Democrats block their own debt bill. Preventing a solution to our problem.

[Hayabusa Rider]

Methinks you mean "borrow and spend".

First, it was a chimpanzee; second, you're being extremely generous to call it "acting".

Just so on both points

 

[DominionSeraph]

ProfJohn thread?

Where's Anarchist? At least he's mildly amusing.

 

[dmcowen674]

Democrats block their own debt bill. Preventing a solution to our problem.

Here is Harry Reid on the Senate floor blocking his own bill!

I guess this means that the Democrats are blocking a solution to our problem since we have been told over and over that if the GOP blocked (filibuster) the bill that is what they would be doing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sIDF9yDTi1QThe reason behind Reid preventing a vote on his own bill. He was hoping that his bill would be voted on in the house and if it passed the house it would put pressure on the Senate Republicans to allow it to pass the Senate.

Now it seems that the house is going to vote the bill down in order to speed up the process and get us to a point where they can again try a compromise.

First of all this is not "our" problem.

This is the shit hole left behind by your hero Bush.

Oh and because of the stalemated Congress & Senate they are going to just band aid this and let it ride until Congress & Senate is controlled by one party again.

With this fiasco I don't blame them.

 

[Genx87]

That isn't quite how the Senate works. Having the Senate vote on every piece of legislation the house sends it in the manner you describe is asinine. If the bill is that bad, it should die in committee so that it doesn't waste everyone else's time. Besides, at least the Senate allowed the bill to get there from the House. House Republicans have scheduled a symbolic vote this afternoon to preemptively reject Reid's bill, which has yet to even make it out of the Senate.

You under the impression this is just "any" bill?

 

[IronWing]

You under the impression this is just "any" bill?

The House Reps must have thought so as they loaded up with unrelated riders in full knowledge that the riders would sink the bill.

 

[Genx87]

The House Reps must have thought so as they loaded up with unrelated riders in full knowledge that the riders would sink the bill.

That doesnt address the point at all. MT is saying the senate cant possibly vote on every bill sent from the house because it would be asinine. That may be true but this bill isnt just any bill. Put it up for vote. If it fails, then it fails.

 

[IronWing]

That doesnt address the point at all. MT is saying the senate cant possibly vote on every bill sent from the house because it would be asinine. That may be true but this bill isnt just any bill. Put it up for vote. If it fails, then it fails.

It already failed in full accordance with Senate rules. The Senate is under no obligation to provide political theater for every whim of the House.

 

[lupi]

/popcorn

 

[nobodyknows]

How come your chart leaves off Obama??

Could it be that he makes that last line of Bush's look small?

Average deficit vs gdp

So your saying Bush increased the decifit by 32 times over what his predecessordid but Obama has only incresed it 2.3 times?

 

[Zorba]

Average deficit vs gdp

From that chart, it sure looks like republicans are the ones that love to spend and spend. Except for Obama, each democratic president did better than the next closest republicans.

 

[MovingTarget]

It already failed in full accordance with Senate rules. The Senate is under no obligation to provide political theater for every whim of the House.

This. I contend that this bill is just like any other bill in that regard. What is different is the situation that it is supposed to address. The Senate shouldn't be wasting its time on any bill just for political theater. Not everything deserves an 'up or down' vote, this bill being a prime example, which is why it failed before it ever reached the floor.

 

[ProfJohn]

From that chart, it sure looks like republicans are the ones that love to spend and spend. Except for Obama, each democratic president did better than the next closest republicans.

Democrat were in charge of congress for everyone but Clinton and Bush...

And as we are seeing now, as in 95, when congress wants to slow down spending IT can do so.

 

[Demo24]

How come your chart leaves off Obama??

Could it be that he makes that last line of Bush's look small?

Average deficit vs gdp

Fun chart..except for the fact that Bush more than doubled the national debt during his term from a bit over 5T to over 11T. Then as Obama gets in the GDP goes DOWN, while spending remained elevated due to recession. GDP figures are just now getting back to above 2007 levels.

 

[Jhhnn]

That doesnt address the point at all. MT is saying the senate cant possibly vote on every bill sent from the house because it would be asinine. That may be true but this bill isnt just any bill. Put it up for vote. If it fails, then it fails.

You don't get it, at all. The HOR bill wouldn't even pass the sniff test in the Senate, which is why a majority voted to table it, to kill it. Some Republicans voted to table it.

"What a nice bucket o' turds our friends in the HOR sent us! With a card! What does the card say? ESAD!? How thoughtful! Now go bury it so it'll quit stinkin' up the place, & we'll get back to business..."

 

[alkemyst]

Only committees formed to try to cut spending.

