I expect the debt ceiling to be raised without issue. Just like it was every year Obama wasn't President.
A significant portion of the majority thinks that not raising it would just force the government to cut spending and would therefore be awesome, so I would not be so sure.
Yeah, remember that the GOP itself is too full of crazies to get anything done. I wouldn't bet on them easily being able to get this done with Democratic aid.
Trillion dollar Trump coin? Or do you mean the crazies couldn't hold back the debt ceiling without the Dem's support?
I mean the GOP cannot rely on all it's members to actually vote to raise the debt ceiling.
The democrats can't properly use the debt ceiling to hold the republicans hostage because it's like going into a hostage situation by pointing the gun at your own head.
The only thing the Democrats should do with the debt ceiling is vote to raise it.
There is precedent for not allowing a clean debt ceiling bill. That's where the sequester comes from. Why not do a reverse sequester? If we can't agree on a budget by X time then we have to increase subsidies to Obamacare or fix the loophole that allows states to deny increases to medicaid funding?
Psn:wazukki
0
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
The only thing the Democrats should do with the debt ceiling is vote to raise it.
There is precedent for not allowing a clean debt ceiling bill. That's where the sequester comes from. Why not do a reverse sequester? If we can't agree on a budget by X time then we have to increase subsidies to Obamacare or fix the loophole that allows states to deny increases to medicaid funding?
"While it's not my preferred position, the last election shows that the American People, including many of my own constituents, believe in the GOP's message of smaller government and curtailing government spending. It would be disrespectful of me to ignore those voters, so I'm going to help my Republican colleagues keep their campaign promises and will vote against raising the debt ceiling. I look forward to a vigorous debate about how best to spend our already considerable budget to help the most Americans without further condemning our children to endless federal debt."
Make them keep their word. Let people feel the pain, it's the only way to get them to change their votes: they have to feel the consequences of their votes directly. It'll hurt a lot of people, true, but in the long run, it'll hurt fewer people than the Religious Autocracy they're trying to build.
"While it's not my preferred position, the last election shows that the American People, including many of my own constituents, believe in the GOP's message of smaller government and curtailing government spending. It would be disrespectful of me to ignore those voters, so I'm going to help my Republican colleagues keep their campaign promises and will vote against raising the debt ceiling. I look forward to a vigorous debate about how best to spend our already considerable budget to help the most Americans without further condemning our children to endless federal debt."
Make them keep their word. Let people feel the pain, it's the only way to get them to change their votes: they have to feel the consequences of their votes directly. It'll hurt a lot of people, true, but in the long run, it'll hurt fewer people than the Religious Autocracy they're trying to build.
Give Nothing, Dems. Make them hang themselves.
When the US economy hangs itself, the world hangs with it. You don't threaten that for the sake of political snark.
You point out that a 401k ain't gonna stop the seas from rising, and demand every dollar raised is matched with $0.50 to disarming the clathrate gun aimed at our head.
"While it's not my preferred position, the last election shows that the American People, including many of my own constituents, believe in the GOP's message of smaller government and curtailing government spending. It would be disrespectful of me to ignore those voters, so I'm going to help my Republican colleagues keep their campaign promises and will vote against raising the debt ceiling. I look forward to a vigorous debate about how best to spend our already considerable budget to help the most Americans without further condemning our children to endless federal debt."
Make them keep their word. Let people feel the pain, it's the only way to get them to change their votes: they have to feel the consequences of their votes directly. It'll hurt a lot of people, true, but in the long run, it'll hurt fewer people than the Religious Autocracy they're trying to build.
Give Nothing, Dems. Make them hang themselves.
When the US economy hangs itself, the wrld hangs with it. You don't threaten that for the sake of political snark.
You point out that a 401k ain't gonna stop the seas from rising, and demand every dollar raised is matched with $0.50 to disarming the clathrate gun aimed at our head.
It's not snark.
This is a fight for the soul of democracy. Either we cave and accept that self-governance is an impossibility and allow our country to become a de-facto Religious Autocracy, or we find a way to make people understand the responsibility of citizenship again. I'm tired of decades of slowly sliding. Make them own their dystopic nightmare-world: hold them to their words, force them to bleed their constituents. We're already threatening the stability of the world, nothing can stop that; it's just a matter of how quickly we let it fall.
