Fiscal Cliff Impending//GOP is Missing In Action

Once again the GOP is willing to screw up the American Economy.

With the Fiscal Cliff days away, with another debt ceiling limit approaching the GOP has now taken an entirely new stance.

It's Missing In Action

Headline: Republicans Now 100 Percent AWOL From Fiscal Cliff Talks

Boehner and the GOP House Members have given up. McConnell in the Senate won't do anything.

In the last few years facing the worst recession in history and crushing problems here are the actions of the GOP Congress in order:

A REJECT TARP--send the stock markets crashing and cause credit markets to fall apart

Republicans in the House killed the initial vote on the TARP Bailout on 9/29/2008.

If you don't recall what occurred review this: http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/29/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm


The Dow slumped 778 points: Largest one day loss ever.

$1.2 trillion of market value was demolished in one day.

The S & P 500 Index lost 8.8% of value
NASDAQ lost 9.1%

LIBOR rose to a record 2.2%. In other words trillions of dollars of loans were jacked up.

and finally: the TED spread hit a more than 26-year high of 3.58% before dipping back to 3.54%. The TED spread is the difference between what banks charge each other to borrow for three months and what the Treasury pays. When banks charge each other a higher premium than the U.S. government, that's a sign of fear.

In other words the entire world financial system was in collapse as a result of the Republican denial of the TARP emergency legislation in 2008.

The shock was overbearing. A slightly revised TARP bill was resubmitted a few days later, passed by the Senate and then passed by the House.

Move Forward to summer 2011:

B. Reject raising the debt ceiling and cause US credit ratings to drop

First the GOP decided against raising the debt ceiling, something that had been done routinely over the years to pay for past legislation on spending:

How often?

9 of those were during Bush II's time in office.

Subsequent to the debt ceiling crisis world wide bond rating agencies lowered the credit rating of the US for the first time, strictly because of the inability of the government to function on economic matters.

And now GOP financial extremism is moving the US economy over the fiscal cliff.

Taxes will go up across the board. Severe cuts will be made on spending that is supporting the economy. A recession is forecast. On top of that we are facing another debt ceiling crisis.

And where is the GOP now??????

Missing in Action.

The GOP--> Osama bin Laden's favorite political party.

 

What, just because Obama decided to fly back from Hawaii today, you think everyone else should abort their vacation as well? It takes the troops a little longer to catch up with what the leader has decided to do today. Tomorrow, I'm sure the taxpayer sponsored rounds of golf will resume.

 

I don't know o-nation. its too cold to play golf in the DC area. you must know something about a golf outing that the rest of us don't know. Are you caddying at a tea party congressional function in Palm Beach? who is paying for it?

 

What a funny thread....

 

You joke, but that is seriously something I would be willing to do. Any excuse to get on a golf course and have a few drinks is a worthy excuse.

On topic, as a business guy, if you knew refusing to negotiate on a deal until a certain deadline lapsed would put you in a stronger negotiating position, would you EVER not let that deadline pass? Of course not. Nobody would. I get a kick out of the theatrics of flying back to Washington as if he is going to strike some last minute deal with House Republicans. Political games at their finest, setup for dumb constituents who aren't paying attention.

The president is playing chicken with our economy to better his own political position, not realizing he is screwing with people who won't blink. The house Republicans are there to do one thing and one thing only, at any expense to their political careers. Games of chicken are exciting until neither party swerves.

 

Typical response from the tea party cult/sect. The rest of the nation will take an economic hit and the tea party afficianado's look at this as politics.

Its no wonder most of the world is askance. In responsible nations, in responsible businesses, and responsible households people take serious economic issues seriously. The radical GOP sees it as a political game.

As to negotiating. O-nation I made hundreds of deals, maybe over a thousand in about 20+ years of commercial real estate. The object was to make a deal, not screw around with it and hurt a lot of people in the process for political or some stupid extremist purpose.

 

Typical response? More like a typical thread from a mindless lib.

He's been in office for over 4 years, and has been destroying the country rapidly. It's sad that you can't even admit that, but not surprising.

