US hits debt ceiling, prompting Treasury to take extraordinary measures

[Scott]

The US hit the debt ceiling set by Congress on Thursday, forcing the Treasury Department to start taking extraordinary measures to keep the government paying its bills and escalating pressure on Capitol Hill to avoid a catastrophic default.

The battle lines for the high-stakes fight have already been set. Hardline Republicans, who have enormous sway in the House because of the party’s slim majority, have demanded that lifting the borrowing cap be tied to spending reductions. The White House countered that it will not offer any concessions or negotiate on raising the debt ceiling.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/19/politics/debt-ceiling-deadline-treasury/index.html

[Thingamabob]

This is where most Democrat Party governments in the US finish up.

[placeholder]

2 hours ago, Thingamabob said:

This is where most Democrat Party governments in the US finish up.

I'm sure you think what you wrote actually means something.

[Tug]

With a speaker under control of the worst of the maga party it doesent bode well it’s going to get ugly imo also keep in mind 25% of our debt was created during the trump years and now the house has casterated the IRS to protect the wealthy id like the treasury to stop paying all the benefits for the house members till they get their act together for starters 

[JonnyF]

The economy certainly doesn't seem to be doing too well under the Democrats. Let's hope they don't default or it will get a whole lot worse.

 

Wake up Joe.

[placeholder]

2 hours ago, JonnyF said:

The economy certainly doesn't seem to be doing too well under the Democrats. Let's hope they don't default or it will get a whole lot worse.

 

Wake up Joe.

Really? Inflation is declining rapidly. Unemployment is very low.  And if default occurs, it won't be the Democrats' fault. And if history is any guide, it's the Republicans who will get the blame. Which is what they would deserve.

[JonnyF]

8 minutes ago, placeholder said:

Really? Inflation is declining rapidly. Unemployment is very low.  And if default occurs, it won't be the Democrats' fault. And if history is any guide, it's the Republicans who will get the blame. Which is what they would deserve.

Nothing is ever the Democrats fault, is it? ????

[placeholder]

3 minutes ago, JonnyF said:

Nothing is ever the Democrats fault, is it? ????

I see you've dropped your characterization of the economy. I guess that's because I used to back me up. Whereas, as per usual, you've got nothing.

[JonnyF]

9 minutes ago, placeholder said:

I see you've dropped your characterization of the economy. I guess that's because I used to back me up. Whereas, as per usual, you've got nothing.

They're doing so well that they need extraordinary measures to service their debt. 

 

 

[placeholder]

Just now, JonnyF said:

They're doing so well that they need extraordinary measures to service their debt. 

 

 

They need to take those measures because unlike the case in most countries, there's a  U.S. law that requires Congress to raise the debt ceiling. Well, let's wait and see how long it takes for the Republicans to give up on the self-harm. They're already proposing cuts in Social Security and Medicare for future retirees. It should be fun to watch them squirm.

[JonnyF]

4 minutes ago, placeholder said:

They need to take those measures because unlike the case in most countries, there's a  U.S. law that requires Congress to raise the debt ceiling. Well, let's wait and see how long it takes for the Republicans to give up on the self-harm. They're already proposing cuts in Social Security and Medicare for future retirees. It should be fun to watch them squirm.

They need to take those measures because the debt is spiralling out of control.

[placeholder]

Just now, JonnyF said:

They need to take those measures because the debt is spiralling out of control.

Taxes could be raised. But for Republicans, that's always anathema.

[vandeventer]

3 hours ago, JonnyF said:

The economy certainly doesn't seem to be doing too well under the Democrats. Let's hope they don't default or it will get a whole lot worse.

 

Wake up Joe.

Maybe they should stop the spending on climate change? Without China, Indonesia and India stopping their coal burning America could spend it on better things. Look hard at Biden's party spending and you will see a lot of unhappen Americans.

[JonnyF]

49 minutes ago, placeholder said:

Taxes could be raised. But for Republicans, that's always anathema.

Or they could reduce spending. But for Democrats, that's always anathema.

[ozimoron]

41 minutes ago, vandeventer said:

Maybe they should stop the spending on climate change? Without China, Indonesia and India stopping their coal burning America could spend it on better things. Look hard at Biden's party spending and you will see a lot of unhappen Americans.

Would better things include dealing with the damaging effects of climate change which are estimated to be many times more than preventing it as time goes by?

 

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2021/sep/economic-cost-climate-change-could-be-six-times-higher-previously-thought

 

Climate dollars and sense – preventing global warming is the cheap option

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/apr/22/preventing-global-warming-cheaper-than-adapting

 

 

[ozimoron]

8 minutes ago, JonnyF said:

Or they could reduce spending. But for Democrats, that's always anathema.

That's because they want to deal with economic inequality rather than handing the rich ever larger tax breaks.

[JonnyF]

1 minute ago, ozimoron said:

That's because they want to deal with economic inequality rather than handing the rich ever larger tax breaks.

By crippling the country with debt that they can't afford to service. Sounds great...

 

Equality of outcome is a flawed concept.

[ozimoron]

Just now, JonnyF said:

By crippling the country with debt that they can't afford to service. Sounds great...

 

Equality of outcome is a flawed concept.

No explanation or link to what your throwaway line actually means?

[vandeventer]

32 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

Would better things include dealing with the damaging effects of climate change which are estimated to be many times more than preventing it as time goes by?