Perhaps if things get bad enough, quick enough, we can recover. Or maybe we won't, but we were screwed anyway, so whatever. All I know is that letting the GOP slowly turn up the heat has proven to keep people numb to it all.
"While it's not my preferred position, the last election shows that the American People, including many of my own constituents, believe in the GOP's message of smaller government and curtailing government spending. It would be disrespectful of me to ignore those voters, so I'm going to help my Republican colleagues keep their campaign promises and will vote against raising the debt ceiling. I look forward to a vigorous debate about how best to spend our already considerable budget to help the most Americans without further condemning our children to endless federal debt."
Make them keep their word. Let people feel the pain, it's the only way to get them to change their votes: they have to feel the consequences of their votes directly. It'll hurt a lot of people, true, but in the long run, it'll hurt fewer people than the Religious Autocracy they're trying to build.
Give Nothing, Dems. Make them hang themselves.
When the US economy hangs itself, the wrld hangs with it. You don't threaten that for the sake of political snark.
You point out that a 401k ain't gonna stop the seas from rising, and demand every dollar raised is matched with $0.50 to disarming the clathrate gun aimed at our head.
It's not snark.
This is a fight for the soul of democracy. Either we cave and accept that self-governance is an impossibility and allow our country to become a de-facto Religious Autocracy, or we find a way to make people understand the responsibility of citizenship again. I'm tired of decades of slowly sliding. Make them own their dystopic nightmare-world: hold them to their words, force them to bleed their constituents. We're already threatening the stability of the world, nothing can stop that; it's just a matter of how quickly we let it fall.
Perhaps if things get bad enough, quick enough, we can recover. Or maybe we won't, but we were screwed anyway, so whatever. All I know is that letting the GOP slowly turn up the heat has proven to keep people numb to it all.
Threatening a default because "You guys wanted this thing, so now we're pretending to want it so you can see how stupid it is" is ill-timed satire. The only potential "positive" outcome is austerity. I have to live in this hellscape too: So, no thanks.
Hold their feet to the fire for something good that matters as much as a non-default, or stop playing with it.
I would be all-in for this maneuver if I thought that any person who voted Republican would be able to put 2 and 2 together and realize it was what they supported in previous years. The sad thing is the Republicans will just lie and deflect and somehow it will all be the Democrats fault again. Their voters never change.
Playing with the debt ceiling is yet more accelerationism, and President Trump is living evidence that accelerationism doesn't work.
Peak derp is a myth.
Trump has little to do with accelerationism. I think it's flawed, but 2016 didn't disprove it.
But Her Emails is why we have President Trump, no more, no less. The only hostage the democrats can and should take with the debt ceiling is time, such that it gives the gop even less room for the AHCA before April 15th.
Don't make threats you won't keep. Democrats should not threaten to default on US Treasuries, because they will not allow a default on US Treasuries. Which, the Government should not default on US Treasuries. That's just a straight non-negotiable point.
If their votes are needed to raise the debt ceiling the only point they should try to negotiate for those votes is eliminating the debt ceiling and making that the last time anyone has to vote on it.
Don't make threats you won't keep. Democrats should not threaten to default on US Treasuries, because they will not allow a default on US Treasuries. Which, the Government should not default on US Treasuries. That's just a straight non-negotiable point.
If their votes are needed to raise the debt ceiling the only point they should try to negotiate for those votes is eliminating the debt ceiling and making that the last time anyone has to vote on it.
That being said, Democrats should not vote for an unclean debt ceiling increase. To do so would mean that Republicans control the country forever.
The Republicans control the legislature; if they want to attach shit to an essential government function, they should have to assume full responsibility without cover from the Democrats.
Don't make threats you won't keep. Democrats should not threaten to default on US Treasuries, because they will not allow a default on US Treasuries. Which, the Government should not default on US Treasuries. That's just a straight non-negotiable point.
If their votes are needed to raise the debt ceiling the only point they should try to negotiate for those votes is eliminating the debt ceiling and making that the last time anyone has to vote on it.
That being said, Democrats should not vote for an unclean debt ceiling increase. To do so would mean that Republicans control the country forever.
The Republicans control the legislature; if they want to attach shit to an essential government function, they should have to assume full responsibility without cover from the Democrats.
