of the debt is to increase revenue. How about a nice transaction tax on parasites like Robert Mercer?
gratuitous
Gee, I seem to recall a time not so very long ago when we were running budget surpluses. I mean, if the debt worries Rep. Cole so much, maybe we should go back to the tax structure that was in place when the government was taking in more money than it was spending, and actually reducing that debt?
mouse tolliver
I’m sitting here listening to Eric Prince on MSNBC talk about privatizing Afghanistan. He’s using the East India Company as a model. And now he’s evading questions about how much money he personally would gain from doing this.
hueyplong
Kansas writ large.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I’m so sick of this shit show fail parade. I’d happily take Pence at this point, since he’s marginally sentient. This movie blows. I woke up this morning and there were clowns in my covfefe.
JGabriel
John Cole:
He might, eventually, but I don’t think Trump will do it this time around. I think Mnuchin, Mattis, McMaster, Kelly, Pence, and maybe Jarvanka, will all counsel him to sign it. With the same recommendation coming from that many people, Trump will be less likely to overturn the boat the first time a debt ceiling bill lands in front of him.
That said, though, I certainly don’t rule it out for the next one – if Trump lasts that long.
LAO
Cool, just what the US needs — another self-inflicted Republican wound! I’m so glad, that they are considered the grown-ups in the room.
Ella in New Mexico
OMFG now we’re all going to be treated to the false “a debt ceiling hike is like having a credit card and just raising the credit limit” analogy for the next month and a half because the people that voted for dimwits like Tom Cole are TOO FUUUCKING STUPID TO KNOW ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT ECONOMICS and believe any “simple folk kitchen table wisdom” that poops out of the mouths of these morons.
God, will America always be full of such gullible, witless saps?
Jeff
He would go down in history as the man who destroyed the United States.
daveNYC
I believe it should be possible to explain the not goodness of hitting the debt ceiling in such a way that even Trump will understand that he should sign whatever comes across his desk. Even Putin probably doesn’t want the shitshow that would result.
Knight of Nothing
I am so tired of the “credit card” analogies — this money is already spent.
Hey GOP: if you want to cut spending, then write and pass a bill.
ETA: Ella in New Mexico beat me to it.
LAO
@Ella in New Mexico: You can’t fix willfully stupid. So yeah, we’re stuck with them.
Ryan
Although, Trump’s tweet about how McConnell should get rid of the filibuster to pass what he wants would make sense here. Too bad he tweeted it when the bill under consideration was already passable with a majority. Also too, Putin would probably also like a default. What a maroon. Stupid Russian stooge.
SiubhanDuinne
On this date 43 years ago, Richard Nixon announced to a grateful nation that he would resign the Presidency the following day.
In 1974, I was incredibly glad to see him go.
In 2017, I would be incredibly glad to have him back.
Raoul
Do it, GOP. For g-d’s sake, DO IT. Blow up the full faith and credit of the USA. I f**king dare you, you unpatriotic, nihilistic jackwads.
Though even if they do that, and the economy hits serious speed bumps, there will still be a portion of voters and, sadly even pundits, who will continue to call the GOP the ‘pro-business’ party.
Ryan
““Most Republicans want to do something to lower the trajectory of the debt,” Cole said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I mean, a clean debt ceiling hike is like having a credit card and saying ‘I’ve reached my limit, I’m just going to change the limit higher without changing any of my spending habits.’””
Or, it’s like agreeing to fund something and then deciding you’re not going to pay up as the bill comes due after whatever it was got delivered. Oh wait, that’s Trump’s m.o.
LAO
Wow — this is incredible:
I’m at a total loss for words.
Jeffro
I have to think that folks like Mnunchin and the Goldman Sachs Brigade will get through to Orangemandias that not raising the debt ceiling is not an option. I’m sure that Mr. “I’m, like, a smart person” will think that somehow he can use it to squeeze the Senate to repeal Obamacare or something equally stupid, but in the end they’ll raise it and he’ll sign it.
Jeffro
@LAO: Kind of hard for a mercenary enterprise to make money if people aren’t going to keep the wars coming…
Full Metal Wingnut
@Frankensteinbeck: McConnell is the majority leader. If he doesn’t want a vote on a clean debt ceiling hike, it doesn’t happen. Ditto with Ryan as Speaker-Boehner was a prick but a pragmatic prick. Ryan though?
