E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSBy Kristen Welker
NBC News
It was far from a victory lap. Speaking from the Rose Garden Tuesday, President Obama called the plan to raise the debt ceiling, “an important first step to ensuring that as a nation we live within our means.” Mr. Obama then proceeded to lash out at Congress saying, “it shouldn’t take the risk of default – the risk of economic catastrophe – to get folks in this town to work together and do their jobs.”
The duality of the President’s remarks capped off a long process that has been rife with heated debate and partisan wrangling. After the speech, Mr. Obama signed the compromise plan with just hours to spare before the nation would have defaulted on its loans.
The President also seemed to want to turn the page on the debt limit debate by focusing on the future. He reiterated his call for Congress to take some immediate steps which he says would create jobs including: extending tax cuts for middle-class families, passing patent reform, and passing a set of trade deals. The familiar remarks were an indication that the President is trying to steer the conversation back to jobs and the economy and away from the ugly debate that has dominated the nation’s Capital for the past several months.
But, it’s not clear if the nation is ready to move on. According to a recent Washington Post, Pew Research Center poll, almost three quarters of Americans had a negative word to describe how they viewed the budget negotiations. The top words included, “ridiculous, disgusting and stupid.”
Acknowledging that public frustration, the President reiterated another familiar sentiment: “Voters may have chosen divided government, but they sure didn’t vote for dysfunctional government.” When White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney, was asked if the President felt that he bore some of the responsibility for the “dysfunction,” Carney would only say, ”I think that this President from very early on in this process made abundantly clear his willingness to compromise, his willingness to accept the fact that he would not in this environment, in this divided government, get everything that he wanted.”
The compromise plan will increase the nation’s $14.3 trillion borrowing limit through 2012 and will be matched with about $1 trillion dollars in deficit reductions. Under the second phase of the plan, a bipartisan, bicameral “Super-Committee” will be charged with identifying about $1.5 trillion dollars more in deficit reductions (through entitlement and tax reform). If the committee does not act by Thanksgiving, mandatory across the board cuts go into effect to defense and discretionary spending. Many Democrats are upset because they say the plan will unfairly target the poor and the middle class, and some Republicans argue the cuts don’t go deep enough.
In essence, few were celebrating the passage of the bill, but everyone was breathing a sigh of relief having averted what many economists warned would be a global financial crisis if the debt ceiling were not raised. “We’ve got to do everything in our power to grow this economy and put American back to work” Mr. Obama warned. He and everyone else in D.C. hopes the nation can now, finally, move forward.
President Obama delivers a statement on the bipartisan debt bill that recently passed in both the House and Senate. The legislation pairs an increase in the government's borrowing cap with promises of more than $2 trillion in budget cuts over the upcoming decade.
Leave a Comment:
LMAO
To hear the repubs talk, you would think this country was in great shape 2 years ago. And that ALL the debt just happened. They sound like they didnt have anything to do with it.
Then when Obama was elected, and they said there was no way they would support ANYTHING he put on the table. (no matter how good it was for the country) And they would do EVERYTHING they could to shut him down and make him look as bad as possible.
This just go's to show how far polititions will go to get there party in the White house. SCREW the people and the country. He11 they dont need to worry, they are rich.
They would support anything good he put on the table, problem is he is a talker and not a doer.
And you know this for fact HOW ????
Amazing that is NOT what was said after the election.
The GAO initial audit report shows that we loaned 16 Trillion to foriegn Banks and Governments. Money we borrowed at around 4+%, then loaned out at almost 0%. Without even telling anybody, bypassing the House and the Senate. The entire report will be due out on October 18th. I know the foaming at the mouth liberals don't like to talk about that because they can't blame Bush for it. You Indys and you reasonable types from both sides of the aisle, I suggest you read it. You probably aren't going to find it here on MSN.
http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3
http://sanders.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/GAO%20Fed%20Investigation.pdf
0bamas quote of the decade
Would you call starting two wars and cutting taxes a success? How about doubling the national debt is that a success. ? How about creating a financial break down due to deregulation, boy that was a success.
