By 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.


Nobody won but the rich and big business. The teabaggers are zero's, but so are the repubs and demos, the whole dam bunch, don't care about anything but special interests. If Obama is going to get re-elected, he's going to have not grow a set of ba!!s, and do whats right for America!
Too bad he and the whole bunch have no real idea what's right for America.
They know whats right for banks, wall street an big corporations. Obama makes great speaches bur he acts just like a republican when it comes to action.
Our corporations are making record profits and actually paying recotd low taxes. They are given special treaties tax breaks and all possible help to outsource for slave labor. The future committees will make no revenue changes. The Republicans have already stated that ever member they put forward will be committed to a no tax change pledge. So twice now Obama has saved the republicans and the Bush tax cuts for the rich. We really don't need two republican parties. Bernie Sanders and several democrats are fighting a losing battle for fairness. They are badly outnumbered and the are sold out by their own president.
The people were ready for real change. Obama was not. Great talk and horrible action is what he gives. We have had a window of opportunity for real change and it is fast closing.
Our capital gains tax where most giant money is made will remain at 15%. Our big banks with trillions in assets will get billions in cheap or 0% loans to play the market.
Government will continue to guarantee home and student loans and let banks rape the country. If all guaranteed loans were made directly for a small interest trillions would be left with our people instead of thieving banks. Why should anyone pay 600k to a bank for a 200k loan when the tax payers back the loan? Why does our officials show so much more concern for banks than the people they were elected to serve? Where is the president and why are we allowing ourselves to be treated like pawns and peasants for banks. Pitiful, that we let banks rape our young students before the get started in life.
If we forced our public owned corporations to pay our minimum wages wherever the go that would bring back jobs and show a little respect for workers. When the CEO of Disney made 600 million in salary and god knows what in bonuses he had children working in Haiti for 12 cents an hour. This is coldblooded evil. Where is the president. Oh, he is busy signing a bill that further screws the people and talking about change.
All the burden of deficit reduction is being put on our already hurting people. This moves us another big step towards depression and chaos. Any politician that says: Sorry folks I don't like this, but we really have no options is a shameless liar. They have plenty of options; But they refuse to touch banks, big corporations or wall street. They are owned by the very pigs that are destroying America and the just made it worse, with little hope of change.
This was a pathetic deal, and look at the stock market, everyone with a brain knows it didnt go far enough, and this President couldnt lead us out of a paper bag.
Chanin Miller, a country divided cannot be lead and it will not survive! The moment this president was elected, the country was divided! And, those who feed this division will stop at nothing. As Rep. Walsh stated, "... we have to stop this President AND stop the spending!" He didn't say- stop this President from spending!
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Obama wanted to tax and spend to buy votes. His is the most dishonest and incompetent administration ever.
Bush wanted to spend money & cut taxes to buy votes. His was the most dishonest (remember all the illegal wire taps?) and evil (remember all the water boarding? We hung people at the end of WWII for that) administration ever. This man's only crime has been to try to improve health care.
brundo ask an older person if they feel their health care will be improved. Ask an unemployed person if they think FORCED health insurance will be an improvement as they will then be unable to pay any other bills. The ego in chief has done nothing for the American people but make us look stupid to the rest of the world.
What the nation needs now is to get the Damn Tea Partyers out of government.Both Dems and Repubs want them gone. If you have watched much even Boehner and Mcconnell both had their hands ties as obama's was. The Tea party is ruining the states so we should put our thoughts to them. The new 79 new Repubs were their for the sole purpose to ruin the little man's life and not to let the tax raises on thee rich, tho they payed good for the newbie's to say no. That kept their votes at no. it is a damn shame we can't ruin the rich fellows businesses. But we need their services so we are bought also..
The rest of the civilized world already has national health care of some sort. The percentage that you needed to pay from my reading was small enough even the poor could afford it. I thought it was in the 3% range. $10,000 income would be $300 a year in health cost. In my case the math worked out that I was spending more on doctors (a son with asthma) than the health care would have cost.
I'm currently unemployed and I'll take some of that forced insurance over no insurance any day.
What make us look stupid is having a party willing to let our country default to keep from raising taxes on the richest in America.
It gets worse the general public are still fooled by the politicians that are destroying the country and will vote them back to pillage the country for another term.
Did any of you enjoy the President's remarks today about the debt deal? Well, I sure did. Had the volumn down to zero and it was wonderful!
What happened to the job bill ? How can anyone claim victory for a problem that's not here yet ? The deficit was not strangling job creation. The vicious death spiral continues. Jobs and economic growth is what will retire the deficit. yes ,we will need more responsible govt to have any effect if the teabaggers can do it great. The problem is you have to spend money to make money. Infrastructure, education, renewable energy all the red meat items for the democrats.
Just go to this link and you will get an idea, just how clueless this president is. I would also like to add that tax revenue would be many times greater if the unemployment level was at a more normal 4% than over 9% than just taxing the rich who already pay 65% of all tax revenue taken in.
