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Isn’t this like balance transfer? You don’t have money to make the minimum payment so you transfer the entire balance to another card. This buys you a month or so but you accrue interest from day one. You can do this until you run out of cards. Problem is the government issues its own cards. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
No, it is not. It is like building your personal budget that calls for spending $5,500 in a month on your credit card that you take home $5,000, then refusing to pay the credit card bill.
The fact is that it is hypocritical for Congress to write a deficit budget and then refuse to raise the debt ceiling to pay what they appropriated.
It is also not a problem. The federal government has an unlimited ability to create dollars. The alternative is to either raise taxes or cut spending, both of which would drive the economy into recession at this point.
I think people get confused because they think the "debt ceiling" is a budget limit or something like that. The "debt ceiling" is a very specific thing.
Here's the definition from Wikipedia:
The United States debt ceiling or debt limit is a legislative limit on the amount of national debt that can be issued by the US Treasury, thus limiting how much money the federal government may borrow. The debt ceiling is an aggregate figure which applies to the gross debt, which includes debt in the hands of the public and in intra-government accounts. (About 0.5% of debt is not covered by the ceiling.[1]) Because expenditures are authorized by separate legislation, the debt ceiling does not directly limit government deficits. In effect, it can only restrain the Treasury from paying for expenditures and other financial obligations after the limit has been reached, but which have already been approved (in the budget) and appropriated.
The President has various committee heads, his Cabinet and aids to explain anything he/she needs to understand. Obama doesn't seem to have a clue in many aspects of being President except fundraising. He HAS done a fantastic job increasing racial tension and hatred in the US.
Ben Carson is now reminding me of Herman Cain. Remember Cain was a outsider too and a successful businessman to boot but the more he talks it makes me wonder how this brilliant neuro surgeon is so bizarre in his thinking.
remember the 9-9-9 tax plan?
He has a chill personality so he is appealing but besides that he is out to lunch on economic issues.
The same rational applies equally to the current resident of the White House. He never ran a business, had no foreign policy experience and one only need look at the results of the two projects (Grove Parc Plaza Housing Project and The Annenberg Foundation) in Chicago that he was ever "involved in," besides his work as a community agitator.
The same rational applies equally to the current resident of the White House. He never ran a business, had no foreign policy experience and one only need look at the results of the two projects (Grove Parc Plaza Housing Project and The Annenberg Foundation) in Chicago that he was ever "involved in," besides his work as a community agitator.
The President has various committee heads, his Cabinet and aids to explain anything he/she needs to understand. Obama doesn't seem to have a clue in many aspects of being President except fundraising. He HAS done a fantastic job increasing racial tension and hatred in the US.
If Carson doesn't understand the debt ceiling, shouldn't he check with his advisers before making statements on the subject?
Except Obama was a state and US senator also. But hey, don't let the facts get in the way of the "community organizer" narrative. Cool story bro
He voted "present" while a backbencher in the Illinois Senate. Obama took office in the US Senate on January 2005 and started his presidential campaign in 2007.
He destroyed ALL of his records from the time he was in the Illinois senate, but the only real impact he made was arguing for legislation to let babies born alive from a botched abortion be left to die without medical assistance.
Neither of his terms as back bencher Senator does anything to eradicate his disasterous failures when work was actually required of him.
He voted "present" while a backbencher in the Illinois Senate. Obama took office in the US Senate on January 2005 and started his presidential campaign in 2007.
He destroyed ALL of his records from the time he was in the Illinois senate, but the only real impact he made was arguing for legislation to let babies born alive from a botched abortion be left to die without medical assistance.
Neither of his terms as back bencher Senator does anything to eradicate his disasterous failures when work was actually required of him.
Wow, cool "story," I am sure Obama destroyed all his records.....I see birtherism is still strong in some people.
Isn’t this like balance transfer? You don’t have money to make the minimum payment so you transfer the entire balance to another card. This buys you a month or so but you accrue interest from day one. You can do this until you run out of cards. Problem is the government issues its own cards. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
No. For many reasons. First, the US has the money to make payments, it simply has to authorize Treasury to incur the debt that Congress insisted upon by passing a budget in deficit. Second, a normal credit card charges fees and interest on the balance transferred. Here, there is no balance being transferred at all, and no fee levied upon it (instead, Treasury is issuing new debt at a 10-year interest rate of ~2.22%). I personally have never had a credit card with a 2.22% interest rate, but I tend to think it is a sign of impeccable creditworthiness.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LetsRock
I don't get where people thing Ben Carson is "smart". Having a talent does not equate intelligence. If I spent an entire life studying one subject, I may become an "expert", but that does not equate intelligence. Carson has spent his entire life in a cocoon not having to deal with world issues. He should be lobbying for Surgeon General instead. Maybe he should start as Mayor of his town and see how that works out first.
I will be the first to say that Carson is wildly unqualified to be President. But he has to be a reasonably intelligent person. He graduated from Yale, from U. Maryland Medical School, and was a resident at the highly respected Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. These accomplishments require intellect.
But he is not a politician, an adminstrator, a manager, an executive, and he has 0 experience in government. But I expect he'll get a well-paying gig as a contributor to Fox News after this election, and I don't think that winning is even part of the calculus.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ToddATX
The problem is that Congress already agreed to a budget and/or budget continuation to spend that money. What Carson is advocating is the equivelent of going and buying a new Lexus, signing the loan, but then when the bill comes in to pay saying "naaaah, I can't afford this I'm not going to pay." Us doing that would collapse the entire world economy and utter %&$# us as a nation ...
Of course, the US can afford the bill. Any failure to pay the bill is strictly the result of politicians being incredibly reckless in the misguided hope of extracting concessions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LetsRock
Paying on the current debt is not a default. How about just re-submitting the budget from 2004 and calling it a day?
Congress authorized deficit spending, meaning that the federal government needs cash in order to finance that spending, meaning it needs to incur debt. Congress could have resubmitted the 2004 budget (which was also in deficit), but it chose not to. Instead, it submitted the actual budget that it passed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MTAtech
No, it is not. It is like building your personal budget that calls for spending $5,500 in a month on your credit card that you take home $5,000, then refusing to pay the credit card bill.
The fact is that it is hypocritical for Congress to write a deficit budget and then refuse to raise the debt ceiling to pay what they appropriated.
It is also not a problem. The federal government has an unlimited ability to create dollars. The alternative is to either raise taxes or cut spending, both of which would drive the economy into recession at this point.
Agreed. What's more, both interest rates and inflation are quite low, suggesting that the US should be borrowing more than it is in order to strengthen the economy and take advantage of favorable debt rates.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mkpunk
Except Obama was a state and US senator also. But hey, don't let the facts get in the way of the "community organizer" narrative. Cool story bro
He was also a corporate lawyer, a law professor, a plaintiff's attorney, and president of the Harvard Law Review.
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