And your point is? My only point is ol'dumbo talks out of both sides of his mouth.You will not see me defend any president!! If your looking for ammunition we'll have to go back to Reagan. If you like to discuss his 8 year term, I'm game. Other that that all I see is my post being is a thorn in the lefty's side. If it didn't bother you who wouldn't have come back with Bush policy's. A better comment would have been "yeah he screwed up by saying that" but no you show your total ignorance of the original post. So that just puts you on my dumba$$ list.
I just can't see how you all go thru life with political blinder on?
That speech was made when bush was spending us into oblivion and someone needed to speak up as the republicans weren't fiscal conservative anymore with tax cuts during war time and not a thought of raising taxes. Obama could see then what was happening and was speaking up. He didn't need a phony tea party to notice a problem.
Still nobody held the debt ceiling hostage to demand anything. The republicans kept spending and spending and now it's President Obama's fault that the debt is so large. The one person that they ignored.
As long as the rich controle washington, Anyone making under 60,000.00 dont mean anything. They will continue working there own agenda. And that is making sure they stay filthy rich. And they will continue spewing there B.S hoping the general public keeps believing it. They are drunk with power and it will take more then phone calls or protesting to end it.
Obama and the democraps are the laughing stock of the world. Without the tea party stepping up to the plate, he would continue to piss more money down his leg.
All you nuts that think this is over is in for a really really long ride. Obama, doing a good to poor job is below 40%. That spells victory for the tea party and the Republician party.
So either get in line, or get run over because we are not stopping.
If you have been on welfare all your life, I would suggest you start looking for a job. The free lunch is over.
HAHAHA
I'm glad I have my boots on !! A group of people holding the whole country hostage is NOT a good thing. Repubs letting there filthy rich contributers have all them tax breaks and loop-holes is NOT a good thing. Allowing G.E to have record profits and not pay a dime in taxes is NOT a good thing.
You should ask President Obama to address that issue with Mr. Immelt. I understand they're real buds.
You should bring it up to the republicans, they are the ones fighting to keep those tax breaks.
I thought Obama wanted to increase taxes and the republicans threw a hissy fit and stomped out. How dare someone suggest taxing the rich more?
I can't even imagine the twisted avenue in your brain you had to travel to make it Obama's fault.
Sure they did, they voted in a dysfunctional President!
I only have a couple of questions...
We got a deal, we averted calamity...great... then it hit me...the debt is going up, not down. No real cuts have happened, no real fiscal responsibility has been discovered in Washington DC. Now who's gonna pay all that debt?
Is anyone tired as I am of division and bickering? Because I think there are no winners in this deal. As a matter of fact, only losers. We just gave a 2.4 trillion dollar credit card to a group of politicians that will certainly max out that credit card in a couple of years, because that's what they do. Then what?
I am so disgusted with the very thought that in a couple of years, we may have to hear about how "economic calamity will surely happen if we don't get another credit card", it literally makes my stomach sick. We are so close to the time when all our money will go to paying interest...what will happen then?
14,000,000,000,000 of debt is about to become 16,400,000,000,000. What then? Responsibly, we must cut our expenditures, and if necessary, raise taxes fairly, but I insist...DO NOT ask me for another dime until you show me a plan that truly reduces the debt. Truly cuts expenditures. Truly shows that we are serious. That means "We the People" will never have to hear about the government needing another credit card every again. Ever.
If we do hear it again...all will lose...for generations to come.
I'm wondering why the NYT hasn't continually pushed that interactive deficit-reduction program they had going on. Where they had a list of various choices that could be made and their potential impact on the deficit. As you chose each option it would show you how much it would chop (or add to) the deficit by 2015 & 2030 (I think those were the two milestones). After I finished I had a nearly $300-billion SURPLUS by 2015 & over $800-billion by 2030.