Indeed. The democrats should offer two clean bills to the republicans, no questions asked.
1) debt ceiling increase sufficient to cover one million years of debt
2) continuation of this year's federal budget into next year with only adjustments made for inflation
Don't make threats you won't keep. Democrats should not threaten to default on US Treasuries, because they will not allow a default on US Treasuries. Which, the Government should not default on US Treasuries. That's just a straight non-negotiable point.
If their votes are needed to raise the debt ceiling the only point they should try to negotiate for those votes is eliminating the debt ceiling and making that the last time anyone has to vote on it.
That being said, Democrats should not vote for an unclean debt ceiling increase. To do so would mean that Republicans control the country forever.
The Republicans control the legislature; if they want to attach shit to an essential government function, they should have to assume full responsibility without cover from the Democrats.
Indeed. The democrats should offer two clean bills to the republicans, no questions asked.
1) debt ceiling increase sufficient to cover one million years of debt abolished
2) continuation of this year's federal budget into next year with only adjustments made for inflation
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Question: can the debt ceiling be safely abolished? Isn't the only solution ensuring that all budgets auto-include a corresponding debt ceiling raise? And since that process isn't actually "auto" at all, doesn't that expose the raise to fuckery in a less public fashion?
Question: can the debt ceiling be safely abolished? Isn't the only solution ensuring that all budgets auto-include a corresponding debt ceiling raise? And since that process isn't actually "auto" at all, doesn't that expose the raise to fuckery in a less public fashion?
It doesn't have to exist, no. There's no reason there has to be any statutory limit on the amount of debt the US can have, and there's a pretty good argument to be made that A. by authorizing spending Congress has de facto authorized debt and B. The limit itself isn't Constitutional.
Question: can the debt ceiling be safely abolished? Isn't the only solution ensuring that all budgets auto-include a corresponding debt ceiling raise? And since that process isn't actually "auto" at all, doesn't that expose the raise to fuckery in a less public fashion?
We worked just fine for like most of a century (IIRC) where we took on government debt without an explicit cap in how we did so. The money still needs to be budgeted and appropriated. It's not like we're handing out blank checks.
Don't make threats you won't keep. Democrats should not threaten to default on US Treasuries, because they will not allow a default on US Treasuries. Which, the Government should not default on US Treasuries. That's just a straight non-negotiable point.
If their votes are needed to raise the debt ceiling the only point they should try to negotiate for those votes is eliminating the debt ceiling and making that the last time anyone has to vote on it.
That being said, Democrats should not vote for an unclean debt ceiling increase. To do so would mean that Republicans control the country forever.
The Republicans control the legislature; if they want to attach shit to an essential government function, they should have to assume full responsibility without cover from the Democrats.
Indeed. The democrats should offer two clean bills to the republicans, no questions asked.
1) debt ceiling increase sufficient to cover one million years of debt abolished
2) continuation of this year's federal budget into next year with only adjustments made for inflation
Government keeps working.
FTFY.
It would be far more amusing to raise it to a truly absurd level though. A million years of just 1% growth is 2**14000 times the current value. Don't you want a 5000-10000 digit debt ceiling?
"While it's not my preferred position, the last election shows that the American People, including many of my own constituents, believe in the GOP's message of smaller government and curtailing government spending. It would be disrespectful of me to ignore those voters, so I'm going to help my Republican colleagues keep their campaign promises and will vote against raising the debt ceiling. I look forward to a vigorous debate about how best to spend our already considerable budget to help the most Americans without further condemning our children to endless federal debt."
Make them keep their word. Let people feel the pain, it's the only way to get them to change their votes: they have to feel the consequences of their votes directly. It'll hurt a lot of people, true, but in the long run, it'll hurt fewer people than the Religious Autocracy they're trying to build.
Give Nothing, Dems. Make them hang themselves.
When the US economy hangs itself, the wrld hangs with it. You don't threaten that for the sake of political snark.
You point out that a 401k ain't gonna stop the seas from rising, and demand every dollar raised is matched with $0.50 to disarming the clathrate gun aimed at our head.
It's not snark.