JMG
Trump wants a clean debt limit bill and will sign one because his rich friends all know a default’d be bad for their portfolios and have told him so. The House Freedom Caucus hasn’t got the juice to get its way, as Jonathan Bernstein explains very well on Bloomberg this morning.
Gin & Tonic
@Ella in New Mexico:
Yes.
LAO
@Jeffro: I get that but, still… relying on colonialism as a precedent for sending in mercenaries. Oy vey.
Barbara
McConnell is corporatist through and through. He will not stand in the way of a clean debt bill. It’s the House that now constitutes an asylum run by lunatics, to whatever extent Ryan enables them. The question is how much pressure is brought to bear on Ryan from his slave masters. He will achieve a clean debt limit if they want him to but he might let the kids continue to play fantasy legislative revolution for a while before he makes them go to bed. And of course, he HATES working with Democrats. He thinks it makes him look weak or something.
randy khan
@SiubhanDuinne:
Tomorrow was my mother’s birthday, and she once told me that Nixon’s resignation was the best birthday present she ever got.
Raoul
@Villago Delenda Est: I’m an investor. I do a couple hundred stock trades a year. I’m in favor of a Wall Street transaction tax. Because I think the hedge funds and giant firms that do millions of trades a day are distorting markets, and I resent them also betting against the house (selling short, as in, hoping America has a recession).
But first, we need a damned bill to end the carried interest tax loophole. I am increasingly of the opinion that hedge funds are a cancer on our economy and country.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@mouse tolliver:
In my book, he’s a paid murderer. Blood for profit. Thugging for dollars.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Let’s all remember Trump’s chief negotiating “skill” – he uses the leverage of the consequence of complete failure to gain a bargain at the back end of his obligations.
Bannon will want that, Gorka will want that, and those are the primary voices that pathetic, addled twat listens to.
Gin & Tonic
@SiubhanDuinne: The following day, Nixon’s resignation, was also my father’s 60th birthday. He was largely apolitical, although not a fan. I thought it was a good birthday present.
randy khan
Personally, I think the Dems should at least start the negotiation by demanding some things they want. If they’re going to supply votes for this, they should recognize they are in a position of strength.
sylvania
I say let it burn. I don’t see any downside for Dems and the country is fukd anyways. Muricans voted for this and they deserve to get it, good and hard, without lube.
The reality is that fart sack is too much of a p u s s y to do it. It will be the usual bullying bs and then he will fold like a cheap suit.
LAO
@Barbara: LOL — Ryan will certainly prove his “serious” “economic” chops by allowing his band of lunatics to cause the US to default on its debts. I can’t wait to read about it in the WSJ.
schrodingers_cat
T will sign the debt limit bill because he cares about his bottom line more than he cares about anything else. You can take it to the bank.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@SiubhanDuinne:
Better the devil you know, yes?
Barbara
@mouse tolliver: There must be something about saying “Afghanistan” over and over again that turns minds to mush. The Soviets couldn’t do it, indeed, it probably hugely facilitated the break up of the Soviet empire, and we’ve been there for more than 15 years with only modest advancement, but Erik Prince and his merry band of Rambos are all of a sudden going to turn Afghanistan into a model colony by what, killing everyone who gets in their way? How long would it take before Pakistanis gave away enough guns for that plan to start looking a little shaky?
schrodingers_cat
@LAO: Prince might want to check his history as to what happened to the East India Company in Afghanistan and then in 1857 in India.
Spoiler Alert: Things don’t end well for the Company. The stupid, it burns.
Matt McIrvin
Oh, God, the “debt limit is a credit limit” argument again? NO, the debt limit is not a credit limit. The debt limit is more like a hard limit on how much of your credit card bill you’re actually going to pay, for purchases you already made, even if the minimum payment is higher and the debt collectors are coming! This is so infuriatingly stupid every time it comes up.
Gin & Tonic
@sylvania:
Either you are independently wealthy in a currency not named USD, or you are a moron.
LAO
@schrodingers_cat: I tell ya, it’s like bell-bottoms, wait long enough and everything old comes back into vogue.
Holy crap — I can’t take 3 and 1/2 more years of this shit.
rikyrah
@mouse tolliver:
This is why there are the rumors of the head of the troops possibly being fired. Prince wanted a meeting, and the General wouldn’t even give him one.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: I am betting on the latter, or Russian bot.