So so true, it's all a game to him.. And, no matter what he does, the crazies on the left will continue to support and jump up and down for him..

What is so bad about opposing something that doesn't make economic sense?

 

Maybe you are living in teaparty propaganda world and you've missed what has been occurring over the last 4 years:

1. Obama came into office in the midst of a crushing, never before experienced horrendous recession(at least since the 1920's) that had started spiraling downward in December 2007 and continued downward longer than any recession of the last 30 years. The scope and size of the recession Obama inherited was gigantic.

Officially, it ended in June 2009, lasting 18 months, the longest lasting such recession in since post WWII. Truly momentous in scope.

So while tea party propagandists blame Obama for everything officially the US was in recession for 13 months under Bush and 5 months under Obama, and clearly his investment program passed in Feb 2009 helped to push the US up out of the recession.

Since then progress has been slow but steady. Clearly the voting public believes this as despite the neverending tea party rhetoric Obama was reelected.

I'd pick my head out of the sand and see what is occurring in the real world not the world of tea party propaganda.

Lets list the great ideas and results from the tea party right wing extremists:

1. Basic economic program from 2001 to early 2009. Caused the great recession.

2. Summer/early fall 2008. tea party republicans voted overwhelmingly against TARP. Stock market had its worst one day drop EVER, credit markets plunged. World facing economic disaster.

3. Summer 2011. Tea Party nut wings vote down debt ceiling extension after it had been pretty automatically raised 74 times since 1962 by Republican and Democratic Congresses alike. Credit Rating companies downgrade US credit ratings solely because of the inability to govern.

Now we are stuck on this fiscal cliff thing. Obama had moved off the $250,000 limit on tax increases to $400,000 and agreed to decreases in social welfare program spending via formula, and the tea party couldn't even internally agree to their leaders idea for a $1 million income lower limit on tax increases thus screwing everything up as reports were surfacing the two parties were imenently close to a deal.

Now all will pay with the tea party again playing mindless political games.

So with all those truly ass backwards economic triumphs exactly what has the tea party done to create economic sense?

 

Yep, and another 4 years will go by and you'll continue to blame the last administration.. Which is normal to you, but completely stupid to most normal thinking people.

Raising taxes on the rich, does not fix the problems we have with SPENDING.

Raising taxes on the rich, DOES hurt job creation.

Once again, there is absolutely zero common sense when talking about this stuff..

 

Mike Kelly is a relatively new member of Congress, first voted in in 2010 as part of the tea party phenomena. His district is pretty solidly Republican, dramatically rural with one larger sized "city" Erie, in NorthWest Pa. Beyond that its a very significantly rural area with a lot of hunting opportunities. Kelly inherited his father's auto dealership in one of the more central "larger" towns in the area, Butler, and is a long term, well off business man with a history on local political boards and possibly elected locally, before running for Congress. He is probably going to stick in Congress for a long time, unless things change drastically, as his election victory in 2012 was significantly larger than when he was first elected.

Couple of things about him: He is sort of a rousing speaker, with this speech getting a resounding standing ovation in Congress, something that is incredibly rare: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/see-the-speech-that-got-a-standing-ovation-in-congress-today/

I actually like guys who speak in the language he speaks though IMHO his presentation was theatrical, and frankly having negotiated a lot of loans for others and myself, nobody is EVER presented with 11,000 pages of regulations when negotiating a loan. On top of that, having negotiated a lot of commercial real estate leases, I had to sort of laugh at the problem the local baseball stadium had about regulations.

Those are ALWAYS LOCAL. They are so damned typical everywhere. In all the deals I've ever done we've never had the good fortune in getting a Congressman to step in on our behalf to get approved for occupancy, and frankly any entity or business that hasn't gotten all its approvals before a place opens is doing something drastically wrong!!!! and god only knows how many crappy stupid occupancy regulations I've seen hold up occupancy for endless tenants.

having said all that here is how he reported the responses of his constituents with regard to the fiscal cliff negotiations straight from their mouths!!!!!

from the Cranbury Eagle (local media in his district in PA)

What do real people want???