I knew the ego in chief was clueless before he was elected. People kept telling me he can't do much damage in 4 years but he is going out of his way to prove them wrong. You are right with the high unemployment people are not spending and tax revenues are down. I think the one thing this bill might do is bring up the bankruptcy rate, we need to find a way for people to get jobs so they can pay their bills and for anyone who says people don't want to work sorry talk to a HR person for every job opening there is 100-400 applications, and these are not just high paying jobs. The idiots in Washington screwed up their job and instead of going on vacation they should have stayed in Washington and finished up. If I behaved on my job the way Washington does I would be unemployed!!!!!!
Thinkstraight: ......going out of his way to prove them wrong.....We haven't seen nothin' yet if this man gets booted out next November. Look for him to go berzerk with spending, DOMA, and every other mandate he can come up with. He's out to destroy the American way of life as we know it and he has no conscience.
Imagine all those tea partiers actually doing their jobs. Somehow the manufactured crises is now Obama's fault.
Get a clue guys while you are so worried about what Obama may or may not do, the rich with their never raising taxes on the rich again are destroying the American way of life as we know it right now.
I find it interesting that the path to the holy grail of smaller government is never raising taxes on the richest again. Just a happy accident for the rich.......
You can lead a man to knowledge, but you can't make him think.
The ego in chief is right the people did not want this. When we voted for these people we were hoping for or dumb enough to buy into thinking the egomaniacs were actually being honest. I hope by now we all realize that if a politicians mouth is open they are lying.
Well, we taxpayers have been sold an image over the past 30 years but that image is a lie. Politicians keep trying to re-sell the image with a different layer of paint. Too bad the previous layers cannot support the weight. We all have bought lead at the price of gold.
Here's Keith Olbermann take on the outrage of the "Debt Debacle":
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/02/olbermann-debt-ceiling-special-comment-protests-obama_n_915957.html
I miss him since I don't always have access to cable and Comcast requires payment for "Current TV"!
Everyone in America realizes that The TEA party led GOP held America hostage and the Democrats and president made this agreement to keep the country from calamity and a world depression. If your not happy with the way the TEA party held America hostage, then you better
Vote
Out
The
(E) incumbent TEA party members and the GOP-ers who spear headed this lopsided win. President Obama could not look farther down the road or afford crashing the economy with a veto. His view was for everyone and the fragile economy being held hostage. If your not happy with the way this played out, you better vote this coming November 2012!
First communism collapses. Now Democracy.
Son of a gun, the liberals are back to being "progressives". A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but a skunk by any other name still stinks. Progressive = Socialist. Always has, and always will. Spit, sputter all you want. Change you name every other day. Your intent becomes obvious in a short time and we aren't buying. This country was founded by people who were smart enough to recognise the wrongs they left behind and did everything possible to keep this a country protected from such stupidity. Granted many Americans got complacent and didn't pay attention.. Now, thanks to Obama and his BS czars and commie, past criminal friends got out attention. We will take back our country, restore the integrity of our constitution and send Obama and his buds packing. We'll save a bundle as soon as the election is over in 2012 by not having to pay his nobody elected czars and their staffs. To say nothing of the billions saved when Obamacare is repealed and seniors honored as they should be and a system that has been stolen blind changed as it must be to survive for future generations.
I am not sure where all this blather comes from. ooh scary names, what is the intent, give the money to the people instead of the rich. What a horrid awful ideal to take from the rich.
The smart people who created the church/state separation, somewhere the integrity of that part needs to be restored. You plan on taking our country back from the majority of people and who voted for Obama.
Obama may not be perfect, but he better than any republican president candidate. We could have Bachmann and be defaulted right now. Now wouldn't that be exciting. Romney would need a poll and Perry has a hot-line to God.
With the partiers showing their true colors of being for the rich party at the cost of America. I can see the ads now and their votes prove them. The Ryan bill now that was a piece of work. Ending Social Security by privatization. Seniors are going to love that.
You keep dreaming about 2012 and then.....2016 at last your suffering will be over.
Hey fiesty Redhead I hear there are 70 mile winds going on in Roselle, guess you better stop sputtering for the night.
Shaking my head: You must be a greenhorn. lol Feisty's tactics, along with disabled vet and their cronies, usually are to hit on page one and run. There is little if any chance of seeing them on page two and beyond. It probably has something to do with fatigue. It takes a lot of energy to spew that nonsense. They are completely out of control and Newsvine lets them get away with it. I keep trying. Maybe someday.
Don't know who authored this but makes sense to me:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the
wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must
work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government
does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work
because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other
half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else
is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any
nation.
Good one Sweettalker: Very applicable to this administration.
Pffftttt... pathetic soundbytes.
Here, chew on this -
Know Jesus, No Peace: No Jesus, Know Peace...
