Tag Archives: debt ceiling

January 16, 2013 · 3:59 am

A Nation of Cowardly Lions?, Louise Annarino,1-15-2013

A Nation of Cowardly Lions?,Louise Annarino,1-15-2013

 

For the last one-half hour I have played solitaire in an effort to stop myself from writing thsi post. My anger and disgust had built to a fever pitch as I listened to comments made by those who promulgate hate by building fear, in particular using racial fear to fuel anger  and division, blaming their fears on our president. Ann Coulter explains to us that we have a minorities/demographic problem;not a gun problem. I guess that explains how President Obama,is the real problem. Hannity was very appreciative of her racism,um I mean insight.

Rep.John Boehner (R-OH) says he may need to shut down government by blocking the vote to raise the debt limit and pay our bills for “(Republican)party management” purposes. Blaming the president for paying bills authorized by Congress is something new; and,meant to undermine our president. Mr. Boehner,here’s a reminder: Country first,then party second equals patriotism.Harming the nation to harm a president is unpatriotic at best.

And now,republicans are discussing impeachment if the president raises the debt ceiling,or regulates guns. HAve they ever threatened a Republican president for seeking such actions? No. They have been trying to find grounds,reasonable or not,to impeach Obama since his first inauguration. Why would we expect them to stop now?

The eagerness with which Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) vowed to do anything it takes to stop Obama’s acting like a king or monarch in expectation of executive action to put in place reasonable regulations on guns…the week-long litany of an upcoming civil war…the lies circulating on facebook and arriving in my email from otherwise reasonable persons arguing we must stop Obama from working with the United Nations to destroy our 2d Amendment and take away our guns and ammo…and equally inane (yes,stupid,baseless,racist and ridiculous in the extreme)conspiracy theories are causing me to loathe many of my fellow citizens. Almost, I would guess, as much as they have come to loathe me. And that is the danger here.

Racist fear mongering is not new. I get it. Political demagoguery is not new. I get it. Manipulating the ordinary citizen to keep power and amass wealth is not new. I get it. Dividing the 98% so the 2% can get away with anything is not new. I get it. What I don’t get is how silent the leaders of business,politics,religion,news media and average citizens have become;and,how unconcerned they seem to be. SIlence is not an option in the face of evildoing. And what these emails, speeches, commentaries and blatant lies are doing is evil. They are making us fear and hate each other, threaten the financial and political stability of the nation,and create an environment ripe for violence.

The hypocrisy of the NRA to blame vidoe games for gun violence;then,issue a video game for ages 4 and up to shoot up coffins stuns the conscience.The frothing-at-the-mouth NRA spokeman and supporter shouting down Piers Morgan for offering statistics on American versus world-wide gun deaths outrages common decency. Threatening to shoot the president if he regulates guns should make a Tennessee man a criminal, not a celebrity.

I must keep reminding myself that individuals who take these positions are a very small yet vocal minority,influenced and persuaded by a well-funded but even smaller group of news moguls,CEOs and great pirates,gun manufacturers and arms merchants. I expect such greedy power seekers to act this way. I don’t expect my compatriots to fall for such shenanigans, or seeing them, remain silent.

I can tolerate differences of opinion. I cannot tolerate lies and hate. I don’t expect everyone to understand the law as I do, having studied and practiced it. Nor do I expect them to know the full history and context for the passage of the 2d amendment. But if they don’t know what they are talking about, they should take the time to learn something before simply repeating the garbage they get in their inboxes across the internet via email and facebook etc. We are living in a cultural milieu which creates deranged persons who kill with insensitivity. Failure to change the milieu, to challenge those who oppose such change,and to support those who do is wrong. It cannot be justified by indifference,ignorance or racism. We cannot simply join in and not take responsibility for our actions.

We treat our returning soldiers,who lived among violence,see those around them be maimed or killed, and possibly kill others over a period of a few years, for PTSD,post traumatic stress disorder. Yet, we allow our children to live among violence from infancy and into adulthood, watch their family and friends be maimed or killed, and possibly kill others. What they experience is not PTSD because it never ends. It is OTSD ongoing traumatic stress disorder.

