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AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid of Nev. pauses during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Aug. 1, 2011, to talk about debt ceiling legislation.
Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2011 | 12:04 a.m.
Reid: We Brought Our Economy Back From Brink Of Disaster
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Reid: We Brought Our Economy Back From Brink Of Disaster
Heller: The Markets Are Bearing This Out
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Heller: The Markets Are Bearing This Out
The Senate emphatically passed emergency legislation Tuesday to avoid a first-ever government default, rushing the legislation to President Barack Obama for his signature just hours before the deadline. The vote was 74-26.
Obama signed the bill little more than an hour later.
Today's vote capped an extraordinarily difficult Washington battle pitting tea party Republican forces in the House against Obama and Democrats controlling the Senate. The resulting compromise paired an essential increase in the government's borrowing cap with promises of more than $2 trillion of budget cuts over the next decade.
"It's an important first step to ensuring that as a nation we live within our means," Obama said after the vote. "This is, however, just the first step. This compromise requires that both parties work together on a larger plan to cut the deficit."
Much of the measure, which the House passed Monday night, was negotiated on terms set by House Speaker John Boehner, including a demand that any increase in the nation's borrowing cap be matched by spending cuts. But the legislation also meets demands made by Obama, including debt-limit increases large enough to keep the government funded into 2013 and curbs on growth of the Pentagon budget.
"We've had to settle for less than we wanted, but what we've achieved is in no way insignificant," said Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. "But I think it was the view of those in my party that we'd try to get as much spending cuts as we could from a government we didn't control. And that's what we've done with this bipartisan agreement."
The measure would provide an immediate $400 billion increase in the $14.3 trillion U.S. borrowing cap, with $500 billion more assured this fall. That $900 billion would be matched by cuts to agency budgets over the next 10 years.
The Senate vote was never in doubt after Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and McConnell signed on. But like Monday's House vote, defections came from liberal Democrats unhappy that Obama gave too much ground in the talks, as well as from conservative Republicans who said the measure would barely dent deficits that require the government to borrow more than 40 cents of every dollar it spends.
The next social subvention, new taxes.
You know whats absolutely hilarious. The President said he doesnt like this bill, Democrats say they dont like this bill, and Republicans say they dont like this bill.
Moral of the story: Banks win.
Who "actually" runs this country?
President Obama's principles have been compromised. Dramatic yet necessary cuts in entitlement programs will ensue in future months: change you can believe in. Wealthy Americans will not be asked to sacrifice a portion of their wealth to assist the less fortunate but more importantly, close the gap between spending and revenue in order to balance the budget. That is the crucial issue for this cycle of drama for it will never be broken until the gap between revenue and spending is closed. Significant savings in spending will never happen until non-discretionary spending, entitlements are chopped without zeal but firmness.
http://napoleonlive.info/politics/facts-...
The retirement benefit is also capped. Are you saying people who pay in more should get less benefit?
Why is it that we're still in like some kind of continuation hell world that Bush the Lesser started?
Yet another piece of legislation where there is absolutely no compromise, definitely not a hint of shared sacrifice and without a doubt another occasion to put the screws to the middle class of this country I love.
Am I the only one who sees that this piece of legislation is not a win for this country at all? Spending is cut even more. And as a result, we'll lose even more jobs. The middle class are slowly being strangled to death, then held by the ankles, turned upside down. This is robbery. Plain and simple. Somebody needs to be perp walked and chucked in a deep, dark prison.
This legislation is horrible. Because it don't address the problems. It addresses what the problems create.
It's like this: I don't understand how a man with a broken leg shows up at a hospital, points at his leg, clearly in pain, and the doctor gives him Listerine; diagnoses the patient for bad breath?!?!?!
Get rid of the Bush tax cuts for the filthy rich. Get us out of these foreign wars that suck up money, put our troops needlessly in harm's way and seem to have no visible benefit. Stop the oil subsidies to the companies who already have the most insanely profitable enterprises ever in the history of mankind.
I am so tired of the filthy rich hiding behind Republicans. Equally tired of Republicans all the time wearing kneepads and serving them too.
