Debt Ceiling
The House passed a Budget deal on October 28, 2015 that, among other things, will extends the government’s borrowing authority through mid-March 2017. In 2013, the Republican-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate negotiated with the White House on three fiscal matters with looming deadlines: raising the debt ceiling now approaching the limit $16.5T, massive federal spending cuts known as sequester and a budget resolution. On February 4th, the President signed a bill into law extending the debt limit debate until 5/18/13. This date may also get extended as far as August due to financial manipulations similar to those used in 2011. The "No Budget, No Pay Act of 2013" also mandates that pay for lawmakers be held in escrow starting April 16 until their chamber has passed a 2014 budget resolution. Congress must pass a spending bill, called a continuing resolution or “CR,” which would continue spending after Sept. 30, 2013, the end of the 2013 fiscal year. As it stands now, the government’s legal authority to borrow more money runs out in mid-October, 2013. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, if that date arrived on October 18, the Treasury “would be about $106 billion short of paying all bills owed between October 18 and November 15. The congressionally mandated limit on federal borrowing is currently set at $16.7 trillion. The debt limit has been raised 13 times since 2001 and has grown from about 55 percent of Gross Domestic Product in 2001 to 102 percent of GDP last year. The hoped for legislation will raise the debt ceiling through Dec. 31, 2014.

So, this is new(s)?

1/15/23
from The Gray Area:
1/15/23:
We have had a debt problem for decades, and nobody in the political establishment much cared. Democrats would keep spending and raising debt limits every chance they could. Republicans would squawk about the debt and then spend, too. Obama laughingly said that 'with such low interest rates, we don't have to worry about debt'. Everybody thought, kick the  can down the road, someday in the future, someone will have to take care of this. Well interest rates are not low anymore and are going to continue to climb. How does this ignoring of the debt stop? When one party or the other decides now is the time. Republicans just got elected in the House, where purse strings are controlled, and to there credit, they say now is the time. Coming right behind a big spending Omnibus in December, which most Republicans did not support, this is no surprise. Still, the Democrats yell that Republicans are creating a default crisis.

Enter Janet Yellen on Friday. She stated that the National Debt is a crisis, and, that we will exceed the debt limit this Thursday . Oh, who could possibly have known we would face such a catastrophe, ah, one month ago!?!  Certainly not the Congress, who voted, the President who signed it, or the Republicans who caved for some pork, the Omnibus in December. Who believes this is news? It certainly isn't new. It certainly isn't a surprise. So, why is this newsworthy now? The Republican House majority has announced they will try to control spending and get control of the national debt. They have already passed a bill to dial back billions of funding for more IRS agents. This is radical to the free spending Democrats. So, the narrative needs to be re-established that the radical right, by trying to fix the problem the left created, are flirting with catastrophic economic damage. Again, enter Janet Yellen. The crisis of an out of control national debt has worried serious minded people for 30 years. Many remember the 1980s worldwide debt crisis. Ronald Reagan was called radical and dangerous when he led the strategy to fix that problem. Today the Democrats still prefer to ignore the problem. They prefer to spend. Do they care if the United States defaults on it debts? Just during Biden's first two years they have spent:

  • trillions on COVID, again & again...
  • trillions on climate change
  • trillions on Omnibus
  • trillions on infrastructure
  • billions on BBB (referred to a Build Back Broke)
  • billions on college loans and loan forgiveness
  • billions bailing out Dem states (calling it COVID)
  • billions helping Ukraine
  • billions on Iran nuclear
  • billions supposedly on inflation (that they caused, stay with me, by spending)
....and, now, the Democrats want to make you think they discovered a debt crisis. The Republican House says we will fix the debt ceiling issue this week, if the Democrats will work with them on spending.  The Democrats in Congress and President Biden say, well, no. The truth is the debt crisis and the threat of default is a both party spending issue that only the Democrats want to ignore. By calling attention to it, the Democrats should be committing political suicide. But, with the media providing cover, they always have the chance to walk out of a sewer they created, smelling like a rose. More From Forbes:


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