That's the last estimate from the Treasury Department, although since we have had a shutdown for a week it might be pushed back a day or three. After all, they aren't paying out money they were expecting to pay out pre-shutdown.
Would the GOP types push the USA into default ?
- Thread starter otago
- Start date
That's the last estimate from the Treasury Department, although since we have had a shutdown for a week it might be pushed back a day or three. After all, they aren't paying out money they were expecting to pay out pre-shutdown.
KMRblue1027
The Crown!
So the special election is irrelevant to the dept debate. Oh well.
What special election? New Jersey? That wouldn't matter anyways.
Archbob
Ancient CFC Guardian
This is just another ploy to remind the world that USA is still #1.
Just the opposite is occurring.
Tea Party Support Dwindles to Near-Record Low
Only Tea Party approves shutdown, poll shows
Dwindling followers yet they were still able to shut down the government. Remember: strength is not always measured by how many people follow you. The Teahadists are the most dangerous, reckless, and irresponsible political movement this country has seen in a long while and it frightens me that they have been able to gain as much traction as they have.
I am a pretty staunch opponent of using gestapo-like tactics to silence uncomfortable political opponents; but the more I hear these Teahadists talk, the more I wish they would get black-bagged in the middle of the night and never be heard from again.
The membership numbers of the Tea Party is not the issue. The issue is the disproportionate level of influence the movement has. Since many parts of the US have very slim majorities, it is possible for a relatively small group to tip the scales in favour of their own choice of candidates. These candidates are then either willing actors for or simply beholden to the group which catapulted them to power.
Such is the situation with the Tea Party. Unless and until their membership becomes negligible, they will exercise an undue influence on American politics, barring a sizeable shift in either direction by one or more of the two major parties.
Such is the situation with the Tea Party. Unless and until their membership becomes negligible, they will exercise an undue influence on American politics, barring a sizeable shift in either direction by one or more of the two major parties.
The problem with Teahadist influence is that are not generally the marginal scale-tippers in a general election, but that they are scale tippers in primaries. There are many deep red congressional districts where a Democrat will never win the election, but a Teahadist nutcase can sure knock off a more conventional nutcase in the GOP primary. It's too bad Saddam isn't around, because that guy could manage Sunni and Shia extremists. He would have made a decent replacement for Boehner or at least a competent adviser.
Rashiminos
Fool Prophet
Nah, they just play the blame game with the shutdown results by requiring the administration to play perfectly or have the sword fall upon them.
Is that a fact?
Tahuti
Writing Deity
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2005
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- 9,492
I wouldn't be surprised at all if the government shutdown in combination with the debt ceiling crisis could lead to talk of secession of individual states. The Republicans have figures that support secession (Rick Perry and Sarah Palin, to name a few) and, hell, even Liberal states who suffer from the unresponsive Federal government may actually consider it, considering the Federal government's importance to several welfare programs, and its inability to execute them. Besides, it won't be the Republicans who shall be known as the ones who destroyed the USA, though maybe Obama will be known as the American Gorbachov...
I'm not saying it will happen, but I do think there is a small but real risk that it may lead to the end of the Union. The USSR ended fairly quickly and unexpected as well, so I wouldn't say its impossible.
I'm not saying it will happen, but I do think there is a small but real risk that it may lead to the end of the Union. The USSR ended fairly quickly and unexpected as well, so I wouldn't say its impossible.
Murky
Deity
I don't see how the Tea Party could sustain much influence over the long term. The world is changing in a way that will leave their politics in the dustbin of history and they want to live in fantasy world of their own making. The two aren't compatible.
Rashiminos
Fool Prophet
So the left is tossing them in the dustbin of history?
Murky
Deity
They are doing it to themselves.
Rashiminos
Fool Prophet
That would imply a surrender instead of a fight, and also a victor instead of an opponent. The shutdown is still in effect, so I fail to see how your conclusion pans out.
Murky
Deity
These things take time to play out. Look at this way. If you were in a landscape, there came up a winter storm. Instead of putting on coat, you instead took off your shirt and laughed and said to your self it's warm and sunny out. You totally convince yourself that it's warm and sunny and never face the reality of the winter storm until it's too late.
A similar thing is happening with the Tea Party and their libertarian politics. They think in their minds that they are in the political majority and the winds of change are turning more towards a libertarian society (like some Ayn Rand fantasy). Only they aren't and the winds of change are actually turning against them.
Rashiminos
Fool Prophet
I'd agree.
Putting that aside, if one convinced himself one side was committed to losing instead of fighting. There's no reason to react to the cold facts of Tea Party rebellion if one secures himself in the belief of Tea Party ineptitude and merely laughs at their supposed folly.
Yet you deny what those winds of change would entail from other political parties. The winds themselves cannot be that strong if they lack a force to excite them.
Murky
Deity
I don't deny anything of the sort. What I'm saying is the the Tea Party people are ignoring these others at their own peril and doing the opposite of what they need to do in order to adapt.
Why is everyone so down on the Tea Party?
Nothing wrong with being for small government and balanced budgets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement
1) Decentralized
2) Advocating a reduction in the U.S. national debt and federal budget deficit by reducing U.S. government spending and taxes
3) Partly Conservate, partly libertarian
So they combine aspects that some people loathe.
That's no reason to call them teahadists
Or pine for gestapo-like tactics to be used against them
They are simply the inevitable outcome for people who realize that the Republicans are just as much for big government as Democrats are.
If the majority of the people in this country truly wish for higher taxes and bigger government, the tea party will ultimately lose.
But even then I doubt they will give up.
They firmly believe in smaller government and balanced budgets as firmly as some people believe in Socialism. Facts won't shake that kind of faith.
If Republicans say they are for smaller government, the tea party will pressure them to keep their word.
No more free passes while Trillion dollar deficits exist. (And Obamacare subsidies adds $250 billion per year to it)
**Edit**
Sigh, more scaremongering
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-wilson/the-tea-party-plan-to-sha_b_4044186.html
Really, if 20 or 30 tea party people can crash the world, maybe we need to take a hard look at how we got here and where we are going?
None of this would be an issue if the budget was balanced. (You don't run into the debt ceiling every 5 minutes)
And deep down, everyone knows you can't balance the budget immediately.
It will take 10 years or more in the teeth of people saying very ugly things about you trying to stop spending our children and grandchildren into oblivion.
