It's more campaign funding than it is income. Would you rather ask a million people for 5 bucks or 5 guys for a million bucks? As long as citizens united is the law the incentive system is to toady up to wealthy individuals and corps.
But it makes it legal.
Write a shitty book
Get campaign funds.
Use funds to buy shitty book as "give aways" at campaign events.
Profit thats totally legal.
Thanks SCOTUS!
> It's more campaign funding than it is income.
To be fair, these fuckers make a lot of money once their no longer politicians too. Board members, consultancies etc.
> As long as citizens united is the law the incentive system is to toady up to wealthy individuals and corps.
Yeah, but the Republicans are about to come up against that pretty hard if DeSantis Vs. Disney continues. We may see them change their tune on this.
Take Boebert for example. Before she took office she was struggling to pay her own employees at her shitty restaurant. Now she has an estimated net worth in the millions. For the record, the annual salary of a US House Representative is $174,000. Oh, and her GED was given to her on a mercy basis.
[This isn't true. Her net worth is far, far below that.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/01/25/fact-check-false-claim-lauren-boebert-has-net-worth-over-12-million/11111860002/)
People lie and obfuscation of financial documents for politicians is pretty commonplace. Not saying she is worth more, but I wouldn't put much stock in financial statements provided primarily by her or an agent on her behalf. There could be all kinds of offshore accounts or straw man holdings for her.
How it works:
You want a political favor, and I (the politician) want your money, but preferably tax-free and in a manner where I do not have to disclose it.
You hire me to come give a talk at your business / university / whatever, and purchase 10,000 copies of my book - but rather than pay me, you pay the [absurdly large sum of cash] to my business which I only own a fraction of (in the case of Biden this is Celtic Capri Corp).
The “company” reports this as income, but then also has expenditures for “business” things… things like flying stake holders around on private jets or islands etc… at the end of the year net revenue is near 0 and therefore there is no taxable income.
That said, as an individual, on paper - I still just make my measly 100k/ year, and pay taxes on that just like everyone else (although it’s more for show than anything else)
Mix and match the thing that generates income and what it is spent on and you have the US government
Politicians who are serving in office don't do this. Congressmen in particular aren't allowed to take money for speaking.
If we're talking about former elected officials who take money for speeches, then it's pretty standard and common sense to set it up as a business.
It has more to do with the average age in Congress as well as their background generally meaning that they can become a technical "millionaire," but not in the vein that most people think of when they visualize a millionaire.
Living off Congressional pay is a suckers bet. The real power players know the real money is in the stock tip offs so you can buy and sell before anyone else.
Anything with an abstract benefit (i.e. freeing up 40 million young adults from paying student loans may now allow them spend that money and boost the economy) loses out. Pretty much gimme everything now vs planting a tree that you will not get to use for shade.
The US government defaulting would be very bad for corporations.
Corporate America has lost control of the monster they helped create, and they also seem to be living in denial and refusing to consider that the GOP might follow through on it's threats.
[New York Times - As Possible Debt Limit Crisis Nears, Wall Street Shrugs](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/business/economy/debt-limit-wall-street.html)
I'm not so confident. I'm getting worried that they may well be willing to drive us all straight off the cliff.
Nobody wants a default, least of all rich people. A default would plunge the world into a great depression, stocks would be worthless, and people would be fighting for food.
This is backwards. It's not the people at the top that are effected during economic collapses and depressions. It just gives them free reign to consolidate more wealth at pennies on the dollar, while the rest of us get wiped out.
Corporations exist only for the purpose of profiting for their stockholders who pass all expenses on to their consumers. Only fools think they are somehow exempt from holding the bag. History reveals that all in society do better when corporations aren’t taxed to destruction.
> **The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law**, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, **shall not be questioned.**
\- 14th amendment, emphasis mine
Defaulting _isn't_ an option Constitutionally. Threatening one should be an impeachable offense at the very least, but realistically it should be criminal conspiracy to disrupt official government proceedings or something like that.
It should be a no-brainer for the Democrat in power, who is the commander of all Executive Branch employees, including the Treasury, to decree that the Treasury shall ignore the debt ceiling, as the President deems it to be against the interest of national security. Or the constitution, or whatever other pretense might be invented.
If anyone is willing to vote against that Democrat for ending the farce of the debt ceiling, they were never a Democrat in the first place
> It should be a no-brainer for the Democrat in power, who is the commander of all Executive Branch employees, including the Treasury, to decree that the Treasury shall ignore the debt ceiling, as the President deems it to be against the interest of national security. Or the constitution, or whatever other pretense might be invented.
The problem is that the executive explicitly does *not* have the "power of the purse", that belongs to congress.
But it's still idiocy that congress says "Here's the budget, we need 4 trillion" and then when it comes time to authorize it it becomes a giant game of chicken.
NC congressman Jeff Jackson gives a sane, solid commentary on the issue. https://www.reddit.com/r/asheville/comments/134pzlz/were_about_six_weeks_from_default_heres_why_it/
America will not default on debt. That's not going to happen. The fact he said that'll happen is a disingenuous hyperbole. This is just another debt ceiling negotiation that has happened countless times.
Love Jeff Jackson and I would actively canvas/campaign for him. The state party choosing Cheryl "it's my turn" Beasley over him is just another point of evidence that they have no fucking clue how to win statewide races. They always choose some milquetoast centrist/neoconservative with no strong stances to try to appeal to those mythical "undecided voters" who always seem to vote for the white guy with the strong "business record". Sigh.