This is a fight for the soul of democracy. Either we cave and accept that self-governance is an impossibility and allow our country to become a de-facto Religious Autocracy, or we find a way to make people understand the responsibility of citizenship again. I'm tired of decades of slowly sliding. Make them own their dystopic nightmare-world: hold them to their words, force them to bleed their constituents. We're already threatening the stability of the world, nothing can stop that; it's just a matter of how quickly we let it fall.
Perhaps if things get bad enough, quick enough, we can recover. Or maybe we won't, but we were screwed anyway, so whatever. All I know is that letting the GOP slowly turn up the heat has proven to keep people numb to it all.
Democracy has always been clawing forward while sliding back, especially in America.
"While it's not my preferred position, the last election shows that the American People, including many of my own constituents, believe in the GOP's message of smaller government and curtailing government spending. It would be disrespectful of me to ignore those voters, so I'm going to help my Republican colleagues keep their campaign promises and will vote against raising the debt ceiling. I look forward to a vigorous debate about how best to spend our already considerable budget to help the most Americans without further condemning our children to endless federal debt."
Make them keep their word. Let people feel the pain, it's the only way to get them to change their votes: they have to feel the consequences of their votes directly. It'll hurt a lot of people, true, but in the long run, it'll hurt fewer people than the Religious Autocracy they're trying to build.
Give Nothing, Dems. Make them hang themselves.
When the US economy hangs itself, the wrld hangs with it. You don't threaten that for the sake of political snark.
You point out that a 401k ain't gonna stop the seas from rising, and demand every dollar raised is matched with $0.50 to disarming the clathrate gun aimed at our head.
It's not snark.
This is a fight for the soul of democracy. Either we cave and accept that self-governance is an impossibility and allow our country to become a de-facto Religious Autocracy, or we find a way to make people understand the responsibility of citizenship again. I'm tired of decades of slowly sliding. Make them own their dystopic nightmare-world: hold them to their words, force them to bleed their constituents. We're already threatening the stability of the world, nothing can stop that; it's just a matter of how quickly we let it fall.
Perhaps if things get bad enough, quick enough, we can recover. Or maybe we won't, but we were screwed anyway, so whatever. All I know is that letting the GOP slowly turn up the heat has proven to keep people numb to it all.
Defaulting on the debt ceiling would plunge the world into a deep Depression, shatter the world order and kill literally millions of people.
"While it's not my preferred position, the last election shows that the American People, including many of my own constituents, believe in the GOP's message of smaller government and curtailing government spending. It would be disrespectful of me to ignore those voters, so I'm going to help my Republican colleagues keep their campaign promises and will vote against raising the debt ceiling. I look forward to a vigorous debate about how best to spend our already considerable budget to help the most Americans without further condemning our children to endless federal debt."
Make them keep their word. Let people feel the pain, it's the only way to get them to change their votes: they have to feel the consequences of their votes directly. It'll hurt a lot of people, true, but in the long run, it'll hurt fewer people than the Religious Autocracy they're trying to build.
Give Nothing, Dems. Make them hang themselves.
When the US economy hangs itself, the wrld hangs with it. You don't threaten that for the sake of political snark.
You point out that a 401k ain't gonna stop the seas from rising, and demand every dollar raised is matched with $0.50 to disarming the clathrate gun aimed at our head.
It's not snark.
This is a fight for the soul of democracy. Either we cave and accept that self-governance is an impossibility and allow our country to become a de-facto Religious Autocracy, or we find a way to make people understand the responsibility of citizenship again. I'm tired of decades of slowly sliding. Make them own their dystopic nightmare-world: hold them to their words, force them to bleed their constituents. We're already threatening the stability of the world, nothing can stop that; it's just a matter of how quickly we let it fall.
Perhaps if things get bad enough, quick enough, we can recover. Or maybe we won't, but we were screwed anyway, so whatever. All I know is that letting the GOP slowly turn up the heat has proven to keep people numb to it all.
Defaulting on the debt ceiling would plunge the world into a deep Depression, shatter the world order and kill literally millions of people.
So would re-enacting a Handmaid's Tale. Choose the form of the Destructor.
"While it's not my preferred position, the last election shows that the American People, including many of my own constituents, believe in the GOP's message of smaller government and curtailing government spending. It would be disrespectful of me to ignore those voters, so I'm going to help my Republican colleagues keep their campaign promises and will vote against raising the debt ceiling. I look forward to a vigorous debate about how best to spend our already considerable budget to help the most Americans without further condemning our children to endless federal debt."