1. They want a DEAL.
2. They would pay a little more in taxes
3. They want to see govt spending cut (on "foolish" spending).

Real people WANT A DEAL. The people he spoke with, mind you, this is a tea party guy speaking, said they would pay more in taxes.


BTW: Kelly supported Boehner in his plan B proposal, and was a big Boehner backer during the Fiscal Cliff negotiations. He did support his party leader.


Real people want a negotiated settlement. Unfortunately the ultra extremists from the tea party and their enforcer wing financed by multi millionaires and billionaires are once again moving the US financial/economic situation into disaster territory.

 

Earl, what spending cuts is Obama proposing that will pay down the debt?

It's hilarious - according to Earl, Obama is president but he's not in charge!

Now Earl, in case you missed today's news, here's what happened TODAY (according to CNBC and Bloomberg TV)

1. Obama announces this morning he will propose a plan at 3pm
CNBC and Bloomberg TV speculate Obama's plan will be something Obama wants the Republicans to reject. This way, Obama can blame the Republicans for his own failure as President.
2. Around noon, Boehner calls Obama's bluff and says that the Republicans will support whatever plan Obama proposes
3. 3pm - no plan
4. 4pm - White House announces they have no plan
5. At 6:30pm, Obama, Boehner, McConnel and Pelosi, in a bi-partisan announcement, all announce that they are leaving it up to Harry Reid to propose a plan. Obama says this in an announcement to the press at 7:45pm. Obama takes no questions and runs away faster than Lindsey Lohan from a police car.
(note: The Democratic Senate hasn't proposed a budget in four years)
6. 6:45pm Reid, realizing his bullshit has been called, asks Boehner for a plan. Boehner goes on CNBC and reminds Reid that everyone, including Obama, expects Reid to come up with a plan.

All eyes are now on Senate leader Harry Reid.

Earl, I'm sorry of the reality of what happened today doesn't agree with your political bias. I invite you to ignore this reality and come up with your own, alternate reality of what happened today. I suggest a strong hallucinogen.

 

Corwin: Just for the record I ignore most of your comments these days.

First: They are written in the style and at an emotional level that is reminiscent of a preteen brat in a school yard. Adults generally don't pay attention to preteen brats.

Second: You simply twist everything into a Fox News GOP propaganda version of reality. Its simply never that way.

As to your comments above, which again reflect the taunts of a school yard brat in style and the propaganda blast of the blame throwing GOP politicians its simply entirely misleading and representative of the political blame game that takes up 90% of the time the GOP leadership should be using to come up with a plan that averts the fiscal cliff.


Its difficult to track every little detail but lets try. Corwin: After you return to the classroom from the preteen school yard you will have to either listen to a teacher or be sent to a corner with a dunce cap, or kicked out of class for disruption.


As of 12/21 Boehner was floating his plan B to the House. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323277504578189313001251332.html (that is per the WSJ, a real newspaper with real reporters, though an obvious huge conservative editorial bent) but at least its a reputable reporter of facts.

Boehner obviously did not have enough feel for the level and quantity of house GOP rejection of any increases of any income taxes on any level of income. Simply how many GOP house members would accept some income tax increase and how many wouldn't. The most critical element of the Plan B proposal was to limit income tax rate increases on incomes above $1 million. Not $250,000 where Obama had been all along and not $400,000 which all acknowledge Obama had moved to to get a deal.

Per the article Obama and House and Senate Dems opposed the Plan B idea. Senate Republican leadership, (ie Mitch McConnell) supported it.

Boehner's plan failed exclusively within the realm of the GOP majority. Boehner dropped it. Boehner's goal was to get a majority within the majority. In other words he needed at least 218 GOP members of congress to support this plan.

It became obvious he didn't have it. He dropped the plan. All efforts to resolve the fiscal cliff negotiations died right there!!!!!

Go back to the WSJ article. Obama and others couldn't figure it out. He and others noted they were so close to a deal. It was palpable.

It was possible a real deal that reflected actual on going negotiations could have hit the floor of the House and been put to vote by both Dems and GOP. It never occurred. The wild assed out of nowhere Plan B effort (which was entirely political killed all efforts to avoid the fiscal cliff.