Gin & Tonic
@LAO:
Not polyester “leisure suits”, I hope.
Matt McIrvin
@sylvania: Children never deserve to suffer for the sins of their parents. I keep coming back to that. It’s where all “national karma” arguments fail.
Knight of Nothing
@Matt McIrvin: yep.
If the debt ceiling must have an analogy to a family’s home economy, then how about this: dad wants to spend all the cash on tax-cut sports cars and booze, but when it comes time to put food on the table, pay for the new roof, and save for the kids’ college tuition, he’s all, “we need to cut back.”
wvng
Trump is repeatedly on record saying chaos is a good time to make money. He saw the 2007-2008 crash as an opportunity to make money. So I wonder if that Trump will be the one deciding what to do.
Boatboy_srq
@Knight of Nothing: Exactly. This isn’t “raising my credit limit”, it’s “I spent according to my budget and deliberately underpaid, so now I need a credit increase”. Using the credit card analogy is like suggesting that US workers should WANT to have less income because it means they wouldn’t pay so much tax.
schrodingers_cat
@wvng: He will fold like he did on the Russkie sanctions bill.
Boatboy_srq
@Knight of Nothing: Hence the origin of the “h00kers and bl0w” tag.
MomSense
@Ella in New Mexico:
Then there was dolt 45s brilliant suggestion during the campaign that we threaten to default so our creditors will renegotiate for a lower amount. Um no this isn’t a casino bankruptcy just like it isn’t a credit card.
GregB
I hope they fuck around and run it close enough for a credit ratings downgrade.
Though I don’t think the ratings agencies will be as hard on Donnie Two Scoops as they were on Obama.
WestTexan70
@sylvania: That’s completely idiotic. You’re no better than the trumpanistas.
Boatboy_srq
@schrodingers_cat: That’s called long-term forecasting. You know how good the Reichwing is at that.
burnspbesq
@LAO:
I’m kinda doubtful that the Taliban would go along.
lgerard
@Raoul:
Sadly, not enough politicians read Flash Boys
Knight of Nothing
@Boatboy_srq: ha! Tha’s choice. BJ has so many tags I sometimes forget about them.
trollhattan
@LAO:
Same here. Too bad this doesn’t fit on a hat.
Matt McIrvin
@Knight of Nothing: Part of the problem, I think, is the phrase “debt ceiling” itself. The phrase makes it sound like a credit limit. But credit limits are set by creditors before you borrow, not by borrowers after the fact.
Boatboy_srq
@LAO: Nobody ever said “Hessian” in his hearing, obvs.
lollipopguild
@gratuitous: Can we also bring back Bill Clinton as President?
MattF
All those Goldman Sachs ‘playas’ in the Trump administration– all know that US debt instruments are the foundation of the international financial system. The people I know who work on Wall Street are all sort of pretending that this can’t possibly be happening.
And, somewhat OT, but speaking of Wall Street, there’s a spectacular graph in a NYT article that shows what was actually happening in all those years that you didn’t get a real raise.
FlyingToaster (Tablet)
I’ve been predicting this clusterfuck for a couple weeks. Ryan can’t deliver a clean bill, so we’re going to see a shutdown and every stupid thing that goes with it.
rikyrah
Uh huh
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/894798359160131589
Seth AbramsonVerified account @SethAbramson
BREAKING: Facts suggest President Trump, not Republican leadership in Congress, is secretly trying to get to Steele
(2) Here’s a follow-up. Nunes is a proven (quasi-clandestine) Trump agent; he’s not part of the House probe anymore.
(3) British media is already *all over* this. Now *American* media must find out what the White House knew about this secret overseas trip.
(4) We’ve had media reports for months suggesting President Trump is obsessed with Chris Steele and his dossier. This is what that’s led to.
(5) Remember how it went down last time Trump (via Nunes) attempted a clandestine interference op in the Russia probe? *Smelled like this*.
(6) The *unanswered* question is exactly what did these (plausibly
deniable) White House/Nunes agents intend to *do* once they found
Steele?
(7) The extraordinary level of secrecy and under-the-table funding
stream suggest that, as I’ve saying, Donald Trump is terrified of
Steele.
rikyrah
Leslie Proll @LeslieProll
Leslie Proll Retweeted Justin Levitt
Another DOJ reversal on voting rights: States can purge voters from rolls w/o evidence they’ve moved. Approving purging=vote suppression.
burnspbesq
@FlyingToaster (Tablet):
Ryan can’t deliver the votes for a clean bill, but Pelosi sure as shit can. Ryan is about to get pantsed before the entire world, and I’m sure he knows it.