You go Fiesty! Always look forward to what you write. It's strange how a few Radical Republicons can hijack the whole Congress, isnt' it? I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If you make less than $250,000/yr. have children or grandchildren, aren't a millionaire, and have read the Paul Ryan budget, I can't understand how one can vote Republicon. They're putting the screws to themselves and their kids. The Republicons like to talk about job creation, but with the funding cuts of the FAA, and the construction jobs associated with it, the next thing will be renewing the Fed. Gasoline tax of 18.4 cents/ gal. There will be tens of thousands construction jobs cut when the Republicons don't renew that either. It's easy to see that they're working for a higher unemployment rate, and a slowdown in the economy and will blame Obama for it during the next election. The only thing I can think of is to remove all Teabaggers and Republicons from office. It seems the only adults in the room are Democrats.
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It is a sad, but true, reality that Obama is just not tough enough to be president. He allowed the Republicans to treat him like a boy.
It was a barroom brawl, but Obama thought he was at a faculty senate meeting. Even dense Bush 2 would not allow Congress to beat up on him.
The best thing Obama can do now is to announce he will not seek a second term allowing some much tougher Democrat to run.
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These arguments are rediculous because taking the country down the pipe has been a total bi-partisan effort. This republic is on the verge of economic implosion and nothing in this settlement addressed the problems. This is the classic parent to child talk, "stop running up those credit cards, if you do not have the money to pay for it do not buy it". Washington is not going to change especially with this president who does not know when to stop. Hopefully next year he is gone and we will save a bundle on his not using air force one like a taxi. Where is Al Gore on Obama;s carbon footprint?
First according to Article I of the constitution the congress and senate control the purse strings not the president. As long as you have a congress and senate as corrupt as our this government as a hole will be corrupt including the supreme court. Most Americans don't have a clue because they don't know what is in the constitution. You cannot run a country or state like a business because they are not businesses. You claim the rich pay 65% of all taxes you forgot about the 60% the get back in corporate welfare at tax payers expense. It is the middle class that makes this country run not the rich. The next time its reported that some more of our military personnel have lost their lives in Iraq or Afghanistan how many were from rich back grounds 0. 02% if that. President Reagan use to say Freedom isn't Free and that applies to greedy ass rich people too. I retired from the Army 16 years ago have 2 sons and 1 daughter serving and this is what I and them are defending selfish people who think they shouldn't have to contribute to this country but are quick to outsource jobs and hide there money overseas. Ten years of tax cuts and corporate welfare have not produced one job. Warren Buffet said it perfectly 2 years ago ( We let the middle class go down the drain we will follow them). You can't expect this country to survive if the middle class jobs keep getting sent overseas. The outsourcing of American jobs has been going on for over 25 years now so that means it can't be Obama. The American people were warned about NAFTA and any other Free Trade bill that was getting started in the 90s. The problem nobody listened and it wasn't well thought out and we are paying the price. The problem isn't the president it is we the people. congressman and senators were not elected to bust unions and demonize teachers they were elected to produce legislation that will produce jobs and they are not doing there job. Democrat, Republican/Tea Party the entire congress and senate is a big cess pool with a couple of half ass good turds floating with the rest of them.
Reggie, thank you! Finally, a coherent thought!
It is a first step; that is good. It is at least we have the budget bill to support our government...
There is no victory lap; mainly, because the race is far from over. Whether you're a Tea-rrorist or Limp-wristed Leftie, it would be unwise to either gloat or concede at this point. IMHO, I think the president is crazy like a fox in allowing this deal to go down as it did. Not only can he now claim that the Republicans were willing to sacrifice the US and global economy for far-right ideology, in doing so, he can also lay claim to the many compromises he was willing to make at the expense of his own far-left base. And, built into this deal is a shift in responsibility for amending entitlement programs from the White House to the Congress.
Todd, you're right! At first, I was disappointed the President did not invoke the 14th Amendment and left the budget fiasco to the House/Senate to sort out. But, then I realized he was true to his stance of compromise which leaves the Republican/Tea Party's agenda fully exposed! CNN reported that 77% of Americans disapprove of the Congress' handling of the debt ceiling crisis!
This is the most irrelvant man to ever occupy the White House. A certified idiot!
This bill does nothing except keep the Dems from having to put anything in writing until after the next election..... Again! The Same reason they haven't gotten a budget done since Obama was elected.
So now we are going to have a "super comittee" to identify cuts. How much does that cost? What about the comittee that put forth the Simpson-Bowles plan? How much did that cost? How about the "Gang of Six"? How much did that cost? It's RIDICULOUS! Why have any comittee if you're just going to ignore what they say? They are clearly answer shopping.
Like a little kid, his Father says no, so he goes and asks his Mom. Idiots.
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This is only for those who love God if you don't then don't bother this only meant for those who have some fear of whats going on. I have been reading these books.