Make them keep their word. Let people feel the pain, it's the only way to get them to change their votes: they have to feel the consequences of their votes directly. It'll hurt a lot of people, true, but in the long run, it'll hurt fewer people than the Religious Autocracy they're trying to build.
Give Nothing, Dems. Make them hang themselves.
When the US economy hangs itself, the wrld hangs with it. You don't threaten that for the sake of political snark.
You point out that a 401k ain't gonna stop the seas from rising, and demand every dollar raised is matched with $0.50 to disarming the clathrate gun aimed at our head.
It's not snark.
This is a fight for the soul of democracy. Either we cave and accept that self-governance is an impossibility and allow our country to become a de-facto Religious Autocracy, or we find a way to make people understand the responsibility of citizenship again. I'm tired of decades of slowly sliding. Make them own their dystopic nightmare-world: hold them to their words, force them to bleed their constituents. We're already threatening the stability of the world, nothing can stop that; it's just a matter of how quickly we let it fall.
Perhaps if things get bad enough, quick enough, we can recover. Or maybe we won't, but we were screwed anyway, so whatever. All I know is that letting the GOP slowly turn up the heat has proven to keep people numb to it all.
Defaulting on the debt ceiling would plunge the world into a deep Depression, shatter the world order and kill literally millions of people.
And almost certainly replace democracy with AT BEST corporate governance (pseudo-feudalism) or tyranny. Tolerance, hope, understand and debate are products of peace, stability and wealth. Hell, the reason why we are having so much trouble with democracy at the moment is because we've allowed the rich to steal too much money from the poor and middle class, and ignored the massive environmental crisis going on in the middle east.
Syria doesn't have an endless unresolvable civil war with the worst factions seizing power simply because everyone in Syria is super angry. Everyone in Syria is angry because the food and water supply has become unstable due to climate change and political punishment of farmers and people are afraid for their future.
"While it's not my preferred position, the last election shows that the American People, including many of my own constituents, believe in the GOP's message of smaller government and curtailing government spending. It would be disrespectful of me to ignore those voters, so I'm going to help my Republican colleagues keep their campaign promises and will vote against raising the debt ceiling. I look forward to a vigorous debate about how best to spend our already considerable budget to help the most Americans without further condemning our children to endless federal debt."
Make them keep their word. Let people feel the pain, it's the only way to get them to change their votes: they have to feel the consequences of their votes directly. It'll hurt a lot of people, true, but in the long run, it'll hurt fewer people than the Religious Autocracy they're trying to build.
Give Nothing, Dems. Make them hang themselves.
When the US economy hangs itself, the wrld hangs with it. You don't threaten that for the sake of political snark.
You point out that a 401k ain't gonna stop the seas from rising, and demand every dollar raised is matched with $0.50 to disarming the clathrate gun aimed at our head.
It's not snark.
This is a fight for the soul of democracy. Either we cave and accept that self-governance is an impossibility and allow our country to become a de-facto Religious Autocracy, or we find a way to make people understand the responsibility of citizenship again. I'm tired of decades of slowly sliding. Make them own their dystopic nightmare-world: hold them to their words, force them to bleed their constituents. We're already threatening the stability of the world, nothing can stop that; it's just a matter of how quickly we let it fall.
Perhaps if things get bad enough, quick enough, we can recover. Or maybe we won't, but we were screwed anyway, so whatever. All I know is that letting the GOP slowly turn up the heat has proven to keep people numb to it all.
Defaulting on the debt ceiling would plunge the world into a deep Depression, shatter the world order and kill literally millions of people.
So would re-enacting a Handmaid's Tale. Choose the form of the Destructor.
I think that sticking with democracy and capitolism and trying to improve it probably gives us a better chance of coming out the other side OK than just saying 'screw it, burn it down!'
Sure, the Republicans seem pretty crazy, but we do still have a partially functioning democracy. Things could get better. You can work to make them better. If we just destroy everything then you don't have that power any more.
