{"id":5455,"date":"2011-07-25T00:02:20","date_gmt":"2011-07-25T07:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5455"},"modified":"2011-07-25T00:02:20","modified_gmt":"2011-07-25T07:02:20","slug":"forecast-insanitea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/25\/forecast-insanitea\/","title":{"rendered":"Forecast: InsaniTEA"},"content":{"rendered":"

I would like to report that Congress is going raise the debt limit cleanly, but sadly, I cannot.  Republicans in the House and Republicans in the Senate are battling to see who has the highest IQ (InsaniTEA Quotient).  After Agent Orange insisted that nothing would pass the House, unless it echoed Republicans\u2019 ludicrous cut, cap and amend monstrosity.  The Senate refuses to be outdone.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"GOPempowergranny\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Twenty Republican lawmakers<\/strong> crowded the Senate TV studio last week to issue a threat: Meet their demands, or they will force the United States to default.<\/p>\n

The only way to prevent the catastrophe, these Tea Party faithful said, was for the Senate to pass, and the president to sign, their plan to permanently cap spending at levels last seen in 1966<\/strong>, before Medicare made the nation soft. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make very clear: This is not just the best plan on the table for addressing the debt limit \u2014 this is the only plan,\u201d first-term Sen. Mike Lee (Utah) said, vowing that \u201cwe\u2019re otherwise going to be blowing past the debt-limit deadline<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a solution,\u201d said Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.). \u201cIt\u2019s the only one that can be passed before the August 2nd deadline.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the language of gangster films: Do as we say \u2014 or the girl gets it. <\/p>\n

Yet listening to the 20 House and Senate Republicans recite their demands, it was clear they were deadly serious. And that\u2019s why, even though a large majority of lawmakers want to avoid default, it could still happen<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Washington Post<\/a>><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t help but wonder where we\u2019d be if Democrats had ever held a true 60 vote supermajority.  But as long as Ben Nelson (DINO-NE) and Joe Lieberman (Asshole-CT) were in the caucus, the best we ever had was 58, insufficient to block Republican filibusters of every progressive measure the House passed.  Perhaps some would not have been so fast to blame Obama for not going after what he knew he could not get.  Perhaps some would have recognized the threat Republicans represent, because, craving for power, they made extremists mainstream.  Perhaps some would not have stayed home, causing in the current political imbalance.  That\u2019s water under the dam until 2012.  For now, all we can do is wait to see what happens.  If Republicans push us over the cliff, Obama would have to wait until the crisis begins to raise the debt limit on his own, under a claim of emergency executive powers.  I hope he does not wait too long.<\/font><\/p>\n

Update<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"Reid-LegHound\"The Senate’s top Democrat rolled out a plan Sunday night to raise the nation’s debt limit – in a way he said even Republicans could not refuse.<\/p>\n

Senate Democratic boss Harry Reid proposed slashing $2.7 trillion in spending and raising the debt ceiling through 2012 to avoid a market meltdown.<\/p>\n

The offer "meets Republicans’ two major criteria: It will include enough spending cuts to meet or exceed the amount of a debt ceiling raise through the end of 2012, and it will not include revenues," Reid said in a statement<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <NY Daily News<\/a>><\/p>\n

Without knowing the details I cannot say for sure, nit if the Nevada Leg Hound, Harry Reid, is humping that GOP leg again, about to roll over and play dead, which I strongly suspect he is, this is NOT acceptable.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I would like to report that Congress is going raise the debt limit cleanly, but sadly, I cannot.  Republicans in the House and Republicans in the Senate are battling to see who has the highest IQ (InsaniTEA Quotient).  After Agent Orange insisted that nothing would pass the House, unless it echoed Republicans\u2019 ludicrous cut, cap […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}