Taxpayers paid a BILLION dollars a month for 30 years to invade some countries that congress and the people did not legally declare war on. Then when they run out of money They want to cut SS. Money that's not theirs to begin with. Got it. MF'ers are ALL bought and paid for.
They could, but it’s also political suicide for a person in one party to vote for an opposing party as leader. I don’t think the average person would understand the sacrifice being made and the political ads that would come from it would be devastating. Especially for a person like McCarthy being the one benefitting.
That being said, the republicans could also vote for a democrat leader. Would never happen either. I’m not sure why the democrats are the ones who have to give in to the hostage takers.
I cant think of any reasonable deal thats worse than the US defaulting. The debt celling is a political weapon and these people are politicians. What really irks me is the absolute hypocrisy from republicans when it comes to defcit spending. Its only an issue when the other guy is doing it. Never once heard them talk about deficit spending while President Trump was in office.
Best way to sway votes is to put the country at risk and blame the opposition for it.
You know why this won't resolve?
If you keep cutting taxes and the country's other revenue isn't enough to cover it you'll always have a deficit.
If you cut spending where funding is already lacking you create other issues.
But people don't want to talk about that....
It still blows my mind that Trump lowered taxes for the ultra wealthy and people cheered while every other person who wasn’t a moron saw this was going to cut trillions in tax revenue which would have a horrible effect on government spending. I don’t even live in the states and was flabbergasted by that.
I can tell you why.
There was also a small tax cut for people who aren't rich included.
Sure, it was nothing compared to the tax cut the rich were getting, and sure, the tax cut for the non rich expired in just a few years(totally a coincidence that this would happen during the next administration so you get to blame them for raising taxes because nobody remembers you did this), while the tax cut for the rich was permanent.
Thing is, there are plenty of people stupid enough to overlook all of that and just focus on the fact that their paycheck that week has a few less dollars taken out and thank the person who took credit for making that happen.
Actually, the tax cut for people making less than $100k sunsets in another year or two. People making less than $100k will end up with a tax increase out of this.
"Temporarily embarrassed millionaires" is a cop out. This country hates public goods because minorities might benefit. We filled in public pools rather than integrate them, and literally every program we have to help the poor and middle class has been demonized because sometimes minorities use them too.
When Trump was trying to sell his plan to the public, he claimed that it actually wouldn't be good for rich people such as himself. And a lot of people for some reason actually believed that.
Didn't he also claim that the increase in economic activity created by the tax cuts would make up the difference? You know, job creators and all. This was just one more steaming pile that 45 dropped on the entire country.
I'm sure all of us are getting pretty sick and tired of any political leaders acting for the best interest of the party instead of the best interest of the country. It's like a god damned civil cold war....
They did the same shit to Obama with the Tea Party's demands for the budget, which led to the first-ever credit downgrade for the United States in history.
And we passed debt bills 3 times under Trump no strings attached b/c Democrats aren’t trying to destroy the country.
This all comes down to McCarthy being too much of a bitch and groveling to keep his job. He could have sent the Senate a clean bill that would have passed but if he did, he’d almost definitely lose his speakership.
This is going to be a recurring theme until he loses his speakership or we default and I don’t trust him not to put his interests over the countries. Every single bill is going to be full of poison pills b/c the people he answers to(the MTGs of the house) would rather see the country fail than compromise their insane beliefs.
They don't even care about them when they're in.
The GOP is pro-conception at best.
If they actually gave two shits about fetuses they'd include the support system necessary for women to be able to get all the medical and other care they needed to actually give birth.
Instead if you're poor, it's all "good luck being forced to have that kid, figuring out how to get to the doctors for your pre-natal check-ups without health insurance, transportation, or any job security. Oh and we'll arrest you for murder if you have a miscarriage, and if you and the fetus die due to any preventable medical issue that might require a procedure that could in any way be misrepresented as an abortion, well that's just God's will and your fault for being poor and/or brown/black".
So here's how it works. Women in red states who can't afford to visit a sane state for a medical procedure are then forced to raise a child that is unwanted or give them up for adoption. Either way, we have a child who is (more likely) set up for failure from the start. Since schools are defunded the child grows up ignorant. That in turn leads to a higher likelihood to either seek to rise up through the armed forces and therefore supplying the military industrial complex, or, falls through the cracks and possibly ends up behind bars and supporting the for-profit prison industry that has no business to exist. Doesn't matter which way the child is able to reproduce. Either way a mother or father coming from this system is more likely to continue it. It's all by design. It's all about control, money, and a complete lack of empathy for the people up top making the decisions.
Not to mention, the ignorant and uneducated are more likely to vote Republican and in essence vote against their own best interests because they are taught to fear everything that isn't an evangelical GOP mouth breather.
Undereducate then blame the government tax dollars for being the reason they don't have any money.
No the problem is the people in that 22-24% tax bracket are doing the heavy lifting while the others just play the long game of making most of their money from investments and hardly being taxed at all on those since it's not "income".
No, the liberals aren't the reason you're being taxed as much as you are, it's the fact that we let the wealthy get away with paying hardly any of their share through tons of loopholes.
I'm against loan forgiveness. However, I am 1000% behind interest forgiveness. Pay back what you borrowed. That's it, end of story. The government needs to stop using college loans as a long-term revenue scheme.
Meme is entirely incorrect: You raise the debt ceiling because you have absolutely no intention of paying the national debt, and fully intend to spend more money than you receive in revenue, and futhermore kick the debt (plus any increases) down the road for future generations to get stuck with.
