Showing posts with label US national debt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US national debt. Show all posts
Sunday, January 15, 2017
Democrats Say Bush Is to Blame for Obama's Failures
Monday, May 16, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: America risks unravelling the world's financial system should the country fail to increase its legal borrowing limits, President Barack Obama has warned.The warning from The White House comes as the US moves ever closer to a $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, which Congress needs to increase in a matter of weeks to prevent the government defaulting on its borrowings for the first time in history.
Given US government debt, or Treasuries as they are known, are considered the safest asset in financial markets and held by investors and central banks around the world, few want to imagine the consequences of a default.
"If investors around the world thought that the full faith and credit of the United States was not being backed up, if they thought that we might renege on our IOU's, it could unravel the entire financial system," President Obama said at a town hall meeting late yesterday.
"We could have a worse recession than we already had [have], a worse financial crisis than we already had [have]."
The US Treasury has projected that the debt limit will be reached this month, though Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, has said he can juggle accounts until early August to avoid a default. » | Richard Blackden, US Business Editor | Monday, May 16, 2011
My comment:
I find it rather interesting, yet very disturbing, troubling, that this president warns that the world’s financial system will be in trouble if the US doesn’t increase its legal borrowing limits. How perverse is that? That’s like a householder being in deep debt and coming to the end of his credit limit; but instead of paying off the debt, he goes to the bank manager to cajole him into increasing his credit limit to avert the crisis. That way he gets deeper into debt! Where the hell did this guy Obama learn his economics? Which Ivy League university was that now? As all sane, sensible people know, what he needs to do is start paying off the nation’s debts. America needs to learn to live within its means. That way the US will distance itself from its borrowing limits. Living within one’s means is sound economics. It was ever thus. – © Mark
This comment also appears here
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: On a warm, wet night in Michigan, Jan Crandall stands to attention while Taps is played on the sound system in honour of America’s war dead. Then she explains why she is carrying a placard bearing an astonishingly large number: $11,801,149,166,949.
It is the US national debt — and it is rising by $3.5 billion a day. “We came out tonight because of the excessive spending,” she said. “We don’t like the Government trying to take over everything. We are for healthcare reform, but they are not going about it the right way.” After a pause Mrs Crandall added: “Gee, are we going to talk about Barack Obama? We might get on his hit list.”
A powerful cocktail of hard-headed conservatism and wilful paranoia is driving a quixotic bus convoy from California to Washington, where Mr Obama will try tonight to rebut its claims and regain the initiative in the most important domestic policy speech of his presidency so far.
The Tea Party Express has no leader, no big donors and no formal goal except to “take back our country” from an Administration it believes has fundamentally misunderstood the role of America’s federal Government — and from Republicans who abandoned fiscal restraint to bail out the country’s banks last year.
The convoy consists of two 12-berth coaches built for rock band roadies and a permanent crew of two singers, two speakers and a supporting cast of mild-mannered political consultants from California. It would be no more than a fringe attraction had its members not already wrong-footed the White House in the health reform debate with talking points for hundreds of Republican town hall meetings over the summer. One of the brains behind the movement is Sal Russo, of Russo, Marsh and Associates, a Sacramento campaigning firm, formerly an adviser to Ronald Reagan and Rudy Giuliani.
The Tea Party people are now targeting congressional districts won last year by Democrats that they think can be won back in next year’s midterm elections. The coaches have stopped for four rallies in Michigan in the past two days, including one attended by Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher — known to followers of John McCain’s presidential campaign as Joe the Plumber. Yesterday he railed against big government at a meeting in Brighton, and signed copies of his new book, Fighting for the American Dream.
Mr Obama’s version of that dream has always included universal healthcare. His speech tonight to both houses of Congress will be a “very forceful” argument for wholesale reform, aides said, and a reply to a misinformation campaign by opponents that has encouraged conspiracy theories about state-run “death panels” and “population control experiments”.
The President’s problem is that no US legislation this ambitious has ever been passed with a majority of Americans opposed to it. A Gallup poll yesterday showed that only 37 per cent of voters back the Bill now being worked on by the Senate Finance Committee.
Tonight’s speech will, therefore, stop short of demanding the public insurance plan — the “public option” — even though Mr Obama still supports the idea and even though it is considered non-negotiable by about 40 liberal Democrats in the House. >>> Giles Whittell in Jackson, Michigan | Wednesday, September 09, 2009
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