So the Senate has voted to raise some cash by borrowing more money. The national debt ceiling will be increased to $9 trillion, which is about $30,000 per man, woman, and child in America. (But we can dilute that amount if we count fetuses!) Alas, even the Associated Press reporter Andrew Taylor doesn't comprehend that there are any alternatives to more borrowing.
The Senate voted Thursday to allow the national debt to swell to nearly $9 trillion, preventing a first-ever default on U.S. Treasury notes. ...The present limit on the debt is $8.2 trillion. With the budget deficit expected to approach $400 billion for both this year and next, another increase in the debt limit will almost certainly be required next year.
Here's an idea: quit spending so much money you ()*!@&%)#@&*#&%!!!!!! I just got a raise at work and most of it gets taken straight out of my check to pay for this crap, and even that isn't enough? You have to borrow even more?!?!?! Holy crap I hate you all, all you politicians. Die.
Ahem.
.. and again I agree 100%.
If there are no more Supreme Court vacancies before 2009, I wouldn't mind seeing the GOP losing control of the Senate if it would teach those apostates a lesson about screwing the fiscal conservative base.
r80: I think that's why MW would be okay with the Democrats having a majority in the House, as he indicated in an earlier post.
I, personally, don't care which part of Congress the Democrats win a majority of. Either one will likely be successful in stopping the Republican deficit spending spree.
This is delusional. The Democrats wouldn't stop the Republican spending spree so much as they would want to impose their own so their constituencies would "get theirs". In a world of legislative logrolling, this is going to end badly.
The real cure is in the primary and defeating the most egregious of incumbents before the general election.
TML: During most of the Clinton years we had divided government, with one party controlling Congress and another controlling the Presidency. These were years of significant stagnation in terms of budget growth. The Republicans in Congress didn't want to fund Clinton's initiatives/programs and Clinton didn't want to fund the Republicans initiatives/programs.
The same would likely be the case if the Democrats win a majority in either chamber of Congress. They would not approve Republican spending appropriations and the Republicans would not approve Democrat spending appropriations.
Since neither side will get everything it wants (unlike now where Republican constituents and special interests get almost everything they want) it will result in much more compromise and middle-of-the-road approaches to spending and policy. This will tend to better represent centrists; the largest group of people in America.
TML: Yeah, Mark's right, spending was much more restrained under Clinton than under W because of the divided government.