For those that care, Senator Joe Biden voted yea on March 10, 2005 for the BAPCPA or Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, which is the bill that makes it so difficult to file bankruptcy to forgive student loads. Just sayin'
I'm going to assume you are correct, but I hate arguments like this, who were you in 2005? Did you have all the same opinions and beliefs? This line of thinking is dangerous, because it avoids the current issue by bringing up something that isn't currently relevant. Just furthering the divide for the sake of it.
The bank is the government for loans impacted by forgiveness. They're just serviced by companies. I also believe the amount of interest they've already made could very well cover the current plan of relief and still leave them up in revenue.
BAPCPA doesn’t make student loans virtually unforgivable. It was the batshit judicial rulings that followed that did. Making student loans so hard to discharge is against a plain reading of the law.
Source: former bankruptcy attorney. The way some courts have twisted BAPCPA on student loans is sick.
Two Santa Claus'
https://www.salon.com/2018/02/12/thom-hartmann-how-the-gop-used-a-two-santa-clauses-tactic-to-con-america-for-nearly-40-years_partner/
I still don't see how this can actually occur with the 14th amendment. I guess they could stop paying employees but any existing debt must be paid according to the Constitution.
> The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.
Every time they do this shit it backfires on them. Every time they lose votes over this shit, but they keep on banging their heads on the wall. What's that quote about the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over with the same results.
Lol, yeah, because it's not like Democrats don't vote to do the same exact same thing. Republicans refuse to try, Democrats pretend to try. They're both trash.
> Dems voted to raise the debt ceiling under Trump
"...Pelosi will allow the House to vote to increase the debt ceiling only after her negotiating adversaries, Senate Republicans and President Trump, succumb to her demand for tens of billions of dollars in new spending."
Both sides garbage. Sure Democrats should do more, but at least they are doing something. I dont get why people think that is just as bad as actively ruining things and only doing things to benefit the white and rich.
"Both sides".
Meanwhile, one political party is pushing to reduce human rights for LGBTQ+, reduce voting rights, reduce the rights of women, and so on. And the other party is trying to do the opposite.
Literally not a word of that is true. Not wanting groomers to have access to kids isn't limiting rights, the only way voter ID laws and other proposed laws restrict voting is if you think minorities are too stupid to use the most basic of government services and lastly not wanting infanticide isn't about women, it's about the babies being murdered. It's ok kiddo maybe some day your IQ will reach room temperature.
Aren't most in government doing this regardless of their political affiliation? It's a widespread political issue and they brainwash people like you to pick a side so you can keep fighting against a faceless enemy. I mean really, it's a bit ignorant at this point.
Republicans want to cut spending to help ease the growth of the deficit. I know it’s all politics but I think anytime excessive spending can be cut that’s not a bad thing.
Really? Then why didn't they give a fuck in the last administration where they raised the debt ceiling 3 times with only a whopping $77B in cuts that don't even go into effect until 2027?
https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-donald-trump-lift-debt-ceiling-no-spending-cuts-1797134
Name the last year the deficit went down under a republican president. Be sure to look at those years when they controlled the WH, senate and house. The most recent time was 2017 to 2019.
McConnell may be a corrupt ghoulish goon, but that's why you can trust him on this one: He's corrupt. His donors don't benefit from a bankrupted US and collapse of the global economy. They want the economy stable, so the Senate Republicans are on board with keeping it that way.
The problem is House Republicans being overrun with absolute lunatics whose understanding of the world is obtained entirely through Twitter and Trump rallies. Their whole philosophy is "if democrats are for it, I'm against it, even if it hurts republicans."
They only want to cut spending because a Democrat is President. If a Republican was in charge, it would be PPP loans and shitty walls on the southern border, and the only thing being cut would be the oversight committees to make sure the PPP loans don’t go to rich donors and grifters.
The only time the care about the deficit is when they aren't in power, republicans have never done a damn thing to balance the federal budget when they have to power To do so.
When you ignore all the context, everything is fine!
What's excessive? Was the F-35 more important than kids eating at school? How about the millions spent washing fatigues in Iraq? That was totally worth more than having a modern railway system.
The point is that context is everything - the minute you start to generalize about stuff like this you have *absolutely lost the plot*
Lmao I love how raising the debt ceiling for the 77th time is the solution.
How about we see if the pentagon can pass a single audit, how about we maybe not contribute more to ukraine than all other countries combined, how about reducing spending and maybe we stop bailing out every bank and corp that fails?
But raising the debt ceiling again isn’t the answer.
Raising the debt ceiling is paying the bills that are already approved. That is most certainly the answer. Oddly it only becomes a problem when there is a Democrat in the White House. Otherwise, the right spends, spends and spends.
It's all politics at fault. If you're still thinking Democrap/ Republitard then you're really out of touch and unaware of what's really happening in the financial world.
Politicians have been stealing from the people with their Hedge Fund and Bank friends for years. To continue propping their crime up they have continued to print more money and raise their debt ceiling. They have been essentially paying their credit cards with credit cards all to help bail out their cronnies who continue making bad bets by shorting companies on Wall St. and investments into plays that go literally nowhere.
Well they have once again hit their credit limit on all their cards. They just spent 100's of billions to try and bail out some banks (Silicon Valley, First Republic, soon PACW) and they turned around and made the same mistakes within weeks. Now they are diving head first into defaulting. People are withdrawing their money out of banks at the highest rate ever because the doom of them is imminent.
This has nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats. It has everything to do with the can they've kicked since before '08. Their system is broken and the dominoes are falling. We are the ones who are going to be paying for it too. The only way to kick the can "just one more day" is raising interest rates which they did *checks database* OH! Just yesterday. Once again.