NotMax
From last week:
From 2 weeks ago:
Raoul
I ordered the surf-n-turf, the baked Alaska, and a bottle of fine wine. But now that I’ve eaten, and the check has arrived, I’m only willing to pay for a burger-n-Pabst. Should I be sent to jail for being a deadbeat? Because that is what the GOP is proposing.
burnspbesq
@rikyrah:
More work for the ACLU, NAACP, and MALDEF litigators. Time to pony up, folks. I know you gave, but give more if you can.
Crust
Platinum coin time?
Mnuchin doesn’t really need Congress to play ball, unless he wants to need it.
Raoul
@Full Metal Wingnut:
DJ Boozy-B also had to get Pelosi’s help to pass the limit increases, and Ryan has shown far less willingness to get help from Dems. Ryan is also a charlatan and an idiot, though his dumb-assery still seems to elude too many in the press.
JPL
@rikyrah: Mueller should have the aides testify under oath ASAP.. Maybe those who actually have a law degree will comment, though.
SiubhanDuinne
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
That’s certainly part of it. Also, as has been pointed out many times by many people, for all his faults, Nixon recognised and ultimately was willing to abide by the norms.
The 2016 election was just nine months ago today. Those norms that Nixon grudgingly respected are in the trash heap, in roughly the same time it takes a human being to gestate.
The Moar You Know
@schrodingers_cat: Three words: Doctor William Brydon.
Anyone who has any desire to go into Afghanistan should have held down and forced to read every word of what he went through. If we couldn’t learn the lesson he did (DON’T GO INTO AFGHANISTAN FOR ANY REASON EVER) we’re not capable of learning.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@burnspbesq: Fireside Magazine has an Antifascist Fiction Club option in their Patreon list. Part of the monthly payment is split between the ACLU and the SPLC.
Jeffro
@Raoul: me personally, I would have been happier with the burger and a PBR ??
( but yes your analogy is exactly right )
Raoul
@MattF:
And it most probably won’t.
But in 30+ years of being in the market, I’ve come to understand that Wall Street traders do a surprisingly poor job of pricing in low probability/high impact risks (see also my short rant about about short selling, which means that downside is still up for them). Individual investors and the broader 401(k)-invested public will be screwed over hard if the debt ceiling breaks. I still think there may be enough of a scare that Ryan gets his fingers singed, but (I hope) they don’t tank our damned economy.
Citizen Alan
@WestTexan70:
I certainly don’t want the economic disaster that will accompany not raising the debt limit. But at a certain point, you just get so damned worn down by continually being taken hostage by nihilistic psychopaths that at some point you just want to snap and yell “GO ON THEN! PULL THE TRIGGER! SHOOT ME! I FUCKING DARE YOU!” just to see if it won’t freak out the hostage taker so much that he just leaves and never comes back.
boatboy_srq
@Raoul:
More like “I took you to dinner, and told you to order what you liked, and you had the surf-n-turf and the baked Alaska. We agreed on the wine, ordering from a wine list without pricing. Now that we’ve eaten, though, and the check has arrived, I’m only paying for a burger-n-PBR. What? You liked this place, and wanted to come back? Oh, well, that’s unfortunate. Oh, and all that rich food is giving you indigestion? That’s REALLY unfortunate. Maybe you should stop by Walgreens and get yourself some Tums on your way out…. Um, whaddaya mean there’s not going to be any second date?” Except, of course, there’s a whole segment of the electorate that apparently LIKES being treated like this because they’re somehow convinced that if Those Other People™ had been the date instead of themselves, they’d have been given cat food and told to like it, and if the meal disagrees with them it’s their own fault for having The Good Stuff™.
Lurking Canadian
@Matt McIrvin: Exactly this. The debt limit is just stupid. It’s closer to a credit card limit than any other household analogy, but it’s not very close to a credit card limit. If Congress were serious about this “limit the debt” business, they would forbid the original spending. “Our budget for FY 2018 cannot exceed $4.78 because that’s al the cap room we have left”
It should be scrapped. Or if not scrapped, made automatic with appropriations bills. The bond markets have a way of letting the US know if they decide the US has borrowed too much.
rikyrah
NBC PoliticsVerified account @NBCPolitics
JUST IN: House Democrats are seeking information from every federal agency about any government business with the Trump organization
Raoul
@Jeffro: I just had baked Alaska for the first time in my life (it was $8 and easily satisfied two of us). It was awesome. No wine or surf-n-turf, tho. Those aren’t my thing, just a nice trout, potatoes, and a three buck N.A. beer.