I'm not sure what just happened from a personal perspective. Either Obama just got my vote in 2012 just out of pure spite because of all these rascist trying to stonewall him or he just lost my vote for not having enough backbone to get things done. We need a democratic leader who is not afraid of the GOP. One who will insist on enacting the platform policies. One who we can trust will do what he/she says they are going to do. So far he has not done 1/2 of what he has promised because he keeps giving in to the GOP. I guess only time will tell. I have another year to decide.
They don't have one.
Jeez, just how much money would your ideal candidate have to spend and how much in debt would the nation have to go to make you happy? And by the way, does anbody else notice that if a post mentions race 90% chance it is a democrat posting. Who are the racists?
lamdaguy: Think about what you wrote. Then, think about what you would do, if you were President. Don't just blow it off. Stop and think. You are President. The debt ceiling must be raised or the country goes into default. You have adversaries saying their most important goal is to make you a one term president. They have passed a bill in the House that you don't like, but the public is angry, frightened, and want the issue resolved---now! Your back is against the wall. If you veto it, the people will be outraged. That was exactly the intention of the Tea Party and the Republicans. So, what would you do? The responsibility is on your shoulders. Do you allow the people to suffer default, or do you sign the bill? What would you do? The President co-opted the Republicans. He signed the bill and urged the nation to come together and intelligently tackle the problem of the national debt. The Republicans think they won, but they're wrong. All they did was to radicalize every patriot in the Republic who watched them place a gun at the head of both the nation and the people and threaten them with economic destruction. They have awakened the conscience of the Republic, and the people will respond by handing them the greatest defeat in 2012 in American history! I can hear the music of the people now----Les Miz!
You can pretend all you want that the code words and the viral hatred is about his policy. I'm 62 and I have never in my life seen a president put through what the press and republicans have put Obama through.
Never has a sitting senator come out and said outloud his mission to make the sitting president a one term president and make him fail. The whole birther movement couldn't have been any more racist. Anything, so that in their minds, Obama is not president.
We are all suppost to pretend it is not there so the respectable conservatives can continue to do it.
Put like a true racist democrat, aMErican First
term limits for all federal positions is a good place to start to fix this mess. amend the constitution and limit the president to one six year term. next all senators and representatives have one term (staggered) so you do not have an entirely new congress. think of the benefits of term limits. it is a way to begin to curtail the professional political hacks and return some power to the people. strong legislation against lobbying. finally some strong citizen leaders who will cut out some of the pork, mismanagement, nepotism, backroom deals and sheer waste and outright corruption inherent in our system.
Good luck with that !! Might as well try and lower there salary by 35% too
I think that is a good idea. However; I think the president should be 2- 6 year terms with a new age limit of not younger than 20 and not electable after age 65. If we have to retire then so should they. I think the congress, both houses, should only be allowed a total of 2- 4yr. terms. And reduce their retirement pension to half of current without the clause that allows their widow to draw it. But in all reality we know it will never happen because only the congress and start that amendment process and submit it to the states for a 2/3 approval to even get it on the ballot. To many will never do that. It is political, not to mention career, suicide.
I also feel we need to eliminate lobbyists and make it illegal. Also no congress person will never cut their own throats by eliminating pork,add ons, and other ways of getting special deals for their states and district.
Obama was suppose to change how lobbyist work in Washington D.C. and we see how that went.
Now let's see if the GOP can get the Medicaid plan passed, a hopeful step to getting rid of it altogether. Then Medicare, Social Security, foreign-aid, and all those unnecessary overseas bases should be next.
Congressional Budget Act of 1974 & baseline budgeting - two of the biggest clutterfracks that makes government budget planning fuzzy math & why debt will never truly go down.
Naw, he didnt get a victory lap...BUT
He won the Nobel Peace Prize..???..and he might have spent the night at Holiday Inn...!!!