I'm voting every one of them out. Street sweeper. Dogcatcher. I don't care. They will ALL face my wrath at the voting booth. Because they are the root cause of the problem. I'm so tired of this false logic where it's always said the filthy rich need their tax cuts to continue in order to provide more jobs. It hasn't proven true for thirty years (and even longer...go back to Adam and Eve). Why does every Republican on the planet STILL think and hope and pray it will happen NOW? I really believe that if you are a Republican nowadays, you are required to get a frontal lobotomy...performed by the medical team composed of Doctor Sean Hannity and Brain Surgeon Rush Limbaugh, assisted by Nurses Michele Bachmann, Sara Palin and Ann Coulter.
Get my ballot printed now. I'm ready. I can't wait for 2012. They are ALL gone. Time to put an end to this stupid madness. I want sanity in my politics.
@Colin
You could always move to Cuba.. I hear they take money from the rich and give it to the poor.
The real question that no one seems to be asking is why the national government is spending so much money on social programs to begin with. There was a reason the founders of the country wanted sovereign states with a unified congress, and not a king with the power to tax, spend, and go to war without congress approval.. We are digressing back to a economic system where the government is allied with the upper class and the middle and lower classes are becoming more and more dependent on government socialist systems and handouts.
The overall solution is drastic cuts of the size and power that the federal government has, and return a lot of the decisions and the power to the state level. Unfortunately, most people are not willing to look beyond the policy effects on today, let alone years down the road.
This deficit was directly caused by tax cuts for the rich. These greedy people don't care about the rest of us.
The rich people actually pay less taxes than the average american.
Because they don't pay social security taxes on all the money they make. Over 2/3 of all money goes to rich people and they pay not social security tax on this pay.
They also have trillions in tax loop holes so they don't pay any taxes on this money.
I believe it's time Democrats begin demanding a primary challenge for Obama.
Obama's approval numbers are low, but the dirty secret that no Republicans will utter...the Republican's approval numbers are still lower than Obama's. American's want change, but not Republican change. We need a strong Democrat challenger to Obama.
Look out teanuts with peanut brains, this is the "new world order" master plan to have Harry Reid rule the world!
Yes world communism and the killing fields are just around the bend, make sure you buy gold, canned wheat and a generator from Glen Buck.
Our politicians just had an historic opportunity to cut spending and they balked.. showed no courage - in true Wasginton fashion. unfortunately much of our population has become dependant on govt hand outs and other entitlement programs. Its disgusting. But go ahead and take the lazy way out.. blame the banks, businesses and entrepreneurs of America, rather than the politicians who were voted in by the non-contributor looking to gain more govt hand outs. Its no wonder cities that have been held by the Democratic party are in complete ruin - Detroit, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Northern California.. the list goes on. I fear Americans have given up on what made us great - the willingness to pick ourselves up become successful; we know wait for the uncle sam to guide us like a lab rat waiting for that next cut of cheese in the labratory.
@bob635.. your talking points are boring and mostly false. perhaps form an opinion u didnt first hear from Laurence ODonnell or the former financial advisor to Enron - Paul Krugman
Colin:
I don't know what planet you live on but try this: 47 percent of American families pay no federal income tax. Almost one-half of all families in the US.
A family making $50,000 per year with two kids under 17 years of age pays nothing and may actually get some credits to show a profit at the end of the day.
The reason why the rich get the income tax cuts is because they are paying the taxes. The people earning the top incomes contribute a disproportionately high share of federal income tax receipts. The top 10 percent pay about 70 percent of the income taxes in this country.
http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-incom...
Clarification--income tax should read personal income tax.
Sorry.
T
If you look carefully at who is running the show in Washington, it's all men!! Obama, Biden, Reid, Boehner, McConnell, Kantor, etc. Republican or Democrat, they all suck!! If this debt ceiling vote debacle were run by women, this thing would have been solved a month ago! Women never would have let it get as far as it did! I'm a man, I voted for Obama over Hillary Clinton in the primary and now realise what a huge mistake that was! Only female candidates get my votes from now on... no sex scandals, no political posturing, and I know the job will get done correctly. If Gabby Giffords can leave her hospital bed to cast her vote in the house, none of these men have any excuse for not showing up to cast theirs!
Great post by TURRIALBA... here is my theory on the tax code - the more and more you tax the wealthy to subsidize the 50% of Americans who do not pay taxes or actually earn income from redistributive income policies the more voters will vote themselves more and more benefits by way of electing Democratic politicians.
"Supremecy of the non-contributor"