To be fair to all who receive genuine government benefit and help (all of us, Katie), my analogy of fine dining is slightly inapt. But what came to mind in the moment.
lollipopguild
@Citizen Alan: Any elected person who helps destroy the “full faith and credit of the United States” is a traitor and should be shot as a traitor.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@schrodingers_cat:
Wait, hold on, if we made Prince the Maxium Proconcul there and set him up at the William Hay Macnaghten memorial goverment offices in Kabul, this could be a brillant plan.
T S
After a few months of being in default, and the “excitement” of “fuck it, let it burn” wears off and the economy is doing, shall we say, somewhat poorly, I don’t think the lunatic base is going to be very happy. They may misdirect their anger at progressive globalists as always–but I doubt they will be happy.
Raoul
@Citizen Alan: Yup. My feeling exactly when I briefly ranted up @16 in this thread.
In reality, a brief pre-debt limit shutdown might be a useful scare (though in less angry reflection, even that is risky). Full on default would be really, really bad. What freaks me out, and should all of us, is that many of the Freedumb caucus don’t even believe that default is bad. Sheesh.
NotMax
FYI.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@rikyrah:
Without evidence? Oh yeah this totally sounds on the up and up. I’m sure this won’t be abused.
This is exactly what I told my father the GOP would try to do to suppress voters. He tried to be obtuse with saying that, “What, guys with guns are going to go into voting booths?” He’s not a Republican, just an idiot about these things.
catclub
@Ella in New Mexico:
History points to yes.
Heywood J.
@mouse tolliver: Listening to Erik Prince talk is a lot like reading a book written from the vampire’s POV.
catclub
@rikyrah:
Also Just In: Trump Admin telling government agencies not to answer any information requests from Democrats.
catclub
@Lurking Canadian:
Most households have neither an armed forces, nor Law enforcement agencies, nor the ability to issue their own currency to pay any debt denominated in said currency. Besides that – great analogy. Except for all the other ways it is terrible.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@catclub:
I’m pretty sure that’s not legal
Cckids
@daveNYC: “This will crash the stock market and you, personally, will lose money. Lots of money.”
That should do it.
Another Scott
@Crust: Nope.
I disagreed with Booman and others who said that the platinum coin was “obviously” illegal, but it won’t fix the problem.
The GOP has to quit doing this crap. If it takes another temporary default for them to quit, well, that’s what it takes. (To be clear, a default – even a temporary one – would be a disaster because it would increase costs and further weaken the’s USA’s standing.) . And it’s all on them.
They are the majority. They have to govern. They own this.
Sure, Nancy and Chuck should get what they can from the “negotiations”. But in general they should take the approach Obama took – Congress (meaning the majority) needs to do it’s job. “Eat your peas.” Other than at the margins, there’s nothing for the Democrats to talk about. There’s no Plan B.
Cheers,
Scott.
boatboy_srq
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Hasn’t that already been tried? And failed spectacularly?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@boatboy_srq:
Don’t know. It would take years, but I’m sure the courts would rule that an administration cannot withhold information from Congress members, based on partisan affiliation.
Laura
@sylvania: you are either woefully I’ll or under informed or you are a Moran.
The Full Faith and Credit of the United States is the very basis for avoiding economic chaos on a global scale. Undermining that would be the most catastrophic unforced error of this or any century.
But hey, if you believe what’s the harm, let it burn, you should go fuck yourself.
Amir Khalid
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
I seem to recall that the Trump administration has already been told that. But with this crew, it probably went in one ear and out the other.
boatboy_srq
@catclub: Wingnut households frequently have gun/ammo safes and cartons (buckets?) of survival rations. Some have some fraction of a Bitcoin; others have self-produced driver’s licenses, vehicle tags and other documents. Not so much of a stretch for a non-zero percentage of the US electorate.
