Monday January 14, 2013, 12:19 pm
I paid dearly into SS and Medicare all those years ago and I'm entitled to it now. I'm sick and tired of this debt ceiling BS...keep it up, GOP and see how strong older people get in 2014 when alot of you jerks are up for re-election!

Monday January 14, 2013, 12:23 pm
The President is right on this one!
Thanks for sharing Carrie.

Monday January 14, 2013, 1:00 pm
Unfortunately Chris, many of those "jerks" got reelected in 2012 because of all the gerrymandering. Technically Democrats got more votes in many states, but redistricting gave the Republicans more wins. The GOP has tried it here in NM, but fortunately our state house is still more Democrat, so it didn't work. Both parties do this, but it doesn't make it right or fair for the people.

Monday January 14, 2013, 1:35 pm
"That view of the role of government, Obama added, “was rejected by the American people when it was debated during the presidential campaign.”

The president is right. Underestimating the political power of senior citizens and veterans could prove to be a very costly mistake to those teapublicans still in Congress. You're right too, Carrie, in that gerrymandering did return a larger number of teapublicans to their seats than I expected, but that margin got whittled and it will be 2016 when the Senate teapublicans will be up for re-election, in 2014 Democrats will still be defending more seats than republicans, that will change in 2016 - and if they continue their wicked ways, their obstructionism, their war on women, seniors, veterans (I am both) minorities and the LGBT community, they will lose in 2016. I expect them to continue unabated, they show no signs of having heard the electorate last November, nor of reading the polls showing the contempt most Americans have for their nay saying and tactics of the last two years. 2014 will see all those teapublican governor's defending their seats, we'll see how things look at the state level then. They are fighting a battle they cannot win, the good news is they don't know it or are so arrogant as to think we, the people, will forget what they have done and tried to do to us these past two years and the threat they are posing NOW to groups with long memories. This will turn out okay, it will just take a couple more elections to self-correct AND an outstanding Democratic candidate for President in 2016. One whom I hope is a superbly qualified woman. Then things change.

Monday January 14, 2013, 1:36 pm
I also paid into Social Security and Medicare for 43 years and am entitled to it now. Agree with Chris C.'s statement about seeing how strong us old folks can get in 2014...Karma=what goes around, comes around!

Monday January 14, 2013, 5:42 pm
noted, thanks Carrie

Monday January 14, 2013, 6:17 pm
Good posting, thanks

Monday January 14, 2013, 7:40 pm
ty noted.. trust none of them...

Monday January 14, 2013, 8:08 pm
I couldn't find the article when I followed the link to the site.

Monday January 14, 2013, 10:10 pm
Noted, tweeted, read, tweeted, and shared. Obama made a mistake his first term by trying to please the Republicans. Unfortunately, the Republicans were captured by the Tea Partiers who didn't know the meaning of the word compromise. In an effort to raise the debt ceiling, Obama caved and allowed the GOP to keep the Bush tax cuts and everything else they wanted. They tried it with Clinton. He let them close the government and then tols the people he felt our pain; he didn't want to close the government, the Republicans. Those of you who remember history know it didn't take long for the GOP to cave, and Clinton was a hero, and our credit rating wasn't downgraded as it was this last year.Obama isn't running for President again; he's not going to be blackmailed. The GOP may close the government, but we should remember that in 2014. Anyone who voted the wrong way should be voted out of office. After the debt ceiling is taken care of without us losing any credit rating, we should cut the budget so everyone feels the pain as well as the gain.

Monday January 14, 2013, 10:18 pm
Neil H. Buchanan is an economist and professor of law at George Washington University Law School and contributed the following article on the debt ceiling options. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/01/13/proposing-the-unprecedented-to-avoid-default/separation-of-powers-gives-the-president-power-on-debt

The 14th Amendment states that “the validity of the public debt of the United States… shall not be questioned.’’ If the debt ceiling were to prevent the president from borrowing enough to cover legally required spending, the resulting default might prevent payments on the debt from being made as required, clearly bringing the validity of the debt into question. Even so, the White House has said the president will not override the debt ceiling by relying on that provision.

Under the separation of powers, the president must either pay the debt that Congress has taken on, or do something more clearly unconstitutional.

But there is another constitutional argument for overriding the ceiling that is not based on an obscure clause in an amendment, but on the separation of powers. I have written, with the Cornell law professor Michael Dorf, that the president would have no constitutional options during a debt ceiling crisis, but that the president would still be obligated to follow the least unconstitutional course.

The Constitution not only gives Congress the sole power to borrow money but to spend and tax. This Congress – or, more accurately, the Republican House majority – has threatened to use those powers in a way that would make it impossible for the President to faithfully execute all of the laws that Congress itself has passed.

