The Debt Ceiling Has One Purpose – Extortion

Even though Republican lawmakers, Fox News pundits and conservatives at large believe the debt ceiling puts a limit on federal spending, that doesn’t make it so. The debt ceiling (or limit) is a 1917 law (part of the Second Liberty Bond Act) that gave the executive branch power to take on debt without congressional approval. So it sounds like Mitch McConnell and other Republicans are right when they say President Obama wants to do away with the debt limit so that he has the free rein to spend all he wants, right? — Wrong! Only congress can authorize new spending. However, it is up to the Treasury Department to actually pay the bills, and Treasury is part of the executive branch. And when the federal government is running a deficit, that means some bills are paid by loan (government bonds).

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Two Sensible Gun Safety Measures Congress Should Pass Now

Gun advocates and NRA members say “guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” Fine. I’ll accept this premise if it enables bipartisan cooperation for sensible gun safety legislation. So if the problem is not the guns, but the people, there are two regulatory measures congress should get to work on now. These two measures regulate the people side of the gun safety equation, not the gun side.

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Do Liberals and Democrats Demonize Wealth?

A recent Left Call commenter said, “What I totally don’t understand about you liberals, and Democrats in general, is how you so easily demonize the wealthy. I just don’t get it. You think that the Republican Party is just for the wealthy? That Conservatives are rich people alone?”

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There Are No Reasonable Republicans In Washington D.C.

Paul Krugman has a short piece titled “Reasonable Republicans?” where he makes a point that I’ve made in the past, that there are no reasonable Republicans serving in office. That’s not to say there are no reasonable Republicans at all, just that they all exist outside the beltway. They might be former aids to past Republican presidential administrations or they could be ex-congressman, but they all have one thing in common, they are no longer serving, and they are no longer considered part of the Republican establishment.

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Paul Ryan: Member of the Republican Obstructionist Party Controlling the House

Congress’ approval rating is lower than that of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and that’s really hard to pull off! Yet this didn’t stop Mitt Romney from choosing Paul Ryan, a member of congress, more specifically, a member of the majority obstructionist party controlling the House. In the era of the Obama administration, obstructionist is just another way of saying Republican. Mitt Romney didn’t have to choose a current member of congress, but that is exactly what he did, and so the low approval rating of congress will be part of the critique of the Romney-Ryan campaign. And President Obama wasted no time making this connection in a speech on Monday in Iowa:

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USPS defaults on $5.5 billion payment. Is congress purposely killing the Postal Service?

On Wednesday the United States Postal Services was unable to make a $5.5 billion payment due to the U.S. Treasury. This is the first ever default by the “off-budget” service. I say off budget because the USPS is self-sufficient. It’s operating costs are paid for by the services it sells (i.e. stamps). The requirement to pay the $5.5 billion is a problem that congress created and since congress has chosen to allow the USPS to default, I have one simple question: Is congress intentionally trying to kill the Postal Service?

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