"While it's not my preferred position, the last election shows that the American People, including many of my own constituents, believe in the GOP's message of smaller government and curtailing government spending. It would be disrespectful of me to ignore those voters, so I'm going to help my Republican colleagues keep their campaign promises and will vote against raising the debt ceiling. I look forward to a vigorous debate about how best to spend our already considerable budget to help the most Americans without further condemning our children to endless federal debt."
Make them keep their word. Let people feel the pain, it's the only way to get them to change their votes: they have to feel the consequences of their votes directly. It'll hurt a lot of people, true, but in the long run, it'll hurt fewer people than the Religious Autocracy they're trying to build.
Give Nothing, Dems. Make them hang themselves.
When the US economy hangs itself, the wrld hangs with it. You don't threaten that for the sake of political snark.
You point out that a 401k ain't gonna stop the seas from rising, and demand every dollar raised is matched with $0.50 to disarming the clathrate gun aimed at our head.
It's not snark.
This is a fight for the soul of democracy. Either we cave and accept that self-governance is an impossibility and allow our country to become a de-facto Religious Autocracy, or we find a way to make people understand the responsibility of citizenship again. I'm tired of decades of slowly sliding. Make them own their dystopic nightmare-world: hold them to their words, force them to bleed their constituents. We're already threatening the stability of the world, nothing can stop that; it's just a matter of how quickly we let it fall.
Perhaps if things get bad enough, quick enough, we can recover. Or maybe we won't, but we were screwed anyway, so whatever. All I know is that letting the GOP slowly turn up the heat has proven to keep people numb to it all.
Defaulting on the debt ceiling would plunge the world into a deep Depression, shatter the world order and kill literally millions of people.
So would re-enacting a Handmaid's Tale. Choose the form of the Destructor.
Trump is an evil fuck but he's also an elected evil fuck. Same for the Republican Congress. They were democratically elected. Saying burn it all down because the results suck doesn't defend democracy or the people.
"While it's not my preferred position, the last election shows that the American People, including many of my own constituents, believe in the GOP's message of smaller government and curtailing government spending. It would be disrespectful of me to ignore those voters, so I'm going to help my Republican colleagues keep their campaign promises and will vote against raising the debt ceiling. I look forward to a vigorous debate about how best to spend our already considerable budget to help the most Americans without further condemning our children to endless federal debt."
Make them keep their word. Let people feel the pain, it's the only way to get them to change their votes: they have to feel the consequences of their votes directly. It'll hurt a lot of people, true, but in the long run, it'll hurt fewer people than the Religious Autocracy they're trying to build.
Give Nothing, Dems. Make them hang themselves.
When the US economy hangs itself, the wrld hangs with it. You don't threaten that for the sake of political snark.
You point out that a 401k ain't gonna stop the seas from rising, and demand every dollar raised is matched with $0.50 to disarming the clathrate gun aimed at our head.
It's not snark.
This is a fight for the soul of democracy. Either we cave and accept that self-governance is an impossibility and allow our country to become a de-facto Religious Autocracy, or we find a way to make people understand the responsibility of citizenship again. I'm tired of decades of slowly sliding. Make them own their dystopic nightmare-world: hold them to their words, force them to bleed their constituents. We're already threatening the stability of the world, nothing can stop that; it's just a matter of how quickly we let it fall.
Perhaps if things get bad enough, quick enough, we can recover. Or maybe we won't, but we were screwed anyway, so whatever. All I know is that letting the GOP slowly turn up the heat has proven to keep people numb to it all.
Defaulting on the debt ceiling would plunge the world into a deep Depression, shatter the world order and kill literally millions of people.
For as long as the US dollar is kept as a reserve currency. While the Euro has been rising since its first issuance, this would greatly accelerate its ascension to the top of that heap. We'd be looking at something happening in only a few days thanks to how interconnected the world is. In thinking about this, you'd only want that to happen if your goal was to devalue the US dollar to the point where it's on par with the Yuan or below, thus crashing the US economy. How that would ripple outward is a good question. It would certainly be financial anarchy until the switch to the Euro settled things down.
All opinions are my own and in no way reflect that of my employer.
"While it's not my preferred position, the last election shows that the American People, including many of my own constituents, believe in the GOP's message of smaller government and curtailing government spending. It would be disrespectful of me to ignore those voters, so I'm going to help my Republican colleagues keep their campaign promises and will vote against raising the debt ceiling. I look forward to a vigorous debate about how best to spend our already considerable budget to help the most Americans without further condemning our children to endless federal debt."