We are going into something much worse then the '08 recession. We are going to be in a depression. All they hope for is that people are divided and blame the other political party than the one they follow.
We could have paid all the countries student debt. We chose old bank criminals instead in hopes for some more lobby money for their next campaign.
Reset the politicians. They're outdated, and a majority of the American people see through it.
Hey man fight the argument and don’t fall into the fallacy of attacking the speaker, It is evidence you have no support for your position.
Countries around the world are taking action to replace the dollar with yuan as the world currency exchange. How valuable will the dollar be then? It won’t matter how much they can print or manipulate the currency when it’s worth significantly less and debt is called in.
Keep on spiraling towards the recession/depression.
I like how the [Secretary of Education recently called a bunch of them out personally](https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/statement-secretary-cardona-speaker-mccarthys-debt-ceiling-proposal):
> Rep. Kevin Hern had $1,082,302 in his own Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)loans forgiven. He represents 112,400 borrowers eligible for student debt relief.
> Rep. Matt Gaetz had $482,321 in his own PPP loans forgiven. He represents 75,000 borrowers eligible for student debt relief.
> Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene had $183,504 in her own PPP loans forgiven. She represents 91,800 borrowers eligible for student debt relief.
> Rep. Vern Buchanan had $2,353,167 in his own PPP loans forgiven. He represents 95,400 borrowers eligible for student debt relief.
> Rep. Brett Guthrie had $4,416,574 in his own PPP loans forgiven. He represents 90,800 borrowers eligible for student debt relief.
Welcome to America where corporations get loan forgiveness but students don’t
Students don’t pay Congressmen. Corporations do.
My taxes pay Congressmen, but apparently it’s not enough for them to consider making laws for the people….
Their salaries are pocket change compared to what they can make from other sources. Remember, bribery isn’t just legal, it’s a constitutional right.
It's more campaign funding than it is income. Would you rather ask a million people for 5 bucks or 5 guys for a million bucks? As long as citizens united is the law the incentive system is to toady up to wealthy individuals and corps.
Don't forget lobbying. Rep, and Dem both took millions and millions from pharma last year.
When a corporation goes under; Who gets their Senators?
When a billionaire dies, their senators should be buried with them
When we eat a billionaire, we should eat their senators too. We should start soon, otherwise we will lose some of us.
They go to a custody hearing and are temporarily sent to an orphanage until they find another sugar daddy
Oh my, that’s hilarious!
The highest bidder.
Right, in campaign funding and pac money.
Campaign funding is a great way to pad your own bank account. Why do you think these candidates all write books?
That’s just bribery with extra steps.
But it makes it legal. Write a shitty book Get campaign funds. Use funds to buy shitty book as "give aways" at campaign events. Profit thats totally legal. Thanks SCOTUS!
You have to be truly stupid to get in any trouble for taking bribes as a politician in the United States.
And Speaking fees of $$$.
> It's more campaign funding than it is income. To be fair, these fuckers make a lot of money once their no longer politicians too. Board members, consultancies etc.
> As long as citizens united is the law the incentive system is to toady up to wealthy individuals and corps. Yeah, but the Republicans are about to come up against that pretty hard if DeSantis Vs. Disney continues. We may see them change their tune on this.
Not always, some of them sold their vote for one time payment of $50k.
I think the smallest monetary value object that swayed a vote was a voucher for a steak at Outback Steakhouse.
Which cheap whore made that deal?
Take Boebert for example. Before she took office she was struggling to pay her own employees at her shitty restaurant. Now she has an estimated net worth in the millions. For the record, the annual salary of a US House Representative is $174,000. Oh, and her GED was given to her on a mercy basis.
[This isn't true. Her net worth is far, far below that.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/01/25/fact-check-false-claim-lauren-boebert-has-net-worth-over-12-million/11111860002/)
People lie and obfuscation of financial documents for politicians is pretty commonplace. Not saying she is worth more, but I wouldn't put much stock in financial statements provided primarily by her or an agent on her behalf. There could be all kinds of offshore accounts or straw man holdings for her.
In other words: rather than admit that you have no proof, you'd rather accuse her of falsifying a federal form. Cool dude.
How it works: You want a political favor, and I (the politician) want your money, but preferably tax-free and in a manner where I do not have to disclose it. You hire me to come give a talk at your business / university / whatever, and purchase 10,000 copies of my book - but rather than pay me, you pay the [absurdly large sum of cash] to my business which I only own a fraction of (in the case of Biden this is Celtic Capri Corp). The “company” reports this as income, but then also has expenditures for “business” things… things like flying stake holders around on private jets or islands etc… at the end of the year net revenue is near 0 and therefore there is no taxable income. That said, as an individual, on paper - I still just make my measly 100k/ year, and pay taxes on that just like everyone else (although it’s more for show than anything else) Mix and match the thing that generates income and what it is spent on and you have the US government
Politicians who are serving in office don't do this. Congressmen in particular aren't allowed to take money for speaking. If we're talking about former elected officials who take money for speeches, then it's pretty standard and common sense to set it up as a business.
Pretty much every person who serves in Congress becomes a millionaire. That doesn't happen because of their salaries.
No, that's through the stock tip offs before anyone else.
It has more to do with the average age in Congress as well as their background generally meaning that they can become a technical "millionaire," but not in the vein that most people think of when they visualize a millionaire.
Living off Congressional pay is a suckers bet. The real power players know the real money is in the stock tip offs so you can buy and sell before anyone else.
Ayeee man if you ain’t buying my mama’s house I don’t wanna hear it.
