May 26, 2023
The timing of an early June default threatens to hurt the country’s oldest and poorest Social Security recipients.
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The timing of an early June default threatens to hurt the country’s oldest and poorest Social Security recipients.
'Insanity': Conservatives Rip Joe Biden's Debt Limit Deal With GOP
'Insanity': Conservatives Rip Joe Biden's Debt Limit Deal With GOP
Congressional leaders are likely to rely on more moderate members on both sides of the aisle to approve the agreement.
Right wing-nut Republicans aka GOP Drama Queens (they have some nerve criticizing Drag Queens) go bonkers because McCarthy didn't get the ransom they insisted upon. Aw boohoo.
It's all been a meaningless manufactured crisis they instigated to trigger their misinformed base.
Games
The games people play… but at what cost?
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So we're down to the wire now and it really looks like the House Republicans are dead set on defaulting on the debt and crashing the whole US economy and its reputation in the world. They are holding us all hostage for ridiculous budget demands that even their own people say are unrealistic. I really believe they are willing to sacrifice everything, even their own country, in a sniveling fit of selfish, childish, stubbornness, because they have nothing else to offer any of us except rage and grievance. It will be a historically dark day if we default, and especially for no good reason whatsoever.
@barrydeutsch
Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy borrowed his punishing work requirement proposal from the conservative think tank pushing to loosen child labor laws.
Republicans in Washington are threatening to blow up the United States’ economy unless Democrats agree to shrink the social safety net by adding work requirements to programs such as food assistance and healthcare. They are billing the effort — which would help corporations grow an exploitable workforce — as necessary to end dependency, boost the economy, and reduce the federal deficit.
In doing so, GOP lawmakers are following the agenda pushed by an obscure conservative think tank bankrolled by far-right billionaires and activists that was behind a recent slew of state bills rolling back child labor laws across the country. The effort comes several years after the GOP passed massive, deficit-busting tax cuts benefiting the wealthy and corporations — and as the party pushes to make those tax cuts permanent, at an estimated cost of $3.5 trillion.
In effect, Republicans want to force Americans in poverty to pick up the tab for the tax cuts they gave to their wealthy donors, while giving those donors more vulnerable workers to exploit.
Republicans are attempting to ram through the think tank’s agenda by refusing to raise the debt ceiling, an arbitrary limit set by Congress on how much money the federal government can borrow, unless Democrats accept sweeping spending cuts and expanded work requirements on social programs.
Why it may have been a bad idea for the debt limit deal to spare defense spending from proposed budget cuts.
The plan will make cuts to a range of government services, including tax collection and food stamps. But one department appears to have gotten off easy. The Pentagon — which hoovers up roughly half of discretionary spending each year — locked in a 3.2 percent boost to its budget compared to last year.
Given the militarist mood in Washington, it’s not all that surprising that the defense budget was spared. But lawmakers may want to look more closely at what an agency that’s still never passed an audit does with its annual blank check.
Take, for example, last week’s revelation that defense giant Boeing has refused to give the Department of Defense pricing data for nearly 11,000 items included in a single sole-source contract. In other words, Boeing is charging taxpayers for thousands of parts without actually telling us how much each one costs. As Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) noted in an open letter to the Pentagon, this isn’t exactly a recipe for financial discipline.
“This is a deeply troubling finding that reveals these contractors’ contempt for the Department and the taxpayers,” Warren and Garamendi wrote. “These denials make it impossible for DoD officials to make sure the agency is not being ripped off.”
Brian McFadden