Now thats something he can tell his kids about...lol
There is no victory lap for anybody, Obama included. However, the hyper-leftist/progressives have their quiver full of arrows shooting at the tea partiers with gusty and total malevolent abandon. They are labeled terrorists, zombies, Satan, jihadists, blood-thirsty vampires, racists, and the list goes on. Even Biden piped in with his "terrorists" remarks. The Democrats who voted for this bill are not called ugly names but gently stroked. Double standards in the extreme. The tea partiers are not terrorists. They are patriotic Americans, who want nothing better than saving the nation from fiscal insolvency by seeking to stop unwise, unlimited taxing and spending by the Democrats. As the saying goes: No good deed will go unpunished.
U R NUTS
They almost took this country to default. And if they had there way they would of. Not paying of the debt and letting the country go into default is treason. You are rich enough or on repubs payroll to even suggest other wise.
I can't believe it but for once I agree with Feisty (I think). She seems to think that the fiscal conservatives lost because there wasn't enough cuts. I agree that there wasn't enough cuts but at least the conversation has started to turn away from spend spend spend, and yes I put Bush in the category of overspending. I think a lot of the vitriol being spewed is that people cannot actually believe that the tea partiers actually stood on principle and refused to be bribed into changing their position (see health care reform process). Imagine that, representatives sticking to what they know is right.
why would you even consider a victory lap for obama? he caused the whole problem. he has put us further in debt than any other president in history. he was grandstanding the republicans right up to the end so he can claim victory as he continues his campaign to get re-elected. if he hets re-elected that tells me the american people are dumber than i thought. every thing that happened in this fiasco was deliberately planned by obama. he said he wanted to work with the gop then every time they present him with ideas he refuses them. is that what he calls working with people. he wanted his plan and nothing else. his plan is the destruction of our economy and our country. he wants us in total mayhem so he can call in united nations troops and end our freedom as americans. that is why obama and hillary are going to sign the treaty with the un to make private ownership of fire arms illegal. then only the criminals will have guns and we will be left defenseless.
Boomer
Seek help !! and please start taking your pills again !!
boomer: You really need professional help. I've read some delusional posts, but yours is so completely irrational that it is far outside the realm of normal thought.
Boomer YOU are right !!!!!
Well I hope everyones ready for some more economic pain, cause this debt deal is going to really put us in the crapper. Yea we got those cuts and the market tanked. The finally numbers wont be seen or months. So thanks a lot Tea Party.
The reason the market tanked is that the economy is a mess, the cuts are laughable, and nobody has shown the stomach to do what it really will take--eliminate tax expenditures, cut more spending, reform the tax code, and commit to a balanced budget.
Dont blame the T-party, I like what they stand for. I just dont like how they almost ruined this country. Something has to be done to curb spending, But there is no way of doing that without it hurting ALOT of people. Hitting the richest would soften the hurt amoung lower income. But to many pollitions wont let that happen. The rich controle washington, so you can be sure the lower 2/3 will be stuck with it
Just what do they stand for? Is it this holy grail of smaller government and the path to the grail just happens to lie in the accidental path of never raising taxes on the richest again.
Don't you find that just a little too convenient for the rich and the tea party?
We have an entire branch of government that is largely ineffective. The first thing to be cut should be the size of congress. It seems pretty clear that we have too many of them. Start the process by eliminating some of their jobs.
The House of Representatives is not broken--it's been taken over by a group who will be removed (mostly) in 2012.
And as the failure to fund the FAA shows, it is the Senate that is broken, specifically it's requirement for a 60 vote super-majority for even basic legislation. To wit, the debt ceiling deal does not attach the possibility of any amendments or filibusters for any cuts the Super-Congress agrees to. However, for any revenue or tax increases, then amendment and filibuster provisions apply.
I'm also suprised that liberals and progressives like myself haven't explicitly compared President Obama to Neville Chamberlain, the great appeaser. All the President has managed to do is embolden his opponents to hold out for even more next time--with the realistic expectation they will get it when the President caves again.
Obama could have had his Churchill moment. With each appeasement on his part, it looks less likely that he will fight for anything. If he needs a spine, he can borrow mine.