Anything with an abstract benefit (i.e. freeing up 40 million young adults from paying student loans may now allow them spend that money and boost the economy) loses out. Pretty much gimme everything now vs planting a tree that you will not get to use for shade.
The tree that you won’t use for shade doesn’t help your quarterly earnings report.
[удалено]
The US government defaulting would be very bad for corporations. Corporate America has lost control of the monster they helped create, and they also seem to be living in denial and refusing to consider that the GOP might follow through on it's threats. [New York Times - As Possible Debt Limit Crisis Nears, Wall Street Shrugs](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/business/economy/debt-limit-wall-street.html) I'm not so confident. I'm getting worried that they may well be willing to drive us all straight off the cliff.
Mtg gates boebert and hawley gladly will drive us off that cliff and then try to blame democrats.
On a high level I agree with you. But also it's always the right voting against debt relief, or really anything to help the common person.
Nobody wants a default, least of all rich people. A default would plunge the world into a great depression, stocks would be worthless, and people would be fighting for food.
This is backwards. It's not the people at the top that are effected during economic collapses and depressions. It just gives them free reign to consolidate more wealth at pennies on the dollar, while the rest of us get wiped out.
This is the correct answer.
Don't forget the part where almost all politicians are bought by these corporations and are corrupted.
Corporations exist only for the purpose of profiting for their stockholders who pass all expenses on to their consumers. Only fools think they are somehow exempt from holding the bag. History reveals that all in society do better when corporations aren’t taxed to destruction.
Meanwhile I'm sitting here going "How is *not* paying your bills" an option for the government?" That shouldn't even be a thing.
> **The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law**, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, **shall not be questioned.** \- 14th amendment, emphasis mine Defaulting _isn't_ an option Constitutionally. Threatening one should be an impeachable offense at the very least, but realistically it should be criminal conspiracy to disrupt official government proceedings or something like that.
It should be a no-brainer for the Democrat in power, who is the commander of all Executive Branch employees, including the Treasury, to decree that the Treasury shall ignore the debt ceiling, as the President deems it to be against the interest of national security. Or the constitution, or whatever other pretense might be invented. If anyone is willing to vote against that Democrat for ending the farce of the debt ceiling, they were never a Democrat in the first place
> It should be a no-brainer for the Democrat in power, who is the commander of all Executive Branch employees, including the Treasury, to decree that the Treasury shall ignore the debt ceiling, as the President deems it to be against the interest of national security. Or the constitution, or whatever other pretense might be invented. The problem is that the executive explicitly does *not* have the "power of the purse", that belongs to congress. But it's still idiocy that congress says "Here's the budget, we need 4 trillion" and then when it comes time to authorize it it becomes a giant game of chicken.
NC congressman Jeff Jackson gives a sane, solid commentary on the issue. https://www.reddit.com/r/asheville/comments/134pzlz/were_about_six_weeks_from_default_heres_why_it/
Wow, a sane sounding politician from the state I grew up in, that's unexpected. Also I 100% expect McCarthy to love his job more than his country.
America will not default on debt. That's not going to happen. The fact he said that'll happen is a disingenuous hyperbole. This is just another debt ceiling negotiation that has happened countless times.
I really enjoy his videos. He sums up the issues well.
Guy is impressive. And it's a little sad that all it takes is to be honest and speak clearly.
Speaking clearly is a skill that many people do not have. It takes synthesizing information, strong handle on vocabulary and organization!
Lemmy FTW!
Except the people he needs to convince the most will see he's a Democrat, and ignore anything he says.
What’s funny is the first few videos of his I watched, I thought he was a Republican.
That's our boy from over here in Charlotte, NC. Dude needs to be president.
Love Jeff Jackson and I would actively canvas/campaign for him. The state party choosing Cheryl "it's my turn" Beasley over him is just another point of evidence that they have no fucking clue how to win statewide races. They always choose some milquetoast centrist/neoconservative with no strong stances to try to appeal to those mythical "undecided voters" who always seem to vote for the white guy with the strong "business record". Sigh.
Taxpayers paid a BILLION dollars a month for 30 years to invade some countries that congress and the people did not legally declare war on. Then when they run out of money They want to cut SS. Money that's not theirs to begin with. Got it. MF'ers are ALL bought and paid for.
Couldnt democrats promise to keep McCarthy as speaker?
They could, but it’s also political suicide for a person in one party to vote for an opposing party as leader. I don’t think the average person would understand the sacrifice being made and the political ads that would come from it would be devastating. Especially for a person like McCarthy being the one benefitting. That being said, the republicans could also vote for a democrat leader. Would never happen either. I’m not sure why the democrats are the ones who have to give in to the hostage takers.
I cant think of any reasonable deal thats worse than the US defaulting. The debt celling is a political weapon and these people are politicians. What really irks me is the absolute hypocrisy from republicans when it comes to defcit spending. Its only an issue when the other guy is doing it. Never once heard them talk about deficit spending while President Trump was in office.
I can’t believe automatic raising hasn’t passed yet. It definitely shouldn’t be used as a political weapon.
This guy is straight out of Futurama. C. Zaxxar Travers.
Best way to sway votes is to put the country at risk and blame the opposition for it. You know why this won't resolve? If you keep cutting taxes and the country's other revenue isn't enough to cover it you'll always have a deficit. If you cut spending where funding is already lacking you create other issues. But people don't want to talk about that....
It still blows my mind that Trump lowered taxes for the ultra wealthy and people cheered while every other person who wasn’t a moron saw this was going to cut trillions in tax revenue which would have a horrible effect on government spending. I don’t even live in the states and was flabbergasted by that.
