Time for a Debt Ceiling Increase

It's a new year and already time to fight again regarding the debt ceiling. The U.S. will go into default by the end of February at the latest, unless the nation avoids a suspension by Feb. 7, 2014. After Feb. 7, special accounting maneuvers will have to be implemented in order to pay the country's bills. On a personal note, I believe for some reason that the U.S. Congress will raise the debt ceiling in time to avoid the issue, mainly because the Republican party has now run out of wiggle room to constantly resist what this country needs in order to preform their agenda. Cutting expenses seems to come up with every bill that is brought up in Congress. The constant restraints to pass bills in Congress affects everyone. To promote their agenda, the conservative base in Congress has again voted against extending unemployment insurance, which now affects at least 1.5 million people, and will affect another 2.5 million by years end if nothing is accomplished.
There seems to be so much work to do in Congress, yet because of political reasons, nothing seems to get done. The 'do nothing' Congress is a failure and continues to fail under the lack of leadership in the House by Republican Speaker John Boehner. This group of U.S. Senators led by him in the house continue to defy the needs of the people, and as stated in a CNN article, "any last-minute drama over the debt ceiling could cut the U.S. economy's potential for growth and undermine confidence." Treasury Secretary Jack Lew also states "any last-minute drama over the debt ceiling could cut the U.S. economy's potential for growth and undermine confidence."
You might ask why Republicans continue to buck the system and not do much of anything. Maybe the sole reason is that they will not act if President Obama supports the issue. One thing that I can say that is good about the Speaker of the House John Boehner at the time, he told reporters on Thursday "we shouldn't even get close" to defaulting. "I would hope that the House and the Senate would act quickly on a bill to increase the debt limit."
Will the Republicans and Tea Party members support the Speaker of the House? If they do not, then maybe it is time for him to step down, but of course that will not happen. Inside the party, their is a civil war going on within the party at the moment. It is for this reason, unless things change, a Republican president would be unlikely to be elected in 2016 because the the lack of organization between the Republicans and the Tea Party, the lack of a solid agenda, and the lack of a good solid candidate. Chris Christie, the man that could have been the party's only hope to match against Hilary Clinton if she decided to run for president, is now embroiled in government corruption in New Jersey. The New Jersey governor most likely would not fair well against other members of the Republican party in the primaries, even though as of a week ago, he could have been considered a candidate. With the scandal going on in full force, and the chance of being convicted of a crime, it would be worthless now to waste money in an attempt to gain the trust from his own party.
In the next article, I will report on what has become 'bridgegate', involving the office of the Governor and others around him.

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O'Connell Plan Defeated by O'Connell

It looks like a budget deal is near. The long national nightmare might almost be over. Another thing being talked about in Washington these days is the debt ceiling. The White House has been putting a plan together to take away the control of the debt ceiling from Congress. Without being able to control the debt ceiling, the Congress wouldn't be able to blow up the world economy. Everything the Congress seems to vote on these days, seems to blow up in everyone's face. Here's something that was blown up before it was even voted on.
Introduced by Republican Senator Mitch O'Connell, the plan is based on the idea that he himself proposed back in 2011. But the interesting thing is that he is actually not for his own plan at this time. He was also hoping that Democrats also did not support it, but a few days ago, he asked the Senate to move to an immediate vote on the McConnell plan. He was figuring that the majority leader would back down, but what actually happened is that the Senate majority leader did not back down, but instead actually embraced the idea of a vote on the McConnell plan. The majority leader wanted an immediate up or down vote. He also said that there would be no filibuster, and no 60 vote requirement needed. It the bill would get 51 votes, it would be passed. So what do you think what happened next.
In complete shock that the Senate was about to vote on his bill at that moment, he did something that was never seen before. He just decided to filibuster his own bill, saying that if there wasn't going to be a 60 vote threshold, there would be no vote at all. In other words, with a 60 vote measure, his bill would surely fail. When was the last time that you think some Senator introduced his bill and voted on it to fail? So here you go. More political games. So what had actually happened is that he asked for a vote on a plan that he created, immediately got his wish, then filibustered his own plan. Talk about turning around 180 degrees. It goes to prove that they don't even try to pass bills, but only to recommit to their own base that they will not vote on much during the lame duck session in Congress. Will the new Congress do better next year. Unfortunately, I don't have much faith in our political leaders now, and no-one else should too. Yes, most likely the Congress will get a permanent debt ceiling bill passed by the end of the year, and in some instances, the Republicans want the bill passed too, just so that they can put this one behind them, but also know that the debt ceiling issue would now be owned by the President. If the economy failed, then the President would be blamed. This is the reasoning of Senator Rand Paul, not taking in consideration that when the same thing was done in the Clinton administration, the rich were paying more taxes than they are right now, and the middle class people benefit.                                                                                                                                                  

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