President Obama said at his increasingly notorious press
conference on Monday, “America cannot afford another debate with
this Congress about whether or not they should pay the bills they
have already racked up.” He added, “[T]he issue here is whether or
not America pays its bills. We are not a deadbeat nation.”
No that is not the issue. The issue is whether having already
racked up a world record smashing $16 trillion in national debt,
President Obama is going to be granted a license to rack up
trillions more in national debt without enacting some control over
runaway federal spending.
Raising the debt limit has nothing to do with paying the bills
we have already racked up. That is just more obfuscation and
calculated deception from President Obama. He thinks he can confuse
the public about the real issue, on which he expects help from the
Democrat party-controlled media.
Raising the debt limit just racks up more bills that will have
to be paid, just like raising the credit limit on your credit card,
and charging still more. Suppose you have been spending two thirds
more than you earn for years, and charging the difference on your
credit card. But now you have reached the credit limit on that
card. Would raising that credit limit and charging still more help
you pay the bills you have already racked up? Or would that rack up
still more bills that have to be paid?
But Obama added, “there is no simpler solution, no ready,
creditable solution other than Congress either give me the
authority to raise the debt ceiling or exercise the responsibility
that they have kept for themselves and raise the debt ceiling,
because this is about paying your bills.”
No, this is not about paying your bills. It is about putting off
paying your bills to the future, by borrowing still more. It is
about borrowing today so you do not have to pay your bills today.
That is what President Obama and the Democrat party are supporting,
in plain, common sense, English
But President Obama continued to spin confusion at the press
conference:
You don’t say, in order for me to control my appetites, I’m
going to not pay the people who already provided me services,
people who already lent me the money.
That’s not showing any discipline. All that’s doing is not
meeting your obligations. You can’t do that… Even the threat of
default hurts our economy…. you never saw a situation in which
Democrats suggested somehow that we would go ahead and default if
we didn’t get 100% of our way. That’s just not how it’s supposed to
work.
But the Republicans are not proposing to cut past spending. They
are proposing to cut future spending, or actually just to reduce
the increase in runaway, unprecedented, world record shattering
spending that Obama and the Democrats are demanding.
Moreover, THERE IS NO ISSUE OF DEFAULT ON THE NATIONAL DEBT in
the debt ceiling debate. Even with no increase in the debt limit at
all, any debt that comes due can simply be rolled over and replaced
with new debt. without violating the debt limit.
In addition, even with no increase in the debt limit at all,
people are still required to pay their taxes. And just income taxes
alone, not counting Social Security payroll taxes, are 6 times
greater than the interest on the national debt. So that can and
will continue to be paid, even with no increase in the debt limit
at all. Indeed, President Obama is required to pay it by the
Constitution, and failing to do so would be an impeachable
offense.
The Democrats Veer Into Chavismo
President Obama continued his calculated deception at the press
conference, saying: “You don’t go out to dinner and then, you know.
eat all you want and then leave without paying the check. And if
you do, you’re breaking the law.”
But the only people talking about breaking the law are Obama’s
Democrat allies in Congress, who are calling upon him to rule by
decree, like a Latin American despot.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent the President a letter,
urging Obama just to bypass Congress and raise the debt ceiling on
his own by “executive action.” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
called on Obama to do the same.
NBC’s Chuck Todd noted in a long press conference question, “one
of the House Democratic leaders, Jim Clyburn, asked you to use the
14th Amendment and even said sometimes that’s what it takes. He
brought up the Emancipation Proclamation in saying that they took
executive action when Congress wouldn’t act, and he compared the
debt ceiling to that.”
The portion of the 14th Amendment to which Clyburn and other
Democrats have referred says only, “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.” That language
gives the President no authority to ignore and even to violate the
statutorily imposed debt limit.
But this is how Latin American dictators behave, stretching
legal language beyond reason. All you white bread “progressives”
out there, comfortable in your wealthy suburban enclaves, this is
what your Democrat party has become, the equivalent of Hugo
Chavez’s Socialist Party of Venezuela. And when they come after
you, waving irrelevant legal language from somewhere, who is going
to defend your property and lifetime savings?
The impeachment of Richard Nixon established that even the
President is not above the law. The Constitution requires the
President to “take care that the laws be
faithfully executed.… ” That includes the national debt limit
statute. If President Obama breaks that law by executive decree,
that too would be grounds for impeachment.
Threatening Social Security and
Seniors
President Obama even descended to
threatening America at his press conference,saying, “If
Congressional Republicans refuse to pay America’s bills on time,
SocialSecurity checks, and veterans benefits will be delayed.” He
even threatened to refuse topay our troops.