Make them keep their word. Let people feel the pain, it's the only way to get them to change their votes: they have to feel the consequences of their votes directly. It'll hurt a lot of people, true, but in the long run, it'll hurt fewer people than the Religious Autocracy they're trying to build.
Give Nothing, Dems. Make them hang themselves.
When the US economy hangs itself, the wrld hangs with it. You don't threaten that for the sake of political snark.
You point out that a 401k ain't gonna stop the seas from rising, and demand every dollar raised is matched with $0.50 to disarming the clathrate gun aimed at our head.
It's not snark.
This is a fight for the soul of democracy. Either we cave and accept that self-governance is an impossibility and allow our country to become a de-facto Religious Autocracy, or we find a way to make people understand the responsibility of citizenship again. I'm tired of decades of slowly sliding. Make them own their dystopic nightmare-world: hold them to their words, force them to bleed their constituents. We're already threatening the stability of the world, nothing can stop that; it's just a matter of how quickly we let it fall.
Perhaps if things get bad enough, quick enough, we can recover. Or maybe we won't, but we were screwed anyway, so whatever. All I know is that letting the GOP slowly turn up the heat has proven to keep people numb to it all.
Defaulting on the debt ceiling would plunge the world into a deep Depression, shatter the world order and kill literally millions of people.
So would re-enacting a Handmaid's Tale. Choose the form of the Destructor.
No. Sorry, no. None of whatever you are imagining would fuck the entire world economy, just as a start.
Posts
I mean the GOP cannot rely on all it's members to actually vote to raise the debt ceiling.
Which means they'll fold in 4 hours instead of the usual 2
Yo this type of comment adds nothing to the discussion.
No. The deal should be either:
- Trump and Pence are impeached, medicare for all, and all the Republicans members of both chambers stop voting ever again, or
- The debt ceiling is removed so that the Republicans no longer have an otage to shoot.
The point here is not to use the debt ceiling to get something, it's to neutralize it so that it can never hurt anyone ever again.The republicans don't want government.
There is precedent for not allowing a clean debt ceiling bill. That's where the sequester comes from. Why not do a reverse sequester? If we can't agree on a budget by X time then we have to increase subsidies to Obamacare or fix the loophole that allows states to deny increases to medicaid funding?
Because the debt ceiling is too important.
"While it's not my preferred position, the last election shows that the American People, including many of my own constituents, believe in the GOP's message of smaller government and curtailing government spending. It would be disrespectful of me to ignore those voters, so I'm going to help my Republican colleagues keep their campaign promises and will vote against raising the debt ceiling. I look forward to a vigorous debate about how best to spend our already considerable budget to help the most Americans without further condemning our children to endless federal debt."
Make them keep their word. Let people feel the pain, it's the only way to get them to change their votes: they have to feel the consequences of their votes directly. It'll hurt a lot of people, true, but in the long run, it'll hurt fewer people than the Religious Autocracy they're trying to build.
Give Nothing, Dems. Make them hang themselves.
When the US economy hangs itself, the world hangs with it. You don't threaten that for the sake of political snark.
You point out that a 401k ain't gonna stop the seas from rising, and demand every dollar raised is matched with $0.50 to disarming the clathrate gun aimed at our head.
This is the one thing that maybe they should play hardball on.
Maybe.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
It's not snark.
This is a fight for the soul of democracy. Either we cave and accept that self-governance is an impossibility and allow our country to become a de-facto Religious Autocracy, or we find a way to make people understand the responsibility of citizenship again. I'm tired of decades of slowly sliding. Make them own their dystopic nightmare-world: hold them to their words, force them to bleed their constituents. We're already threatening the stability of the world, nothing can stop that; it's just a matter of how quickly we let it fall.
Perhaps if things get bad enough, quick enough, we can recover. Or maybe we won't, but we were screwed anyway, so whatever. All I know is that letting the GOP slowly turn up the heat has proven to keep people numb to it all.
Threatening a default because "You guys wanted this thing, so now we're pretending to want it so you can see how stupid it is" is ill-timed satire. The only potential "positive" outcome is austerity. I have to live in this hellscape too: So, no thanks.
