Were they the ones that put up 100+ amendments that made it into the final law? If so, sure.
With members of the Democratic party, you mean.
Understood. History has no place here.
Anyway, the point is you guys are acting like it's unprecedented. It's not. At all. It was a tried and true tactic of the democrats in the 80s.
Were they the ones that put up 100+ amendments that made it into the final law? If so, sure.
And I find your failure to honestly acknowledge that this tactic has been used several times in the past by "nutjob" Democrats to be repulsive.Actually it is unprecedented. This is the first time where a tiny sliver of nutjobs almost took us over a fiscal cliff. That never happened before. Government shutdowns are minor when compared to the fiscal cliff.
The Tea Party wants America to fail to justify their hatred of Obama. They are doing everything they can to ensure that failure happens. It is repulsive.
And I find your failure to honestly acknowledge that this tactic has been used several times in the past by "nutjob" Democrats to be repulsive.
Of course that's what I mean. You want to link any of these Republican amendments that made it into the final law yet not one Republican voted for?
According to Connie Cass of The Associated Press, the U.S. government “briefly stiffed some of its creditors on at least two occasions.” The first default took place in November 1814, during the administration of James Madison, America’s tiniest chief executive. Just a few months after the British conquest of Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812, the Treasury was unable to move enough precious metal to service its debt, and missed interest payments on bonds. Boston bondholders, according to Wayne State College history professor Don Hickey, were paid off in short-term interest-bearing treasury notes or more bonds. These debt service troubles, and the war, were resolved within a few months.
A more recent default came in 1979 under President Carter, who, until Obama, held the record for presiding over the country’s longest post-World War II period of economic stagnation. Cass attributes the ’79 default to “a back-office glitch that ended up costing taxpayers billions of dollars.” She writes, “The Treasury Department blamed the mishap on a crush of paperwork partly caused by lawmakers who — this will sound familiar — bickered too long before raising the nation’s debt limit.”
The Carter default is potentially more relevant because it occurred under the 14th Amendment, a post-Civil War change to the Constitution that declared the “validity of the public debt….shall not be questioned.”
I'm the one who's badly misinformed?Call it ignorance. I am completely unaware in our entire history of American politicians almost defaulting on our debt obligations.
Please provide the documentation and links backing up your rather BOLD statement. I think you are REALLY BADLY misinformed.
I'm the one who's badly misinformed?
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/01/short-history-of-the-debt-ceilinggovernment-shutdowns/
I’m sorry but I think you’ve confused two very different things. 100% percent of the gov’t shutdowns you outline above were due to the failure of Congress and the president to sign into law a budget. In every instance, the federal gov’t had the cash, but not the authority, to pay Federal employees. This is very different from the debt ceiling issue. Yes, it has always been a farce and political grandstanding, but not until recently has one party pushed it so far to the brink of actually forcing the gov’t to run out of CASH. If the ceiling is not raised, and the Treasury runs out of tricks to manage cash, then the gov’t has the authority (that congress provided) but not the CASH to pay their bills. That’s what the markets get concerned about. They don’t really care if fed workers are furloughed for a couple weeks. They REALLY care if Treasury cannot make interest payments on Treasuries. And for the Treasury to make those payments w/o issuing debt, it would have to slash ALL expenditures (soc security, employee payrolls, hospital payments, contractor payments – EVERYTHING) by the 25%ish numbers you see talked about). This is VERY different than the gov’t furloughing workers in order to stay withing the budget authority. Those instances never got to the point where the stopped making essential payments on entitlements (in fact, that’s what an entitlement program is, it doesn’t require annual appropriations. You’ve conflated the two above and it’s really misleading. Yes, I like your meme that the media circus is way overdone, and people pay way too much attention. But this is a rare instance when you’ve sowed confusion instead of your usual penetrating insight.
It's really doesn't matter...it's wrong whatever party does it. But what does matter is getting the facts straight for those who lack the ability or desire to arrive at them independently.why does it matter how many times Dems have done this? That logic is terribly flawed.
Just because someone cut me off on the highway and put everyone else in danger, that does not mean I should do the same....
So are Republicans as stupid as Dems now??? Or worse?
How so?Doc Savage Fan: Yes you are extremely misinformed.
Read the entire thing. Not a single mention, not one of a party INTENTIONALLY WITH MALICE AND AFORESIGHT attempting to cause America to default on it's debt. It is unprecedented. Remember this, the Tea Party actively WANTS us to go over the fiscal cliff.
why does it matter how many times Dems have done this? That logic is terribly flawed.
Just because someone cut me off on the highway and put everyone else in danger, that does not mean I should do the same....
So are Republicans as stupid as Dems now??? Or worse?
OMG, you people have no clue how Washington works....
Administration would be forced to make drastic cuts in order to avoid default? This is pure fantasy. In theory, maybe, but is pure fantasy in the real world.
You should never, ever, try to force a drastic cut at 11th hour. It has never worked, and never will. Republicans should've tackled this long before a looming shutdown and default. This whole episode was simply reckless and frankly useless.
In Official Washington, decrying “partisanship” as the “real problem” is the prerequisite for being taken seriously as a smart, unbiased political commentator. But from where we stand right now, partisanship is not the problem. Democrats are not the problem. Republicans are not the problem. The relationship between President Obama and John Boehner is not the problem.
The Tea Party is the problem.
The Tea Party is the most destructive force in American politics today. Over the last few weeks, it has demonstrated again that its intent is not to shake up the establishment but to burn down the village. As a Democrat, I disagree with its policy positions, but its policy positions alone are not what make the Tea Party so dangerous. What makes the Tea Party dangerous is its members’ willful disregard for the most basic tenets of American democracy. They do not believe in the legitimacy of our president. They do not believe in the legitimacy of decisions handed down by our Supreme Court. Unlike President Obama, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, or a host of other Democratic and Republican lawmakers who grasp the basic reality of politics, they have never, not once shown a willingness to compromise on anything. Merely uttering the word is enough to draw a primary challenge.
All this, despite the fact that the Tea Party represents the views of a small, ever-shrinking fraction of Americans. Even within the Republican Party, its members’ favorability hovers around 50 percent, the lowest of all time. Their recent legislative strategy, a word that can be used only in its loosest sense, led to 144 Tea Party House members voting against a bipartisan compromise simply to open the government and avert default. But when Reuters polled people who weren’t satisfied with last week’s outcome, only 2 percent said it was because the House passed the Senate’s bipartisan bill. Only 5 percent said it was because Republicans compromised. Only 3 percent said it was because default would have taught our government an important lesson. Most people said their main dissatisfaction was with the ugly process the Tea Party dragged us all through.
And yet, somehow, this small minority of Tea Party House members, who represent less than one half of one legislative body in one branch of government, has been given enormous influence over the national agenda—a situation without precedent in American political history. It’s insanity.
:
Democrats and Republicans can argue all they want over the role of government, but we cannot allow the Tea Party to continue holding the country hostage over its kamikaze mission to destroy government. The vast majority of Americans reject that mission, and we’re not about to sacrifice ourselves or our democracy as collateral damage. It’s time for all of us to get together and fight the crazy.
Still waiting.How so?Doc Savage Fan: Yes you are extremely misinformed.
Boy it's going to be a fun 5 years until Cruz is voted out or reelected in 2018.
OMG, you people have no clue how Washington works....
Administration would be forced to make drastic cuts in order to avoid default? This is pure fantasy. In theory, maybe, but is pure fantasy in the real world.
You should never, ever, try to force a drastic cut at 11th hour. It has never worked, and never will. Republicans should've tackled this long before a looming shutdown and default. This whole episode was simply reckless and frankly useless.