Last year, Congress appropriated spending by the government through March 27, 2013. It has also amended the tax laws, most recently on Jan. 2. Those laws together would require the President to borrow more than the current debt limit, starting next month. The President will then face a “trilemma,” having to choose which power of Congress – spending, taxing, or borrowing – to usurp, in order to fulfill his duty to respect Congress’s other powers.

Republicans believe, and the President seems to agree, that his only choice would be to cut spending, rather than raising taxes or issuing debt. That is simply wrong. Consider what cutting spending means. Different members of Congress have voted to approve a balance of spending, setting priorities for medical spending, military spending, infrastructure spending, anti-poverty measures, and so on. If the president were to cut spending, he would be doing what the Constitution (and the Supreme Court) says that only Congress can do: decide how much money to spend (no more and no less), and for what.

We know that the president cannot simply enact across-the-board cuts. He will be forced to fully fund “emergency operations” of the federal government. To protect the government’s credit rating from further damage, he would almost certainly pay principal and interest in full on all bonds. The spending cuts, therefore, would have to come elsewhere. Nothing in the law gives the president guidance on how to make those decisions, because Congress expressed its priorities in the spending bills that it passed (but now will not finance).

Issuing more debt, on the other hand, is both modest and easily reversible. The president would not be upsetting Congress’s spending and taxing priorities, but would instruct Treasury to sell securities, as it always does. If, in its next budget, Congress wants to reduce the debt, it can do so. Until then, the president must do the least damage, and that is by issuing enough debt to tax and spend as Congress ordered him to do.
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There you have it from Neil Buchanan.

The Republican/Teabaggers have authorised the spending. They cannot not pay the US just debts without endangering the US and global economies. I'll change that, without crashing the US and global economies. Too much is hinged on the US. This is part of the responsibility of being the biggest, like it or not. Petty Republican/Teabagger economic terrorism cannot be tolerated.

Just think for a moment --- GI Joe is in Afghanistan laying his life on the line. Because of a Republican/Teabagger manufactured debt ceiling boondoggle, the troops don't get paid. At home, his wife and 3 kids are left with no money with which to feed themselves and pay the mortgage. The rapacious mortgage company comes knocking on the door for the missed payment and suddenly the foreclosure sign goes up. Not only is the home situation a distraction to him, it could get him killed in a part of the world that is unforgiving. He eventually gets home to find someone else living in what he thought was his home.

Now I know it doesn't quite happen that way, but the implications of the Republican/Teabagger implacability is montrous. And that is just one situation. Too bad there isn't a way to recall House representatives and senators like state governors.

Monday January 14, 2013, 11:31 pm
We live in perilous times where extremism is manipulating and corrupting the highest positions of power and public office in our country.... I hope our President takes a firm stand for what is right action here !!

Tuesday January 15, 2013, 2:16 am
Cut the bloated military and its contractors budget by 50%

Leave Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid off the table.
Remember, Social security is an independent program and is NOT part of the federal budget.

Ty, Carrie.
.

Tuesday January 15, 2013, 3:19 am
The concept of a "lonely" Obama has taken things too far. Let's not forget the question that was asked by the reporter. Our President speaks well for himself and doesn't need the translation or commentary.

Tuesday January 15, 2013, 5:17 am
concur with Gang. as retired military we are easy targets both ways! I see the problem but also believe the President is dead wrong in his no negotiation posture. He is now the liberal poster child for everything that is wrong with government and joins his opposite number the Tea Party in our disdain.

We need compromise and we need to cut the spending. Obama is too young to have seen the post WWII effects of running an economy by printing more money. Many countries did just that and have since continued to fail.

Tuesday January 15, 2013, 9:25 am
John. The fascist right is NOT negotiating. The ill informed at fox are saying that this will be up to Obama. The right is NOT going to budge. Then they'll trash him for not negotiating. This whole republican circle jerk is getting very old. They spend all of their energy screwing the people while the rich get richer and setting up the left with BS like bush's Solyndra and a thousand other traps. Turn off fox now!

Tuesday January 15, 2013, 11:33 am
when will the GOP/Cons realize that this is owed back to those that paid in.....this is not welfare or gov't charity like we give Big Business.....

Tuesday January 15, 2013, 11:39 am
Dave, can a lizard be enlightened?

Thursday January 17, 2013, 3:05 pm
Noted w/ thanks, Cal. When you threaten Soc. Sec. and veterans, you're threatening America...but the GOP only has messages they learn by rote. Their talking points come from lobbyists, to whom they're beholden. Despite the billions they spent in the last election, they were defeated--which has caused them to resort to even dirtier tactics. We can't wait until the next election. Those who have these representatives need to phone, e.mail and send letters of complaint. Some will finally succumb to common sense, hopefully.

Thursday January 17, 2013, 9:34 pm
With their lowest approval rating in history, you would think Congress would start listening to the people, however, we are not the ones they owe their loyalty, it is their large contributors they are hearing, not us. I still do not understand the Republican obsession with wrecking Social Security.