That, by the way is what real people want per the article I cited earlier from Pennsylvania. I'll repeat it for you.

The above was reported by a tea party member of congress.

Now as to your last day, preteen playground taunt from a brat.

1. Nobody. Let me repeat. NOBODY. proposes that the fiscal cliff negotiations will end the deficit. In fact the drastic measures from the fiscal cliff will do more to eliminate the deficit than any of the negotiations currently in place. The negotiations are to avoid a RECESSION. The negotiations are to avoid raising taxes and expenses on 99% of the population or more.

2. In the midst of the last second negotiations created by the failure from before Christmas, Mitch McConnell has been wilely playing the blame game. Obama said he wanted all players from the House and Senate leadership to come in and make a deal. The onus was to fall on Senate Leadership since the House GOP leadership and the House radical extremists ended the negotiations before Christmas.

McConnell stated he wanted a proposal from the President and the Dems and he would review it. That morphed into GOP political propaganda. That was one guy twisting the communications into a piece of political propaganda shifting the blame and the onus of responsibility elsewhere.

GOP propagandists jumped on it. It is not how Obama got all parties back into DC. He did not say I've got a deal. Obama wanted the Senate leadership to try and make a deal.

They are working on it now. Regardless of your baseless twisted piece of propaganda and the latest effort of the right wing propaganda machine.

Make a deal fellas. A huge majority of Americans want it. An evidently tiny number of house Right Wing extremists are against a reasonable deal.

 

You can stick your head in the sand and still get your ass kicked.

Written just like a pre-teen brat.

I'm pretty sure I've written repeatedly that I don't watch Fox news.

Is that a sentence?

It's funny. I write about what happened on 12/28, and so Earl decides to go back in time one week. It's a concession that Harry Reid has made a jackass out of himself. (Earl, Harry Reid is the Senate Majority Leader.)

Earl, look, you have your bias. Let's be frank here - you enjoy your bias. Would you be relieved if you saw the GOP doing what you would consider "the right thing"? No, of course not. Why are you so in love with your hatred?

Speaker Boehner announces that he will sign anything Obama submits, CNBC and Bloomberg TV announce that, and I write that above. WHY DOES THAT THAT FREAK YOU OUT?

What I wrote is cold, hard fact. You can look it up yourself.

Earl, why don't you have the maturity to deal with the fact that Republican leadership is supporting Obama? Instead of being happy, why did you FREAK? Instead of dealing with the reality that you are not just WRONG, you are DAMN WRONG, you become scared, right? Instead of dealing with the truth, why are you scared? Instead of dealing head-on that Boehner supports the president, you take the coward's way out and write that you didn't read what I wrote. Is that anything other than sad? Isn't your behavior that of a frightend child?

You enjoy being self-righteous, don't you? You need to feel self-righteous, right? And so, if Boehner calls Obama's bluff and announced he will support Obama's plan - you take the coward's way out. It just makes you look like an angry, pathetic child, doesn't it?

Why does Boehner's support of the president frighten you into a childish rant? Why the denial?

Are you so cold-hearted that you are willing to see the economy collapse just to satisfy your selfishness and your hate?

 

Its like a script to kestone cops. Pure idiocy. If these people were in my employ, I would fire them all. If it were a business, I wouldn't do business with them. Unfortunately they are neither our employees or a business we have the option of not doing business with. These are our elected leaders. Its a profile in failure. I'm sure Earlpearl will spend another 2000 words trying to explain how leadership doesn't come from the top.


@Earl: Just answer this simple question. Do you honestly believe Obama wants a negotiated deal?

 

Typical elitist leftist response, no surprise.

Fell asleep 2 sentences in to your post, sorry. Yes, the big bad mean right wing-ers are the problem here.. Posting it over and over again, makes it so! (not)

Elitist lefty crazies, have a hard time struggling with reality, we know.

 

Earl is just letting his extremist hatred flow through him. His political bigotry is so PURE.

I'm especially entertained by his politically extremist rants condemning political extremists. Isn't the irony simply delicious?