For years, Democrats charged that if Ronald Reagan were ever
elected President, Social Security checks would be threatened. But
Reagan served as President for eight years, and the history books
record that the Social Security checks all kept coming on time,
with no threat from President Reagan. It took the so-called
progressive, liberal Democrat, President Obama to threaten not to
pay Social Security benefits.
Failing to raise the debt limit at all would not threaten Social
Security benefits either. Taxpayers would still be required to pay
Social Security payroll taxes, which would cover most Social
Security benefits. The remainder can be financed through the Social
Security trust funds, which are also backed by the full faith and
credit of the
United States, remember?
The Federal IOUs held by the Social Security trust funds are
legally counted as part of the national debt subject to the debt
limit. One debt instrument under the limit can be replaced by
another debt instrument under the limit without going over the
limit. So a Social Security trust fund bond, which does not
constitute real money that can be spent on anything, can be traded
for a federal bond that can be sold to the public for real money,
which would finance the remaining Social Security benefits. And
that is how Social Security benefits were always planned
to be paid when Social Security was in deficit, as it
is today.
So President Obama is legally obligated to continue to pay
Social Security benefits in full with these funds, even without any
increase in the debt limit at all. And
failing to do so would be in violation of the law, and so
consequently another impeachable offense.
But President Obama continued with the same deceptive
demagoguery in regard to Medicare. He said, “What I will not do is
to have that negotiation with a gun to the head of the American
people — that unless we get our way, unless you gut Medicare, or
Medicaid … we are going to threaten to wreck the entire
economy.”
But President Obama and the Democrats already gutted Medicare,
cutting trillions in Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals
through Obamacare. Because of that, Medicare will soon pay less for
health care for seniors than Medicaid pays for health care for
welfare mothers and their children. That will mean a sharp decline
in the quality and quantity of care for seniors.
Adult Supervision
It is so good that
President Obama is refusing to negotiate with the Republicans over
the debt ceiling. Obama has proven untrustworthy, deceptive, and
manipulative.
And his Democrat party controlled media won’t even discuss the
Republican side of the argument.
What the House majority Republicans have to do is what the
American people elected them to do. Move legislation to solve
problems. They should keep Obama on a short leash and pass a debt
limit increase sufficient for a couple of months, consistent with
the Boehner rule of $1 in spending cuts for every $1 of increase in
the debt limit.
Moreover, they should use spending cuts as proposed by Obama’s
own Simpson-Bowles Commission.
That would put the lie to Obama’s press conference claim that
the Republican “alternative is for us to go ahead and cut
commitments that we’ve made on things like Medicare or Social
Security or Medicaid and for us to fundamentally change commitments
that we made, to make sure that seniors don’t go into poverty, or
that children who are disabled are properly cared for,” or that
Republicans are dubious “about government commitments, for example,
to make sure that seniors have decent health care as they get older
[see, contra, Obamacare],” about Social Security benefits,
“about whether government should make sure that kids in poverty are
getting enough to eat or whether we should be spending money on
medical research.”
But the Republicans do need to talk to the American people when
they do this, using the media focus at the time to explain what
they are doing. And when Harry Reid says “dead on arrival,” and
Obama dismisses the Republican plan as not “sensible,” what the
Republicans need to uniformly say loudly and excessively
repetitively, “If you Democrats disagree with our plan, you pass
what you want in the Senate, and we will see you in the House
Senate Conference Committee to work out the final compromise. But
we have done our work on the debt ceiling and now it is your tum.
This is how the legislative process works in America. See, e.g.,
your high school civics textbook.”
And the Republicans must do the same on tax reform. They cannot
look again like they are protecting tax loopholes for the rich. The
House needs to pass Paul Ryan’s tax reform plan. That involves
closing loopholes in return for reducing tax rates to 10% for
families making less than $100,000 and 25% on incomes above
that.
Then they should say to the public, “We have acted on tax
reform. If the Democrats disagree with what we have done, they
should pass what they want in the Senate. Then we will work out the
final compromise in the House Senate Conference Committee. Not in a
closed door, smoke filled room in the White House. That is how the
legislative process works in America. See, e.g., your high school
civics book.”
Forcing the Democrats into this legislative process pins them
down and holds them accountable to the public for their positions.
In that harsh light of day, they will drop the radical left pose
for the real world results.
And on the sequester, the Republicans should simply let the cuts
go into effect. They can come back in the appropriations process to
adequately provide for the national defense, or force the Democrats
to publicly oppose an adequate defense, in ultimately recorded
votes.