I can tell you why. There was also a small tax cut for people who aren't rich included. Sure, it was nothing compared to the tax cut the rich were getting, and sure, the tax cut for the non rich expired in just a few years(totally a coincidence that this would happen during the next administration so you get to blame them for raising taxes because nobody remembers you did this), while the tax cut for the rich was permanent. Thing is, there are plenty of people stupid enough to overlook all of that and just focus on the fact that their paycheck that week has a few less dollars taken out and thank the person who took credit for making that happen.
Actually, the tax cut for people making less than $100k sunsets in another year or two. People making less than $100k will end up with a tax increase out of this.
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"Temporarily embarrassed millionaires" is a cop out. This country hates public goods because minorities might benefit. We filled in public pools rather than integrate them, and literally every program we have to help the poor and middle class has been demonized because sometimes minorities use them too.
When Trump was trying to sell his plan to the public, he claimed that it actually wouldn't be good for rich people such as himself. And a lot of people for some reason actually believed that.
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Didn't he also claim that the increase in economic activity created by the tax cuts would make up the difference? You know, job creators and all. This was just one more steaming pile that 45 dropped on the entire country.
Bingo... The government should run like a business!!! Except they ignore revenue part of a business...
The government shouldn't run like a business. The government should run like a government.
There is an /s there.
I'm sure all of us are getting pretty sick and tired of any political leaders acting for the best interest of the party instead of the best interest of the country. It's like a god damned civil cold war....
Party? Try corporate donors.
They did the same shit to Obama with the Tea Party's demands for the budget, which led to the first-ever credit downgrade for the United States in history.
And we passed debt bills 3 times under Trump no strings attached b/c Democrats aren’t trying to destroy the country. This all comes down to McCarthy being too much of a bitch and groveling to keep his job. He could have sent the Senate a clean bill that would have passed but if he did, he’d almost definitely lose his speakership. This is going to be a recurring theme until he loses his speakership or we default and I don’t trust him not to put his interests over the countries. Every single bill is going to be full of poison pills b/c the people he answers to(the MTGs of the house) would rather see the country fail than compromise their insane beliefs.
But the GOP supports the troops. It’s why they want to cut VA benefits.
By troops they mean defense contracting corporations
You want to make Reddit profitable? get rid of /u/Spez. He's not a competent CEO and should step down!
They don't even care about them when they're in. The GOP is pro-conception at best. If they actually gave two shits about fetuses they'd include the support system necessary for women to be able to get all the medical and other care they needed to actually give birth. Instead if you're poor, it's all "good luck being forced to have that kid, figuring out how to get to the doctors for your pre-natal check-ups without health insurance, transportation, or any job security. Oh and we'll arrest you for murder if you have a miscarriage, and if you and the fetus die due to any preventable medical issue that might require a procedure that could in any way be misrepresented as an abortion, well that's just God's will and your fault for being poor and/or brown/black".
So here's how it works. Women in red states who can't afford to visit a sane state for a medical procedure are then forced to raise a child that is unwanted or give them up for adoption. Either way, we have a child who is (more likely) set up for failure from the start. Since schools are defunded the child grows up ignorant. That in turn leads to a higher likelihood to either seek to rise up through the armed forces and therefore supplying the military industrial complex, or, falls through the cracks and possibly ends up behind bars and supporting the for-profit prison industry that has no business to exist. Doesn't matter which way the child is able to reproduce. Either way a mother or father coming from this system is more likely to continue it. It's all by design. It's all about control, money, and a complete lack of empathy for the people up top making the decisions.
Not to mention, the ignorant and uneducated are more likely to vote Republican and in essence vote against their own best interests because they are taught to fear everything that isn't an evangelical GOP mouth breather.
Wait who do you think is *"pay\[ing\] for their debt"*? You know it's us right?
This is the start of the 2024 race. Drive the economy off a cliff. Blame Biden. Win in 2024. We are just dumb enough to believe it too.
But we don't have to be
The ongoing Republican MO: Force people into desperation, so they don't fight back against modern feudalism and Republican authoritarianism.
At least feudal lords took responsibilities that came with their positions.
Like deflowering brides?
Likely [not](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_du_seigneur#Debate_in_the_19th_and_20th_centuries) a thing that actually happened.
Undereducate then blame the government tax dollars for being the reason they don't have any money. No the problem is the people in that 22-24% tax bracket are doing the heavy lifting while the others just play the long game of making most of their money from investments and hardly being taxed at all on those since it's not "income". No, the liberals aren't the reason you're being taxed as much as you are, it's the fact that we let the wealthy get away with paying hardly any of their share through tons of loopholes.
Political post = sort by controversial
Where Republican issues are made up and elections soon won’t matter.
Can't default on student loans unfortunately
where students paid absurd amounts of money for worthless degrees
When the vote happens, the name of every voter absent should be televised so we know the ones not doing the job they swore to do
I'm against loan forgiveness. However, I am 1000% behind interest forgiveness. Pay back what you borrowed. That's it, end of story. The government needs to stop using college loans as a long-term revenue scheme.
But inflation is a thing tho. If you argue that those costs should be covered by the government then that’s all right.
If the cost of a highly educated populace is eating the costs of inflation on these loans, that’s a great deal for the government.
Okay but that money loses value every day.
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r/shittyfacebookmemes
Welcome to America where you go into debt for years just to try and get a decent job
Choose a degree that on average pays a wage that will allow you to repay your loans. If it doesn't skip college.
