ObamaCare, Government Shutdown and the Federal Debt Limit

It's been three days and counting, as the Democrats and the Republicans have come to a stalemate regarding a bill that had Obamacare and government funding packaged in one bill. Great idea HOUSE! The Republicans are demanding the demise of Obamacare, but so far have been unable to stop it. The bill that had absolutely no hope of passing in the Senate, led to a government shutdown, with what seems to be no end in sight. Just the absolutely essential parts of the Federal government are running at this time, and Federal employees are feeling the pinch.
President Obama vowed to veto the bill even if it passed the Senate and ended up on his desk. The one piece of legislation that he will be known for in history would go down to defeat with a single signing of his pen. Of course that will never happen. The Republicans continue to pass legislation in the House, now over 40 times to defeat Obamacare. Obamacare now is the law of the land. Last week, the 'exchanges' became active, allowing people who could not qualify for insurance or basicially had no means to acquire it to now have insurance coverage.
Granted, the program dubbed 'Obamacare' by the Republicans will have it's bumps in the road as does any new major program, and it is coming to light that many employers are afraid of the costs that they will have to endure to employ people and supply insurance to everyone. The law states that everyone needs to obtain insurance or pay a penalty under law.
After the filibuster speech by Republian Senator Ted Cruz, the Republicans were still not able to defeat Obamacare.
In a desperate attempt to get something done in Washington, it now appears that the Republicans are moving away from the Obamacare fight. Many Republican Senators now know that they cannot breakup Obamacare, and they are now fighting with hard right wing Republicans to do what is necessary to get the government open again. But now they suddenly have another problem on their hands, the need to raise the debt limit. The deadline to do this is just two weeks off, and if an agreement to raise the debt limit cannot be reached, then the government will go into default and will no longer be able to pay it's loans. The last time the Republicans held out in raising the debt limit, they costed the United States a ton of money, along with a decrease in credit rating, from AAAA to AAA. So what's next if a debt limit increase is not passed? Is it possible to go from AAA to AA? You can hardly imagine that the U.S. government didn't learn its lesson the last go around, but appearently they haven't. All they seem to want to do is pass temporary measures to fund the U.S. Government. This works for a short period of time, but then we must go through this all over again.
Just like President Obama is taking a hard line on Obamacare, he will now again take a hard line regarding the debt limit. He wants to pass a permanent measure to fund the government, not piece together temporary measures to please the Republicans. Before President Obama leaves his 2nd term of office as president, he will do everything he can to fight for his cause for the middle class, starting with Obamacare, ending two wars that a republican President by the name of George W. Bush got us into, along with a host of other bills that he will take credit for, becoming one of the more famous Democratic presidents in U.S. history, to the dislike of the Republican party along with the conservatives that try to disassociate themselves from their own party.

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Boehner Re-elected by the New 113th Republican House

House Republicans re-elected their House leader Rep. John Boehner today, and it was not a unanimous vote. Several of his colleagues in the House voted against him. Among them were the following Senators...

Rep. Justin Amash voted for Raul Labrador
Rep. Jim Bridenstine voted for Eric Cantor
Rep. Paul Broun voted for Allen West
Rep. Louis Gohmert voted for West
Rep. Walter Jones voted for David Walker
Rep. Tim Huelskamp voted Jim Jordan
Rep. Tom Massie voted for Justin Amash
Rep. Steve Pierce voted for Cantor
Rep. Ted Yoho voted for Cantor

Rep. Steve Stockman voted present
Rep. Raul Labrador did not vote
Rep. Mick Mulvaney did not vote

The new 113th Congress convened today, and Boehner brought up the new fiscal cliff problem called the Federal Debt, and he mentions to his peers that this debt is placing the well-being of the country in peril. His statements most likely fell on deaf ears. You can bet that John Boehner will not ever attempt to make deals directly with President Obama during the next two years while he is Speaker of the House. In matter of fact, he promised his peers that he would never make deals with President Obama alone.
Conservative talk show hosts continue to push the idea that the new Congress doesn't need to ever take a deal that will increase taxes or to increase the National debt. Until these talk show hosts and conservative leaders in Congress start working out their differences with President Obama instead of out-rightly saying what they will do and what they will not do, I'm afraid that the future of Conservative principles in an active government will not exist.
Surely, the President here has the upper hand. The bill that passed yesterday raises taxes on the rich, and passes permanent tax cuts for the middle class and the poor. Known previously as the Bush tax cuts, the Republicans passed only the parts of Bush's prior bill that they had to so that going over the Fiscal cliff could be avoided.
Now the National Debt will be addressed, and President Obama promises to also to address the subject of immigration. His goal is to pass new immigration measures in 2013. On another front, The 112th Congress again voted down a bill a few days ago, this time to refuse to send monetary aide to the weather stricken areas along the east coast. This kind of response from our elected leaders is absolutely unheard of, and it will be interesting to see if this new Congress will continue the "do-nothing" ways.  A new bill presented to the House from the new Senate will be one of the first bills the new Congress will be voting on this month, along with the 'national-debt' issue.

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Obama taking the Hard Line on the National Debt

Many people, especially Republicans thought President Obama was just a push-over. They thought that they would be able to steer this President, but Obama now boldly explains that now is the time for the federal debt issue to be resolved in a comprehensive way, with both parties from the left and the right agree on both taxes and cuts to entitlement programs. He is not in favor of just having a temporary deal, but he is interested in solving the federal debt problem in a longer term than Congress has been able to come up with in the debates over the federal debt ceiling. Whoever thought that President Obama was a pushover can think again.
The office of President of the United States for this President could never be considered like a honeymoon, as in fact that it is no where like a honeymoon.
The challenges facing this President have been nothing short that extensive, during every day of his tenure as the President of the United States. Still, President Obama is willing to give it his all and run for a second term. Opponents constantly belittle the President in hopes that they can sway the voters to vote for the conservative party.
What they fail to understand is that it is the extreme conservatism that now has this country in a very difficult corner. Prior President George W. Bush seemed to always go on vacation, and never dedicated his time in the way that President Obama has been doing for 3 years now. He has tackled allot, actually more than the previous president has done during his entire two terms in office.
I can't help but think why President Bush lasted for two terms. Actually he was more popular the second time around than he was originally when he in a sense 'stole the election' by stirring up more electoral votes than this Democratic challenger Al Gore, even though more people voted for Al Gore.
The President is now showing what he is made of. Many people from both sides of the isle thought that President Obama was going to cave in on Medicare, but by his most recent decision that a short-term extension is not the answer in trying to solve the U.S. Federal debt, he is challenging the U.S. Congress in coming up with a more long term solution. He doesn't plan on backing down, but the Government can only run on its present budget until August 2nd, then the U.S. would be in default on their loans, as they will no longer have the money to pay the loans back.
The President is in a 'catch 22'. If he continues withholding from an agreement and the country does default, then he will be accused of being the first President to have ever led the country to 'default'. That would not look good on his resume for running for his second term as President. But on the other hand, if he does cave in towards conservative demands, he will also loose the backing of his own party.
So now the President must decide if it is best to protect his Presidency, or should he be firm and do what he feels is right. He sincerely believes that the United States would never default on the federal debt. But if the United States does, this would mean the end of President Obama's career and he most likely would never gain a second term.
The problem here is, which Republican candidate could do better. The answer. NONE. Just think about that.

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