[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

The deadline is August 2nd and there still is no deal. I don't think his speech was grandstanding, it was a dose of reality. A part of the GOP is holding the entire US economy hostage in an attempt to get Obama to capitulate.

What's with this violent speech: "hostage," "capitulate"? Are you a closet right winger? Fishpart has a good point, maybe big, fat government is holding holding us hostage to the fear of disaster if "a part of the GOP" doesn't capitulate?

While most people think the Federal Government spends too much, also I think the polls have pretty consistently shown that people favor a balanced approach to deficit reduction in alignment with the findings of the bi-partisan debt commission.

The fiscal problem goes far deeper than the Federal Gvt. spending too much. It has gone far beyond its Constitutional "entitlement" to spend. And our tacit acceptance that the problem is merely spending and taxing shows that we have been bamboozled to the point of not only not understanding the fundamentals of Constitutional governance, but to the extent that our basic safeguards such as the press, the judicial system, and our educational institutions have abandoned the gift of principled Constitutional governance to the whims of ad hoc responses to so-called crises. Which in turn create a path to new crises and further abandonment and forgetting of our foundation. So let us continue to borrow our way out of debt.

You say you don't want a tax increase (for the wealthy mind you) but a default would likely increase borrowing costs for EVERYBODY. Perhaps you think the middle class is doing great and can take that extra point on their mortgage.

Ah, because the tax increase is supposedly on the wealthy, it's a righteous thing to do. Never mind, the immorality of tyrannizing a minority or the slippage of Constitutional equal protections (it's a crisis, after all). How about the "likely increase" in higher price of products to the middle costs due to taxes being tacked on to cost? Of course, it doesn't seem to be mentioned that GOP proposals indicate that a higher debt ceiling would be granted if actual spending would commensurately be reduced.

And don't forget that the majority of the current deficit is due to the Bush tax cuts, the Bush Prescription Drug entitlement, two wars Bush started and Bush led bail out the Banks. Bi-partisan problems require bi-partisan solutions and some compromise.

Oh, hear you go again with the Bush thing. Bush tax cuts did increase revenue (which dems wan't to do by raising taxes--yeah, yeah, only on the rich--from whom we tend to get job growth when lower taxes allow them to expand). Of course, Bush did what Federal Gvt. does--he spent the money. THAT'S THE POINT! Federal Government overreach beyond Constitutional bounds to spend our substance then demand greater power to borrow, to pay for overspending and creating a larger debt that will, as it has the past 30 years, require even greater power to borrow. So we can deflect from the real problem by pointing to someone in the "other" party to show, well they did it, so it's not our fault, or its OK because they did it too. It's Federal Gvt. overreach, no matter which party is in power, stupid.

There is a way out of this mess but your Obama hate is just getting in the way.

-spence

Yeah, just pointing to Obama, or Bush, misses the way out.