 

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2021/sep/economic-cost-climate-change-could-be-six-times-higher-previously-thought

 

Climate dollars and sense – preventing global warming is the cheap option

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/apr/22/preventing-global-warming-cheaper-than-adapting

 

 

Get those three countries I mentioned to stop burning coal and the world would be a lot better.

[ozimoron]

1 minute ago, vandeventer said:

Get those three countries I mentioned to stop burning coal and the world would be a lot better.

In the meantime the rest of us should do nothing?

[placeholder]

47 minutes ago, JonnyF said:

Or they could reduce spending. But for Democrats, that's always anathema.

Republicans supported increased spending and slashed taxes when Trump was President. . They  also voted 3 times to raise the debt limit back then.. Oddly enough, the reoccurrence of their concern about debt only happens when a Democrat is President.

And, actually, there's not nearly enough spending reduction to be done that except ones that are drastic like cutting SS benefits and Medicare. And that's what they are aiming for.

 

Damaging cuts' to Medicare and Social Security are looking more likely with McCarthy as House speaker. Here's what it will mean for retirees.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Republican+debt+limits+require+slashing+social+security+and+medicare&tbs=qdr:m&sxsrf=AJOqlzVLyhih600pXF0qtqIkIEZePz0KjQ:1674203819811&ei=q1LKY76NManO2roP5-yByA4&start=10&sa=N&ved=2ahUKEwj-jtif39X8AhUpp1YBHWd2AOkQ8NMDegQIBhAW&biw=1536&bih=726&dpr=1.25

[nauseus]

5 hours ago, Tug said:

With a speaker under control of the worst of the maga party it doesent bode well it’s going to get ugly imo also keep in mind 25% of our debt was created during the trump years and now the house has casterated the IRS to protect the wealthy id like the treasury to stop paying all the benefits for the house members till they get their act together for starters 

Trump increase for 2017-19 was 8.3% of total up to end 2022. Not much different to Obama's average over the previous 8 years. You might remember that 2020 saw COVID-19 and a the associated mini-recession. Don't expect Biden to improve this. 

 

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to-gdp-and-major-events-3306287

 

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-pace-1-trillion-budget-deficit-2023-2-7-billion-new-debt-day

 

 

[placeholder]

1 minute ago, nauseus said:

Trump increase for 2017-19 was 8.3% of total up to end 2022. Not much different to Obama's average over the previous 8 years. You might remember that 2020 saw COVID-19 and a the associated mini-recession. Don't expect Biden to improve this. 

 

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to-gdp-and-major-events-3306287

 

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-pace-1-trillion-budget-deficit-2023-2-7-billion-new-debt-day

 

 

It's remarkable how selective your memory is. As you clearly don't recall, Obama inherited the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. What would his record look like if that first term of his was not included? Or is it only Trump who gets the inconvenient years excluded?

[KhunLA]

Very first ... End ALL foreign aid.  

... If I couldn't pay my bills at the house, I wouldn't be giving money away.  

 

Bring ALL military personnel home to USA soil, waters.  Corporations want security, start paying for.  Stop trying to police the world.

 

Nationalize the oil industry.  Think just those 3 would balance the budget and pay off the deficit in record time.

[nauseus]

22 minutes ago, placeholder said:

It's remarkable how selective your memory is. As you clearly don't recall, Obama inherited the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. What would his record look like if that first term of his was not included? Or is it only Trump who gets the inconvenient years excluded?

No more selective than the post that I was responding to, which was not yours, incidentally.

[placeholder]

39 minutes ago, nauseus said:

No more selective than the post that I was responding to, which was not yours, incidentally.

It's one thing to correct the selectivity, quite another to do so in a misleading way.

[nauseus]

3 hours ago, placeholder said:

It's one thing to correct the selectivity, quite another to do so in a misleading way.

Whatever that means! ????

[candide]

6 hours ago, nauseus said:

Trump increase for 2017-19 was 8.3% of total up to end 2022. Not much different to Obama's average over the previous 8 years. You might remember that 2020 saw COVID-19 and a the associated mini-recession. Don't expect Biden to improve this. 

 

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to-gdp-and-major-events-3306287

 

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-pace-1-trillion-budget-deficit-2023-2-7-billion-new-debt-day

 

 

A dishonest comparison. You select the years you like for Trump and use the average for Obama.

[placeholder]

2 hours ago, nauseus said:

Whatever that means! ????

,Let's try again. This time I'll spell it out for you.. You noted that a poster said that 25% of the debt occurred during the Trump campaign. To counter that you pointed out that from 2017 through 2019 the rate of increase for the debt was roughly the same as the rate during the Obama presidency. You left out 2020 because the economy got battered by the covid pandemic. So you gave Trump a pass on that. But you gave no pass to Obama even though he inherited an economy that was in freefall due to the financial crisis of 2008 which was the worst thing to happen to the world economy since the Great Depression.. Rather, you included all 8 years of Obama's term in office despite that fact.  So you  called the poster on his selectivity, i.e. not mentioning Obama, but, for purposes of comparison,  you selected only the good years for Trump. But you included all of Obama's term including the years that were greatly impacted by the Great Recession that began late in 2008. You gave Trump a pass for the disaster that happened on his watch, but did not give Obama a pass for the disaster that encroached on his. 

[FarAngMoh]

Fiscal conservatism seems non-existent on both sides of the aisle. 

 

I’ve always wondered… what happens to all the money that should be saved when pulling out of Afghanistan for example - - or was that just a rounding error on?