A few more $250k+ jobs for friends and family.

 

[Balt]

Voting coming soon in the Senate on this latest deal, apparently. I'm guessing it will need Dem votes to make it through the House, maybe a significant number of them.

 

[cubby1223]

You don't get it, at all. The HOR bill wouldn't even pass the sniff test in the Senate, which is why a majority voted to table it, to kill it. Some Republicans voted to table it.

"What a nice bucket o' turds our friends in the HOR sent us! With a card! What does the card say? ESAD!? How thoughtful! Now go bury it so it'll quit stinkin' up the place, & we'll get back to business..."

"A little learning is a dangerous thing."

The question is WHY did the Republicans table the Boehner Plan? The answer to that question will show why you are so daftly partisan in your hackery.

The Senate, on BOTH sides of the aisles, are playing shenanigans. On their own, neither plan will pass the Senate because neither party wants to show weakness. But something *must* be passed, and _both_ parties have taken to the strategy of positioning their own bill as the last option standing for the Senate to consider before the Tuesday deadline. Republicans tabled the Boehner Plan because it was obviously going to be rejected by every Democrat, so now when the Reid Bill fails to get the supermajority to pass, the Senate has as its only remaining option before Tuesday to reopen and work with the Boehner Plan.

After the Boehner Plan was tabled, Reid has been delaying the vote on his Reid Bill in hopes that when the time to vote comes, there would be insufficient time remaining between then and Tuesday for the Senate to work on any other plan other than passing the Reid Bill.

Starting to make sense? Or are you just going to throw another ignorant partisan hissy fit?

Tabling is not killing. How do you stand there without any regret forming opinions and arguments based on such a major false premise as that?

 

[ProfJohn]

The Senate bill failed to pass couture getting only 50 votes.

Two Democrats & Sanders voted against it. Brown from Mass voted for it.

So Ried can't even get 50 people from his own party to support it...

 

[Demo24]

The Senate bill failed to pass couture getting only 50 votes.

Two Democrats & Sanders voted against it. Brown from Mass voted for it.

So Ried can't even get 50 people from his own party to support it...

Hardly mattered, it didn't pass because there is better hope for the one in the works.

 

[Balt]

The Senate bill failed to pass couture getting only 50 votes.

Two Democrats & Sanders voted against it. Brown from Mass voted for it.

So Ried can't even get 50 people from his own party to support it...

From watching the Senate live feed it didn't seem like it was being taken very seriously. I don't know why they even bothered wasting time to go through the motions, though, if that's the case.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

From that chart, it sure looks like republicans are the ones that love to spend and spend. Except for Obama, each democratic president did better than the next closest republicans.

And in the way this cherry picked data is presented it totally skews the data against Obama. Since it's measuring deficits as a % of GDP and Obama inherited a tanked economy thanks to GWB with the lowest GDP in decades and deficits inflated by stimulus spending approved by GWB just before he left office.

And its widely known that the economy for the first two years of a presidential term are more a result of the previous presidents policies. Adjust those numbers to properly place the changes in the first two years of each president on the previous president and see what the numbers look like.

 

[ProfJohn]

^ the economy maybe, but not spending.

Obama's first act was to add $1 trillion to the debt with his stimulus package.

Blame the lose of tax revenue on Bush, but the jump in spending is ALL Obama. And in 3 years Obama had increased spending by $2.4 trillion (give or take a few billion)

 

[kranky]

If you, Wolfe, a few others and myself were put in a room and given access to the necessary data we could come up with a plan which would not be perfect but which would address the issues of substance to improve things over time. I'd bet money on that and we wouldn't be ideological clones.

435 politicians in the house cannot. Something is wrong with this picture.

And that's my top complaint about this sorry spectacle. There are only a handful of people trying to work it out. The President, both party leaders from both houses of Congress, and a couple other people. The other legislators' involvement seems to be limited to showing up to vote on something.

If the people cooking up solutions were truly concerned about the country, they would have found a solution long before now. Instead, both sides only care about who gets the credit. There are Republican plans and Democrat plans. There is no plan to get the job done for the country.

I'm glad that the so-called "tea party" legislators are insisting on spending cuts. Otherwise there would not be a peep about this; it would have been just one more ho-hum, time-to-raise-the-debt-ceiling routine vote like it has been for years. Now that Congress has to actually face the music about irresponsible, no-limit spending, they are paralyzed.

I don't want to see the economy screwed up, nor have the world think we can't pay our debts. But there had to come a day when this was dealt with, and the sooner the better. I just never imagined that Congress would be so incredibly inept in working out a solution.