JPL
Mnuchin already mentioned that he will not choose what to fund. President Obama closed the national parks first, but Mnuchin appears to be suggesting first come, first serve. I’d hate to be dependent on a social security check arriving at the end of the month.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
At warp speed. Nothing there whatsoever to impede its journey from one ear to the other.
catclub
@Frankensteinbeck:
I would hope that Pelosi is demanding that some significant number of Republicans vote for it before enough Democrats vote to pass it – and extracts the maximum concessions for doing so. Doing otherwise enables next times’ hostage taking.
catclub
@Laura:
Hitler invading the Soviet Union, and the South starting a war with the rest of the Union in 1861 may outdo it – unforced error wise.
The Russo-Japanese War was not a big success for Russia.
Mnemosyne
No, a clean debt ceiling hike is like saying, “Oh, shit, I’m overdrawn and I need to pay these debts that I’ve already incurred.” Dumbass.
catclub
@Cckids: Trump has a trivially small fraction of his assets in the stock market.
Lurking Canadian
@catclub: Right, which is why the next part of the sentence you quoted says, “it’s not very close to a credit card limit.”
sylvania
@Laura: You mean like 2008? Oh what short memories people have.
Spare me the apocalyptic bs. There have been Gov’t shutdowns before over raising the debt ceiling. That would be nothing new and no it would not result in locusts like some of you are beaking off about.
Dems need to let it happen. They should not try jump in and save the day by letting the children have their way with their little temper tantrum. Dems will not get any credit for that anyways. Repubs will just try blame them for everything as usual and the trumpanzees will believe them…as usual.
It’s a bunch of dick waving and peeing contests and eventually it gets sorted after a few days/weeks.
sheila in nc
@Jeffro: Don’t forget that the president* has made a career out of stiffing people when the invoice is presented.
Mnemosyne
@LAO:
FWIW, the East India Company was never able to control Afghanistan, because the Afghans repeatedly kicked their asses.
Moar and better guns are not going to solve the geography of the country that makes it a guerrilla fighter’s paradise.
catclub
@boatboy_srq:
I suspect if the US Dollar is no good, those bitcoins won’t be worth much either.
p.a.
He caves when others; Mexico, Europe etc. tell him “no”. But will he cave when people he considers underlings (and of course Constitutionally they are underlings) tell him “no” if he wants a debt ceiling blowup as some sort of ‘victory’? His understanding of the financial implications for his tribe is filtered through the mentality of a two year old.
trollhattan
@The Moar You Know:
Since Prince will be stateside poring over balance sheets, he couldn’t give two figs over what actually occurs to his dudes. Just like his sister will never harvest any personal pain from the further destruction of public education under her brilliant guidance.
Amway, Schmamway, Scamway.
Peale
@LAO: Yeah. The East India Company is a bad example. COBRA makes more sense.
NotMax
@sylvania
Jeeze Louise.
Newsflash: “Debt ceiling” and “budget” are not interchangeable terms.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@trollhattan:
Damn. I was hoping Prince would bite it in Afganistan.
NotMax
@Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe)
“What’s that?”
“The sticky smudge on the ground formerly known as Prince.”
different-church-lady
THIS TIME FOR SURE!
schrodingers_cat
@JPL: Isn’t that a solid R demographic, let them figure out the consequences of voting R.
Barbara
@sylvania: Not raising the debt ceiling means the government doesn’t pay debts. Not setting the budget means government operations shut down. This is like the difference between not having anything in your bank account to pay your creditors and having to wait for the bank to reopen before you can get your money out to pay them. If the government shuts down for long enough, it becomes operationally difficult to keep payments going, but that is still different from instantly not being able to pay everyone as their debts become due, even if someone is in the office to get it done. If you don’t get the difference between an empty bank account and a bank that has not opened yet you are an idiot.
Villago Delenda Est
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Co-equal branch of government? WTF is that?
trollhattan
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
My presumption is given his status as a zillionaire trust fund baby he’s a fake tough guy who’s drawn to military shit, kinda like insurance salesman Tom Clancy. Actually go fight and maybe “kill some wogs”? I don’t think so, but hey, maybe he can take Uday and Qusay with him if they’re bored with shooting leopards and rhinos.
Frankensteinbeck
@schrodingers_cat:
This. The man is the biggest chickenshit I’ve ever seen, and that is a HIGH bar to clear.
@FlyingToaster (Tablet):
Yes he can. Easily. Every Democrat will vote for it, and quite a few, probably most Republicans. That he can’t do it with all Republican votes is irrelevant.