What was he suppose to do, Let us go into default ?? Ya that would of been good !! Then you repubs would of really been slamming him as the first president to default. And it would of hurt ALOT of middle income families. He did what he had too !!! And he made the right choice.
Gee, No Tea People are "ridiculous, disgusting or stupid". NOT. America can see the bare faced greed and love of Koch that the righties have put on display over the past 2 years. Grover Norquist might be able to write a script using all the RIGHT words but when all is said and done in 2012 all he will have left to hold on to is that ragged little pledge he's been hawking for the last 2 decades.
In his second administration Obama will force all the signers of that piece of manipulatory excrement paper to publicly shred their copies after they've been shown the door and sanity is returned to the people's house. Folks are waking up to the fact that the whole process has been highjacked by a wide eyed uninformed minority who habitually vote to their own detriment. Votes wrung out of them through lies on fiscal issues and pandering to a religious right bent of creating their biblical vision of the "last days" come to pass.
Hypocrites of the highest order forcing disaster on WE THE PEOPLE to create chaos is not of God, NOT christ-like in the least and does nothing that any religion on earth purports to stand for. In fact it is more like the Anti-Christ spokenb of in the bible. They care nothing fo rth eleast among us. They give lip service to future generations and let everything that could possibly make children's lives better today be cut to satisfy the sheer greed of Wall Street bankers and their Park Avenue penthouse clients.
They stand for nothing, care for no one and have one goal: Destroy the middle class in America.
It has been years in coming and they've laid a path to this point seripituously and deceptively. They have enlisted media, tea people and religious nuts to deflect attention from the "Cause" asnd they will ultrimatel;y dumpeed too once the goal is met.
They've called it "The Cause" since the Civil War but it has always been. The next war between the states will pit the have nots against the haves if this divisive obstinance persists in DC. When people can't work. Can't provide fopr hte people they love, can't eat, can't thrive, can't get well, can't survive...They get desperate and angry. They do not care about consequences or rules when these circumstances exist.
This is where GOP Tea People are draggin the country. Get ready for the ride or VOTE DEMOCRATIC!
Your choice.
Loved you post Missy.
Thanks, American Firster! LOVE your handle and enjoy your posts too. As long as these hypocrites can keep us all at each others throats we don't notice their real purpose. That is their modis operandi and the sheets are being ripped off to reveal they are a self-fulfilling faction living in a dream that is our national nightmare.
I live in Texas where the educational model is to keep everyone who is not from the right side of the track, as defined by the people with money, as stupid as possible so as to make them more amenable to low paying jobs; thus the Rick Perry job creating myth. Ploys for peril is the play they run best, all the while calling the freedom loving patriotic necessities.
It is all creatively deceptive distraction.
POST #1 as always on sign of Human Intelligence ...
There was no "victory" for either side of the aisle, nor is it even a "first step." It is nothing more than passing the buck to the next administration and Congress. I do not know why Congress is cheering for anyone or anything, much less patting themselves on the back. They have accomplished NOTHING! despite all the drama and hoopla.
If we want to decrease the national debt, two things have to happen simultaneously: (1) revenues have to be increased by increasing the taxes of the super rich and closing the loopholes in the tax code which they and their cagey lawyers take advantage of, and not those of simple folks making $25-50K a year or even less; and (2) government spending (and WASTE!) has to be cut, not through the super or working poor or those who rely only on SS and Medicare, but by the federal agencies and self-entitled bureaucrats (including members of Congress and the First Lady's travel expenses!).
Sorry, those two things are only drops in the bucket. What really needs to happen among other things is to eliminate tax expenditures ($1.2T/year), but those include sacred cows like pretending employer-paid health insurance is not income, home (and second home, home eqjuity loans, etc.) mortgage deductions, charitable deductions (often bogus), and more. And the 50% of Americans who pay no federal income tax (or actually get money back) need to chip in a little. If you want to raise taxes on the "super rich" after you do the other things, fine, but that alone won't cut it.
