Debt Ceiling on the Rise if Dems Get Their Way
(November 6, 2009 - Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images North America)
Dems to use Defense Bill to Hide Debt Limit Hike
In a move that is nothing short of shady, conniving, manipulative, and just flat despicable, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is planning to raise the nation’s debt limit ceiling by burying it in a Defense appropriations bill to force Republicans to either sign on for it or refuse necessary funding to our troops abroad. No one should be surprised that Dems would use this sort of unconscionable tactic as it is par for the course with these flaming liberals who only pay token lip service to supporting our troops in the first place. They see no reason not to exploit them and their efforts if they can achieve political gain in the process. Afterall, they blame the military and the war effort for the growing debt. I guess that is a more convenient path than admitting that their own out-of-control spending is what has led us close to approaching our debt limit in the first place.
The issue at hand centers on the statutory debt limit of $12.1 trillion which needs Congressional approval for the Treasury to increase it. Essentially we have spent ourselves to death and now we are wanting more credit to spend even more. Great plan right. Make sure to tell Visa and Mastercard about the plan next time they call you to talk about your balance.
The Treasury is nearing the current debt ceiling of $12.1 trillion, and Congress must authorize raising the amount the United States can borrow to avoid the country going into default to its creditors.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday that the House would combine legislation raising the debt limit with a bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, greatly increasing the chances that the bill will clear Congress before the government can max out its credit card.
“We have already raised it in the House but we need to have a vehicle so that the Senate can vote on it, and it is our intention to have something on the Department of Defense bill next week,” she said at a news conference.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Republicans will vote against increasing the debt limit.
“And we’ll vote against it because of their trillion-dollar stimulus plan that hasn’t worked. We’ll vote against it because of all of this excessive spending that’s in this bill right here, a 12 percent increase with 5,000 earmarks — all of it pushing the debt to record heights,” he said at a news conference.
“Listen, they have made a habit of taking defense appropriation bills, bills that fund the support of our troops, and adding on there the most distasteful things they can think of, trying to make sure they get it passed on the backs of our soldiers,” he added. “It’s a bad way of doing business.”
But Democrats face a difficult task of folding the measure into the Defense spending bill, because House rules prevent additions of “air-dropped” items to legislation that has passed through both chambers. Democrats will need a two-thirds vote to overcome a likely Republican bid to strip the measure out of the spending bill.
Pelosi could convert the spending bill into a “message” to avoid the “air-dropped” problem but the bill would then be sent to the Senate where it would be open to a filibuster.
Republican Reps. Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Kevin Brady of Texas plan to introduce a bill by Friday that would make it harder for Congress to raise the debt limit by requiring a two-thirds vote instead of the current simple majority needed for passage.
With government spending brushing up against the debt limit right now, Democrats have decided they would rather face the music now for hiking the ceiling to accommodate a massive annual deficit than deal with it next year when Republicans could seize on the matter for political gain in the 2010 congressional election.
“We’ve incurred this debt. We have to pay our bills,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told Politico newspaper on Wednesday, confirming the $1.8 trillion figure.
A senior administration official did not endorse a specific increase in the debt ceiling but said Democratic leaders need to hit “a number that will get them through the election year. … This will definitely get them through.”
“We just want to get it done,” the official added.
A Treasury official added that the best estimate now is that the United States will hit the debt ceiling in mid-to-late December.
“However, the government’s cash flows are volatile, and forecasting the precise date remains a difficult exercise. We expect Congress to raise the debt ceiling in a timely manner,” the Treasury official said.
Sens. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Judd Gregg, R-N.H., now have 31 co-sponsors for their legislation.
“This is a defining moment for this chamber, this Congress and this administration,” Conrad said Thursday on the Senate floor. “This is one of the most dramatic challenges to America’s economic strength in this century.”
Gregg said this “is not a theoretical problem — it is directly in front of us.” And he warned that “the nation will go bankrupt” if spending is not reined in.
They both argued that the political has failed and is failing to deal with this and that a bipartisan task force is the only answer — one that would make recommendations that would get an up or down vote but not be subject to amendments. President Obama has been open to the idea in the past.
The leadership is betting that it’s better for the party to take its lumps now rather than risk further votes over the coming year. But the enormity of the number could create its own dynamic, much as another debt ceiling fight in 1985 gave rise to the Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction act mandating across-the-board spending cuts nearly 25 years ago.
As introduced Wednesday, the legislation sets no specific targets for deficit reduction, but its 18-member task force — 16 of whom would come from Congress — is promised immense leverage to force change if they can first come together behind a plan.
“This is a defining moment,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), one of the lead sponsors, and New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, the panel’s ranking Republican, is already maneuvering to try to add the legislation as an amendment to any bill tapped to carry the debt increase.
As explained by Hoyer and other Democrats, that will almost certainly be a pending $636.4 billion Pentagon appropriations bill that includes $128.3 in contingency funds for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The House leadership has held back the bill for weeks, saving it for this moment, but now appropriations clerks have been instructed to have a final package ready to go by Monday.
So can we all max out our credit cards now too and then just keep asking for more dough? To hide it in a bill to fund our troops is shameful and disgusting. I never get surprised by the lack of scruples with Pelosi and REid, but this is bad even for them
[...] bill that increased budgets by nearly 10% much of the federal bureaucracy, raised the debt ceiling, and took steps toward allowing 1/6 the nation’s economy to be subjugated to federal control [...]