But we sit silently while Ann Coulter and others blame those children of our inner cities, many of whom are minorities, for our violence problem. No,Ms. Coulter, minorities are not the problem; we white people are the problem,we of white-flight,neighborhood gentrification and relocation,gated communities,dislike of paying progressively higher taxes on our higher incomes,refusal to approve school levies,off-shoring jobs. We have created OTSD; and, blaming it on an African-American president, undermining his ability to lead a nation of people whose color we fear…that is the problem! And it is your hypocrisy and lies which prevent us from solving our problem. If we must  be afraid of anything, we must be afraid of our own cowardice.

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January 4, 2013 · 3:05 am

SIZE DOES NOT MATTER,By Louise Annarino,January 3,2013

SIZE DOES NOT  MATTER,By Louise Annarino,January 3,2012

 

Well, it is January 3rd. and the bills have all been mailed out. As usual, I overdid Christmas. I tried to raise my debt ceiling, but Target and Visa said, “What nerve you have. You bought gifts on the credit we extended to you; and, we expect you to honor your debts. If you don’t pay what you owe, we will ruin your credit.”  Actually, I did not really act so irresponsibly; nor did I have that conversation with my creditors. I am simply illustrating what  it means to raise the debt ceiling. It confuses us because on first hearing the phrase, we think it means seeking a higher limit on our credit line so we can make new purchases. But that is not really the way government finance works.

 

Congress passes a law to create program which costs X amount of dollars,and then authorizes a spending bill to implement the program. It must be certain that sufficient funds exist to pay for the program, because this new programs create new debt. The congressional budget office or CBO scores the bill. President Obama has made it a practice to only seek legislative action scored to stay within the current budget. Previously, we have gotten into trouble because congress, among other bills, authorized a war without raising the funds to pay for it.It was the first time in our history we did not raise a war tax. Instead, congress cut taxes to record lows, when it needed more taxes  not less to pay the billions the war would cost.

 

To cover this up, the war expenses were not included within the federal budget, so the war costs would not appear to create,and later increase, a budget deficit. The cost was hidden in the Pentagon budget,which is why the Pentagon repeatedly returned to congress asking for military spending increases to cover the costs. Who could turn down such a request for “our brave soldiers in the field”? When President Obama took office, he corrected this accounting trick. Some in congress now use this seeming jump in budget deficit as a ruse to attack entitlement programs, calling Obama a socialist/welfare president,destroying our grandchildren’s futures. No, war does that.

 

When a newly passed bill’s debt comes due, if insufficient funds are in the treasury to pay the debt, Treasury issues bonds to raise funds to pay the debt, asking congress to  raise the debt ceiling. Since congress approved the debt, congress should pay the debt to maintain the “full faith and credit” of the United States. Congress should raise the debt ceiling. This sensible approach had not been seriously questioned until Obama became president.Throwing the country into default has always simply  been unacceptable.

 

President Obama sought to increase taxes, AND raise the debt ceiling, AND cut program costs.This is the so-called “Grand Bargain” which Rep. Boehner at first agreed to 18 months ago,  but backed away from when he could not find the enough votes in his party to assure its passage. Instead, congress passed a sequestration bill which brought us to what some called a fiscal cliff. For weeks, Obama sought Boehner’s support and leadership efforts in congress to make a new grand bargain. Again, Boehner could not, or would not do so. Instead Boehner agreed to a reduced increase in taxes, and is holding out on raising the debt ceiling as a bargaining tool to force Obama’s hand and reduce government spending; not by making smart and balanced cuts, but by eliminating or starving government programs previously authorized by congress,and relied upon by our citizens: social security, medicare,medicaid. Now, Boehner tells us he will no longer deal directly with Obama, abdicating his House leadership role as representative of, and intermediary for his party.

 

We know suggested cuts to these programs are meant to cripple them and make them unpopular by making them useless, making it easier to eliminate them altogether. Raising the income cap on earnings for social security would increase FICA revenue and strengthen the program. Raising the retirement age would make it useless to many of our hardest working citizens, many who will die before receiving any benefits, or receive fewer years of coverage. Changing the cost of living formula would hurt older citizens in ways unimaginable to those who need not choose between buying a chicken or filling a prescription.

 

We all know our country is in a tough spot. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling would only make our situation worse, and it would leave a long-term, and totally unnecessary blot on the full faith and credit of the United States. Our economy is rebounding,slowly but surely. We cannot afford a congress which is willing to forsake recovery and economic growth under a mistaken belief that the size of the government matters more than the wisdom,purpose and good faith of the government.

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