@catclub:
She is very, VERY good at her job, but in this case I doubt it will be difficult. Only the Teabaggers have ever wanted to default on the debt, and there are only enough of them to veto Republican-only bills. Still, I have confidence she will know how many votes it will get before it passes.
The only question is if Ryan will bring it to a vote. The man is insane and two-dimensionally evil.
Frankensteinbeck
@p.a.:
Yes, he will cave. The man is an utter, absolute coward. I have never seen anything like it, at all. He does not have the guts to force a debt ceiling default. You would think that does not take much guts if you’re a delusion, senile, pig-ignorant asshole, but people would yell at him and he cannot face that. Plus, all three of his generals will say ‘You will sign the fucking bill,’ and he is obviously intimidated by them.
boatboy_srq
@catclub: I agree, but I’ll let you explain it to them.
Cckids
@catclub: I get that, my point was, the only argument that will matter to him is one that points out that he will lose money.
JPL
@schrodingers_cat: Let them eat cake.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@sylvania: eh, look at when they did the budget last April; the Tea Tards as as always made a list of demands, got them and then promptly refused to vote for the bill because of SOCIALISM! so Ryan had to go to the Democrats. Since Pelosi made her own demands for the votes Ryan needed this means clearly she is a sell out and is going to be primaried for it.
ruckus
@Raoul:
They are the pro business party. They are not a good pro business party, unless your idea of a good pro business party is to rape and pillage everyone but the CEO.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/new-federal-report-finds-strong-link-between-climate-change-human-activity/2017/08/07/583283d2-7bdd-11e7-9d08-b79f191668ed_story.html
White House reviewing new report that finds strong link between climate change, human activity
Greenergood
@rikyrah: Given what’s happened to previous Putin critics, I really hope that Christopher Steele has a security ring of steel surrounding him and his family, esp. now that we know Putin’s BFF Drumpf has dispatched his minions to find Steele. WTF is this? Maybe all this used to happen all the time, but we didn’t have the Intertubes to keep us up to date – but I have the feeling that Mango Mussolini is the newest, weirdest chapter of American exceptionalism.
terraformer
Chaos is a ladder, someone said…
Frankensteinbeck
@ruckus:
I think they’re the MBA party. It’s not about a sound economy or making money. It’s about letting the rich feel like masters of the universe who can inflict their whims on the lesser people. It’s really just one aspect of being the mean-spirited asshole party.
Frank Wilhoit
@rikyrah: Steele : Trump :: Matteotti : Mussolini
schrodingers_cat
@JPL: I am not advocating that, just pointing out that the consequences. I also hope that it never comes to that.
moops
Donald Trump does not personally gain from a US credit crisis, and his base doesn’t know what it really is. So, no veto. Predicting ManBaby is not rocket science.
cmorenc
@SiubhanDuinne:
It’s so bad I’d even take Shrub or Reagan back at this point, terrible as they both were. Look at how fondly we now view Nixon’s support for progressive things the GOP is now overtly trying to destroy, such as the EPA and the equivalent of a living wage (guaranteed income). Other signs of how totally upside-down and underwater from normal we are at this point is – look how much less negatively, almost sort-of admirably we view Comey and McCain compared to say, on October 31, 2016.
We have truly gone through the Looking Glass into the land of the mad orange drama Queen Trump.
Laura
@sylvania: then go and fuck your own self post haste.
Mnemosyne
Genuine question — has Congress ever shut down the government when a Republican was president?
I was pretty sure that Clinton and Obama knew how to manage a shutdown, so I didn’t get too freaked out. Trump? Yeah, no. His people will fuck it up in a major way.
ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
The MBA party. Yeah I’ll buy that. But understand that it really is the means to the end. MBA does stand for Must Be Asshole after all.
Chris
@mouse tolliver:
“So you want to run Afghanistan so terribly and incompetently that the entire country goes into open rebellion against you, requiring the U.S. government to step in and take charge of the mess you created? That… sounds pretty much like the modern American business model, actually.”
Chris
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
I finally read that huge book about Blackwater that came out about ten years ago, and while I knew a bunch about it already, I hadn’t realized the extent to which Erik Prince was a Christianist (albeit Catholic rather than fundiegelical) fanatic. There were times when I wondered if he hadn’t conceived Blackwater as a Christian al-Qaeda.