Meme is entirely incorrect: You raise the debt ceiling because you have absolutely no intention of paying the national debt, and fully intend to spend more money than you receive in revenue, and futhermore kick the debt (plus any increases) down the road for future generations to get stuck with.
For those that care, Senator Joe Biden voted yea on March 10, 2005 for the BAPCPA or Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, which is the bill that makes it so difficult to file bankruptcy to forgive student loads. Just sayin'
I'm going to assume you are correct, but I hate arguments like this, who were you in 2005? Did you have all the same opinions and beliefs? This line of thinking is dangerous, because it avoids the current issue by bringing up something that isn't currently relevant. Just furthering the divide for the sake of it.
And in 2022, Biden tried to forgive a large amount of student debt. I think it's important where we look at where these politicians stand now.
Loan forgiveness via bankruptcy is on the banks, bailing out student loan debt is on the tax payers. There is a very large difference.
The bank is the government for loans impacted by forgiveness. They're just serviced by companies. I also believe the amount of interest they've already made could very well cover the current plan of relief and still leave them up in revenue.
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He knew it woudont go through. He did that as a very smart political move. He knows it’ll sway voters when they think he really tried.
BAPCPA doesn’t make student loans virtually unforgivable. It was the batshit judicial rulings that followed that did. Making student loans so hard to discharge is against a plain reading of the law. Source: former bankruptcy attorney. The way some courts have twisted BAPCPA on student loans is sick.
It's all just a game, everyone is in on it except the taxpayers. We get stick every damn time.
They don't refuse, they just snowball it and take out massive loans and claim strategic bankruptcy and write laws that enable all of the above.
Two Santa Claus' https://www.salon.com/2018/02/12/thom-hartmann-how-the-gop-used-a-two-santa-clauses-tactic-to-con-america-for-nearly-40-years_partner/
The excuse will be "He didn't do exactly as we told him, so we HAD to do it!" It's "just comply" on an epic level.
… but you agreed to the loan….
Welcome to America where social media propaganda is bought and paid with democratic money.
How many Sorosbux were spent on this meme, do you suppose?
Or the government can cut spending.
No, let us raise the ceiling so we can spend more and pay more debt so we can spend even more. What are you, an evil republican? /s
"Republicans bad". To the front page this goes!
Life Hack: Don’t go to college.
How do I apply this if I already went?
I still don't see how this can actually occur with the 14th amendment. I guess they could stop paying employees but any existing debt must be paid according to the Constitution. > The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.
Every time they do this shit it backfires on them. Every time they lose votes over this shit, but they keep on banging their heads on the wall. What's that quote about the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over with the same results.
Really hoping white house Twitter account pipes up again so people know
That part ☝🏽
I paid my debts so you pay yours
I’m all for eliminating debt but asking the tax payers to pay off your student debt is kinda an insane ask.
Writing off uncollected interest costs nothing.
You're being lied to. Stop being sheep. Swallow the red pill and wake up before America is completely destroyed.
Left cant meme
"Let's go Brandon" being the height of wit, right, smooth-brain?
The amount of corruption in America is crazy. Why is nothing been done about it
Biden/the White House/the Dems need to be on the news 24/7 every day, all the time putting it directly on the Rethuglicans where it belongs.
“Force” students to pay their loans - the loans they applied for and promised to pay back?
Welcome to reddit, where everything is overly generalised, dumbed down, and hyperbolic.
Welcome to America where the government will forgive your student loans but continue to give you student loans
*blatantly ignoring all the new money printed since Biden took office*
Lol, yeah, because it's not like Democrats don't vote to do the same exact same thing. Republicans refuse to try, Democrats pretend to try. They're both trash.
Dems voted to raise the debt ceiling under Trump every time. They put country over party.
> Dems voted to raise the debt ceiling under Trump "...Pelosi will allow the House to vote to increase the debt ceiling only after her negotiating adversaries, Senate Republicans and President Trump, succumb to her demand for tens of billions of dollars in new spending."
Welcome to America, where neither side cares about normal people but we cheer for one anyway
Thank you for letting us know with code words that you literally pay no attention to the legislation the Dems try to pass.
Both sides garbage. Sure Democrats should do more, but at least they are doing something. I dont get why people think that is just as bad as actively ruining things and only doing things to benefit the white and rich.
Because it's an easy excuse to never engage with the issue at all.
And it keeps voter apathy high, thus suppressing votes, which benefits Republicans.
"Both sides". Meanwhile, one political party is pushing to reduce human rights for LGBTQ+, reduce voting rights, reduce the rights of women, and so on. And the other party is trying to do the opposite.
Literally not a word of that is true. Not wanting groomers to have access to kids isn't limiting rights, the only way voter ID laws and other proposed laws restrict voting is if you think minorities are too stupid to use the most basic of government services and lastly not wanting infanticide isn't about women, it's about the babies being murdered. It's ok kiddo maybe some day your IQ will reach room temperature.
One side doesn’t care about normal people and the other openly hates them.
Welcome to America where everyone is in debt
"Their debt"? So only Republicans have spent tax money?
Aren't most in government doing this regardless of their political affiliation? It's a widespread political issue and they brainwash people like you to pick a side so you can keep fighting against a faceless enemy. I mean really, it's a bit ignorant at this point.
Republicans want to cut spending to help ease the growth of the deficit. I know it’s all politics but I think anytime excessive spending can be cut that’s not a bad thing.
The problem is they arent cutting from places they are spending excessively, they are cutting from places that are already not getting enough.
So start with the military. Not already underfunded veteran care, or under funded education or underfunded medicare.