I think the announcement that Speaker Boehner will support any plan Obama puts on the table put Earl over the edge. Earl NEEDS his hatred, it defines who he is.

OTOH, I suspect Earl doesn't know who Boehner is. Earl, John Boehner is the Speaker of the House. He is not the President, Barack Obama is. The President has more power than the Speaker of the House. Does that help?

 

If Obama didn't spend like the world was going to end in 2012, we wouldn't even need to have these fiscal cliff talks... so who again is screwing up the American economy?

Let's say I were to max out my credit cards. And then I got some more and maxed them out too. Then I tried to get more but the credit card companies turned me down. Suddenly I can't pay my credit card debt because I have to pay for my day to day expenses instead of just charging them to a new card. Should I turn around and blame the credit card companies for destroying my economic stability for denying me more credit?

 

Right Wing Extremists: Once again you are twisting the details. In the latest iteration Boehner, who is no longer the point man said he would support and push whatever negotiated settlement the Dem and GOP leaders of the Senate come up with.

Can't you get a single fact right. Does every detail promoted by the extremists that is supposedly a "fact" get twisted into a piece of political propaganda???

@obamanation. All during the campaign Obama made clear his intentions with regard to fighting the debt issue. One part had to be raising taxes on the wealthiest.

Time and again in history and particularly in American history that has been part of an effort to fight debt.

When the Boehner plan B failed and was tabled Boehner sent Congress home with no specifics for reviving talks. He quit at that point.

McConnell the Senate leader showed ZERO interests in taking the lead. Another Republican MIA. Obama called everyone back to try and negotiate an even smaller stop gap measure.

Who is trying to get something done? Who has been a quitter? I know the teaparty fantasists will state anything...but its clear to the majority of the public that Obama is trying and the GOP is lagging.

I'll say this. Assuming nothing gets done, when the time comes to blame someone, just as it occurred in the 1990's when Gingrich shut down the government, just as it occurred in 2008 when the GOP congress first voted down TARP, just as it occurred in 2011 when the teaparty rejected the increase in the debt ceiling and US debt ratings were lowered. let alone leading to this crisis....the US public at large will blame Republicans as it did each time in the past. The GOP continues to resort to blackmail.

 

How about just making a balanced budget and then you don't need the debt ceiling raised.

Obama is trying to fix it now by making us even more in debt? That doesn't make sense. He knew this was coming for years. We should never have been in a position where this was still being discussed days before a deadline like this. It's Extremely Irresponsible.

 

Maybe you don't realize that in hundreds of years of government the US scarcely ever runs a balanced budget. Similarly nations around the world mostly don't run balanced budgets.

The very large size of the current US deficit is a function of a number of key issues: The impact of the recession that killed tax revenues and economic growth for years. The impact of automatic emergency measures to help out people hit hard by the recession. Past policies from the Bush administration. Obama's policies. The inability of congress to actually try and solve problems.

The size of the debt is troubling though its interesting to see how the extremist side of the GOP addresses it. When it comes to expenses they hate they scream about debt. When it comes to govt expenses they like they never mention debt. That of course is very political.

The long term issues with debt are troubling if you try and take a balanced approach. The US spends hugely on 2 areas that the rest of the world doesn't. We spend like crazy on defense. Frankly we are paying for other democracies freedom while their governments pay for health care for their populations.

We spend like crazy on some aspects of health care and totally ignore other areas of health care. Medicare and medicaid soak up huge funds, while a lot of people are left without any responsible health care.

Here is an underlying fact about health care, which is a big cause of deficits current and future:

Whether health care is paid for publicly or privately we spend more than the rest of the world. Unlike most nations with some level of civilization and even nations without civilization, we don't offer some level of "universal coverage". So what we pay across the board and how we pay for it is out of whack.

If manifests itself on the public health and debt basis by driving those costs through the roof and impacting debt now but more scarily into the future.

If the US tackled overall how health care costs have risen on everyone and bring those levels to that similar to the rest of the world that would solve the worst aspects of the debt problem, so long as reducing those expenditures effectively hit both the private and public expenditures for health care.