Chris
@Boatboy_srq:
You know what’s really depressing? I read another book about international mercenaries right before the Blackwater one, this one from the seventies and written by a Brit. And one of the things the author found interesting and noteworthy was that Americans didn’t have much of a mercenary tradition (in contrast to various European nations); that they still, culturally, viewed mercenaries with deep suspicion, and in fact that their government actively discouraged their citizens from participating in such undertakings. (The book even records the case of an American making great efforts to join a mercenary group in London only to be repeatedly rebuffed, with the company explaining that they were afraid hiring an American would attract negative attention from the United States).
It’s truly depressing to be reading that, only a few decades later, knowing that in the meantime, Erik Prince and other Americans are busy organizing mercenarism on a global and industrial scale far beyond anything the Katangese bands featured in that book would have ever dreamed of.
sm*t cl*de
A few months ago McCain was over in Canberra, begging the Australians to chip in some extra troops towards the Next Glorious Surge that will guarantee victory in Afghanistan within the next Friedman unit. They laughed at him politely. I doubt the UK were especially enthusiastic either.
Turn the Afghanistan occupation over to mercenaries, they’ll be on their own. Does Prince imagine that all the other country with troops there will go along with this?
Chris
@ruckus:
Slight quibble here. The Republicans are not “pro business;” what the Republicans are is “shills for the rich.” They’re bad at being pro-business, because more and more these days the rich are, themselves, not all that good at business in the first place (especially the ones who go into politics). And even those that aren’t terrible at what they do are often terrible at understanding how politics affects what they do. In election after election, they give oodles and oodles of cash to incompetent turds for no other reason than because they hear them singing their praises, and they figure, ah, good, here at least is a politician who respects me and gives me my due and knows that his proper place is to make me happy. Then they’re shocked when those incompetent turds turn around and introduce things like the AHCA or play games with the debt ceiling, things that would be catastrophic for business, and refuse to listen to their financiers. And they never seem to learn, because as a class they’re no smarter than any other Republican-leaning demographic.
ETA: or what Frankensteinbeck said.
sm*t cl*de
Looking on the bright side, no-one has cited the Belgian Congo as an example of how a privatised occupation will pay for itself. Yet.
ronrab
@Boatboy_srq: I’m reasonably certain, having lived with one all my life, that some Republicans actually think like this.
boatboy_srq
@Chris: One reason people like the Kochs are in favor of small government is that it offers less risk that their (s)elected officials will do significant damage to their holdings. Big Gubmint, when managed by the kind of idjit the GOTea has been putting forward of late, can do far more damage to an enterprise or portfolio than small government. It doesn’t make Randian libertarianism any more palatable, but it does make it less mystifying why the 0.01% would embrace it.
boatboy_srq
@Chris: Yet another reason an all-volunteer armed force is suboptimal: too many people in love with guns and uniforms who don’t develop other skills before discharge and organize “security contractor” enterprises as a result.
Chris
@boatboy_srq:
I’m more and more skeptical of the transition to AVF as time goes by.
Also, this reminds me of an expectation I’ve had for some time, which is that soon, within my lifetime, we’ll see a war that’s entirely outsourced to private contractors like Erik Prince’s peeps – not a war in which U.S. troops and the war effort depend on contractors, like Iraq, but in which it regular U.S. forces aren’t involved at all. It’s the logical next step after the AVF transition in the seventies and eighties and the rush to outsource and privatize in the nineties and 2000s, and for a population that loves war but can’t be arsed to pay for it. And Erik Prince, for one, can’t wait to have one of these.
trnc
“I mean, a clean debt ceiling hike is like having a credit card and saying ‘I’ve reached my limit, I’m just going to change the limit higher without
changing any of my spending habitstrying to raise any additional income.’”Morzer
@Cckids:
“This will crash the stock market and you, personally, will lose money. Lots of money. Money which belongs to the Russian Mafia. Now do I have your attention?”
Morzer
@Chris:
Hard right bigoted Catholic Crusaderism is the tradition that Steve Bannon comes out of.
jefft452
@Lurking Canadian: “It should be scrapped”
That would make things far worse. Congress has the power to borrow, nobody else. The debt ceiling was a fix so that Congress pre-approved the Treasury borrowing up to a specified limit. Scrap the debt ceiling and the nucking futs caucus has the ability to crash the world economy every time outflows exceed income on any given day
“Or if not scrapped, made automatic with appropriations bills.”
Hell yes, that’s the way to fix it