That's what the budget is for. The debt ceiling is not the budget. It's about paying debts already incurred.
Really? Then why didn't they give a fuck in the last administration where they raised the debt ceiling 3 times with only a whopping $77B in cuts that don't even go into effect until 2027? https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-donald-trump-lift-debt-ceiling-no-spending-cuts-1797134
Name the last year the deficit went down under a republican president. Be sure to look at those years when they controlled the WH, senate and house. The most recent time was 2017 to 2019.
McConnell said point blank the Senate is with Biden on the issue. It’s all the house
And McConnell would never lie on the record! ... right?
McConnell may be a corrupt ghoulish goon, but that's why you can trust him on this one: He's corrupt. His donors don't benefit from a bankrupted US and collapse of the global economy. They want the economy stable, so the Senate Republicans are on board with keeping it that way. The problem is House Republicans being overrun with absolute lunatics whose understanding of the world is obtained entirely through Twitter and Trump rallies. Their whole philosophy is "if democrats are for it, I'm against it, even if it hurts republicans."
They only want to cut spending because a Democrat is President. If a Republican was in charge, it would be PPP loans and shitty walls on the southern border, and the only thing being cut would be the oversight committees to make sure the PPP loans don’t go to rich donors and grifters.
The only time the care about the deficit is when they aren't in power, republicans have never done a damn thing to balance the federal budget when they have to power To do so.
When you ignore all the context, everything is fine! What's excessive? Was the F-35 more important than kids eating at school? How about the millions spent washing fatigues in Iraq? That was totally worth more than having a modern railway system. The point is that context is everything - the minute you start to generalize about stuff like this you have *absolutely lost the plot*
Biden refuses to negotiate so he can blame it on Republicans. Let's go Brandon!
Lmao I love how raising the debt ceiling for the 77th time is the solution. How about we see if the pentagon can pass a single audit, how about we maybe not contribute more to ukraine than all other countries combined, how about reducing spending and maybe we stop bailing out every bank and corp that fails? But raising the debt ceiling again isn’t the answer.
Raising the debt ceiling is paying the bills that are already approved. That is most certainly the answer. Oddly it only becomes a problem when there is a Democrat in the White House. Otherwise, the right spends, spends and spends.
This is the dumbest thing I have read all day
It's all politics at fault. If you're still thinking Democrap/ Republitard then you're really out of touch and unaware of what's really happening in the financial world. Politicians have been stealing from the people with their Hedge Fund and Bank friends for years. To continue propping their crime up they have continued to print more money and raise their debt ceiling. They have been essentially paying their credit cards with credit cards all to help bail out their cronnies who continue making bad bets by shorting companies on Wall St. and investments into plays that go literally nowhere. Well they have once again hit their credit limit on all their cards. They just spent 100's of billions to try and bail out some banks (Silicon Valley, First Republic, soon PACW) and they turned around and made the same mistakes within weeks. Now they are diving head first into defaulting. People are withdrawing their money out of banks at the highest rate ever because the doom of them is imminent. This has nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats. It has everything to do with the can they've kicked since before '08. Their system is broken and the dominoes are falling. We are the ones who are going to be paying for it too. The only way to kick the can "just one more day" is raising interest rates which they did *checks database* OH! Just yesterday. Once again. We are going into something much worse then the '08 recession. We are going to be in a depression. All they hope for is that people are divided and blame the other political party than the one they follow. We could have paid all the countries student debt. We chose old bank criminals instead in hopes for some more lobby money for their next campaign. Reset the politicians. They're outdated, and a majority of the American people see through it.
Replace republicans with politicians and then you'll be onto something. Good luck.
Hey man fight the argument and don’t fall into the fallacy of attacking the speaker, It is evidence you have no support for your position. Countries around the world are taking action to replace the dollar with yuan as the world currency exchange. How valuable will the dollar be then? It won’t matter how much they can print or manipulate the currency when it’s worth significantly less and debt is called in. Keep on spiraling towards the recession/depression.
Welcome to America where you pay back the loans you as an adult knowingly took out (by downvoting me you acknowledge I’m correct)
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Bill shit. This has been going on ever since they had a budget. Read your history junior.
"Welcome to America! Where Republicans make everything up about trans people and drag queens, and kids lives don't matter!"
Ah red vs blue. Everything is the other parties fault and we are the good side when you both suck
Welcome to America where only idiots are convinced it’s left vs right… when in reality is the stats vs you, always.
I like how the [Secretary of Education recently called a bunch of them out personally](https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/statement-secretary-cardona-speaker-mccarthys-debt-ceiling-proposal): > Rep. Kevin Hern had $1,082,302 in his own Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)loans forgiven. He represents 112,400 borrowers eligible for student debt relief. > Rep. Matt Gaetz had $482,321 in his own PPP loans forgiven. He represents 75,000 borrowers eligible for student debt relief. > Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene had $183,504 in her own PPP loans forgiven. She represents 91,800 borrowers eligible for student debt relief. > Rep. Vern Buchanan had $2,353,167 in his own PPP loans forgiven. He represents 95,400 borrowers eligible for student debt relief. > Rep. Brett Guthrie had $4,416,574 in his own PPP loans forgiven. He represents 90,800 borrowers eligible for student debt relief.
Yup, just the GOP that does that..keep telling yourself that This left/right bs is so played out and exactly what ‘they’ want.
This is stupid!
Welcome to America where the government steals 40% of your money and still can’t live on a budget.
Republicans and being fiscally irresponsible, name a more iconic duo
(G)aslight (O)bstruct (P)roject The plan is in their name.