Eric, I'm not sure we disagree. Some of the items you list I would include as loopholes that only the rich could afford anyway, such as second homes, and the 50% whose lawyers and accountants have found ways they have to pay NO taxes. It's moot anyway, some "Committee" has been tasked with the dirty job of making the sausage. Can't wait to see just who those individuals are.
drushalli, you seemed to be in an independent thought mode until you slipped into a regurgitated talking point - First Lady's travel expenses????????
How many of you have your personal finances in order? I'd bet those calling for unlimited government spending and debt are in up their eyeballs. Guys like me who've worked for 20 years to pay off the mortgage, car loans, and don't carry a balance on their credit card don't have as much stake in this financial bubble that's about to burst.
Just don't storm my home and try to take what you feel is yours by default, losers. THAT'S what the 2nd amendment is good for.
I'm not in debt up to my eyeballs. The cost of my fixed loan, insurance and property tax is $580. per month. So I have set myself up pretty good. Oh, by the way, its a duplex and my son and I split the cost.
I carry some on my one credit card due to the move after being laid off last fall due to low tourism in California and back to my home in Washington. Glad the credit was there as I would have been miserable without it. I pay triple the payment amount as I do not like debt.
On the other hand being a liberal, I am not calling for unlimited government spending. I feel our government needs to gets its personal finances in order by ending wars and tax cuts during war that caused a lot of our problems. I don't feel the need to punish the American people for something they did not do.
Unfortunately the republicans have taken the stand protect the rich from tax increases at all cost. Which is stupid in my mind if your serious about the debt. They got this over looming debt that will kill us all and our children, sorry the rich can't help.
I have no idea where you are, but I feel no threat of someone storming my home to take what belongs to me. I am building a fence around my garden, but it is to keep the deer out.
I not rich, but if I have to pay more taxes to keep from starving the poor I don't have a problem.
Heaven forbid that we focus on something about jobs.
Come on, haven't the partiers got another manufactured crisis to bring to us?
I saw Harry Reid today after the Senate vote. He said now they could focus on the issue of jobs.
Oh, wait.......shouldn't they have been doing that for the last 2-3 years?
I also saw Congressman Cleaver. He said it was a big mistake the Democrats didn't focus on jobs when they had control. Glad to see we're on the same page. (In fairness, he also said the Republicans are making the same mistake).
You're right, Americans. Lets focus on jobs. Get unemployment down to 5%, and none of this other stuff will be a big deal.
I don't believe either part 'won'. I do believe the Republicans probably got more of their agenda than the Democrats.
I also think that the amount of hatred hurled from and to each party by their opponents won't help anything.
Neither right or left is completely correct with their stances and the American people won't stand for having one party or the other holding the country hostage when the opportunity arises.
Maybe the best thing to do is remember that we have to pull together to survive hard times.
And no the hard times didn't just start 2 1/2 years ago. Its just come to a head now.
It would be a good thing to reduce spending. A revision in the tax codes to a flat rate that is the same for everyone would also find an overwhelming majority in favor. Everybody thinks they're paying more than their opponents.
We need to create jobs. The easiest way to do this is to put massive tariffs on incoming goods, including foreign cars.
If you build your crap overseas then sell your crap overseas. If you want to import your goods for sale to the high dollar USA consumer market then you need to either have produced it here or pay the massive tariffs. No more loopholes or write-offs. If the taxes are reasonable to begin with(10-15%) you don't need write offs or loopholes. No more 0 taxes for corporations. No more Corporate welfare to companies making record profits yet getting money from the government as the oil companies have been.
In short, its time to use the common sense we had even 20 years ago.
Just a thought.
I just knew this would happen. Kentucky Fried McConnell does it again...this is becoming ridiculous and frightening..
GOP moves to block consumer watchdog chief
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43993281/
More obstructionism from the GOP/TP..it never ends and I'm not surprised. Mitch McConnell and the party of no already set a record for filibusters. The future of the middle class and poor looks bleaker everyday..."please sir, can I have some more?...."