Hold their feet to the fire for something good that matters as much as a non-default, or stop playing with it.
Peak derp is a myth.
Trump has little to do with accelerationism. I think it's flawed, but 2016 didn't disprove it.
But Her Emails is why we have President Trump, no more, no less. The only hostage the democrats can and should take with the debt ceiling is time, such that it gives the gop even less room for the AHCA before April 15th.
If their votes are needed to raise the debt ceiling the only point they should try to negotiate for those votes is eliminating the debt ceiling and making that the last time anyone has to vote on it.
That being said, Democrats should not vote for an unclean debt ceiling increase. To do so would mean that Republicans control the country forever.
The Republicans control the legislature; if they want to attach shit to an essential government function, they should have to assume full responsibility without cover from the Democrats.
Indeed. The democrats should offer two clean bills to the republicans, no questions asked.
1) debt ceiling increase sufficient to cover one million years of debt
2) continuation of this year's federal budget into next year with only adjustments made for inflation
Government keeps working.
FTFY.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
It doesn't have to exist, no. There's no reason there has to be any statutory limit on the amount of debt the US can have, and there's a pretty good argument to be made that A. by authorizing spending Congress has de facto authorized debt and B. The limit itself isn't Constitutional.
We worked just fine for like most of a century (IIRC) where we took on government debt without an explicit cap in how we did so. The money still needs to be budgeted and appropriated. It's not like we're handing out blank checks.
It would be far more amusing to raise it to a truly absurd level though. A million years of just 1% growth is 2**14000 times the current value. Don't you want a 5000-10000 digit debt ceiling?
How long is "Stop being hostage taking fucks?" in binary?
In ASCII, 255 bits (31 x 8 bits, 1 x 7 bits to remove the leading 0).
EDIT:
$10,100,110,111,010,001,101,111,011,100,000,010,000,001,100,010,011,001,010,110,100,101,101,110,011,001,110,010,000,001,101,000,011,011,110,111,001,101,110,100,011,000,010,110,011,101,100,101,001,000,000,111,010,001,100,001,011,010,110,110,100,101,101,110,011,001,110,010,000,001,100,110,011,101,010,110,001,101,101,011,011,100,110,011,111.
Hopefully, that would be enough for a while.
Democracy has always been clawing forward while sliding back, especially in America.
Defaulting on the debt ceiling would plunge the world into a deep Depression, shatter the world order and kill literally millions of people.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
So would re-enacting a Handmaid's Tale. Choose the form of the Destructor.
And almost certainly replace democracy with AT BEST corporate governance (pseudo-feudalism) or tyranny. Tolerance, hope, understand and debate are products of peace, stability and wealth. Hell, the reason why we are having so much trouble with democracy at the moment is because we've allowed the rich to steal too much money from the poor and middle class, and ignored the massive environmental crisis going on in the middle east.
Syria doesn't have an endless unresolvable civil war with the worst factions seizing power simply because everyone in Syria is super angry. Everyone in Syria is angry because the food and water supply has become unstable due to climate change and political punishment of farmers and people are afraid for their future.
I think that sticking with democracy and capitolism and trying to improve it probably gives us a better chance of coming out the other side OK than just saying 'screw it, burn it down!'
Sure, the Republicans seem pretty crazy, but we do still have a partially functioning democracy. Things could get better. You can work to make them better. If we just destroy everything then you don't have that power any more.
Trump is an evil fuck but he's also an elected evil fuck. Same for the Republican Congress. They were democratically elected. Saying burn it all down because the results suck doesn't defend democracy or the people.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
The apocalypse isn't set in stone yet, let's not start acting like it is.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
For as long as the US dollar is kept as a reserve currency. While the Euro has been rising since its first issuance, this would greatly accelerate its ascension to the top of that heap. We'd be looking at something happening in only a few days thanks to how interconnected the world is. In thinking about this, you'd only want that to happen if your goal was to devalue the US dollar to the point where it's on par with the Yuan or below, thus crashing the US economy. How that would ripple outward is a good question. It would certainly be financial anarchy until the switch to the Euro settled things down.
No. Sorry, no. None of whatever you are imagining would fuck the entire world economy, just as a start.