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Writing at the National Review Online at the time, Ryan said the bill was a "reasonable, responsible effort to cut government spending, avoid a default, and help create a better environment for job creation."
Romney said the $1.2 in mandated cuts was "an extraordinary miscalculation in the wrong direction."
"Republican leaders agreed to that deal to the extend the debt ceiling," NBC's David Gregory reminded Romney.
"And that's a big mistake," Romney said. "I thought it was a mistake on the part of the White House to propose it. I think it was a mistake for Republicans to go along with it."
This brings us to the most important aspect of the debt ceiling “crisis” that the Republicans are ignoring.
If Republicans become obsessed with their agenda and refuse a reasonable deal, and the Democrats do not cave, the executive branch will be faced with an inability to continue its operations. This could mean, for example, that the troops in the various wars could not be supplied or paid, that air traffic controllers could not be paid, that the US government could not roll over the debt that comes due or issue the new debt that pays for 43% of federal budget expenditures. A shutdown today would be different in its reach from the Newt Gingrich government shutdown in the 1990s. Then the federal government got by with shutting down "nonessential government.” A shutdown today would require halting 43% of federal expenditures. If we were to include the wars, nonessential spending might actually total 43% of expenditures. But, of course, Republicans don't want to include the wars with nonessential spending.
The US dollar could plummet in exchange value and lose its role as world reserve currency. The US would no longer be able to pay its oil bill in its own currency, and as its balance of payments is heavily in the red, the US has no foreign currencies with which to pay its oil import bill. Or its manufactured goods import bill, or any other bill.
We are talking about a crisis beyond anything the world has ever seen. Does anyone think that President Obama is going to just sit there while the power of the US collapses? He doesn’t have to do so. There are presidential directives and executive orders in place, put there by George W. Bush himself, that President Obama can invoke to declare a national emergency, suspend the debt ceiling limit, and continue to issue Treasury debt. This is exactly what would happen.
The consequences would be that the power of the purse would transfer from Congress to the President. It would be the end of the power of Congress. Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, have already given away to the President Congress’ Constitutional right to decide whether the country goes to war. Now Congress would lose its power over debt, taxes, and the budget itself.
Republicans need to decide whether the advantage of delivering a blow against “leechdom” is worth such extreme risks.
You like Obama and a terrible economy, we get it.
Originally posted by ErEhWoN
reply to post by OccamsRazor04
You like Obama and a terrible economy, we get it.
Would rather have had Paul, but Obama > Romney for sure. And my economy isn't terrible. Making more than I ever have, saving more than I ever have. Not to shabby for me.
Originally posted by RealSpoke
Republicans tired to turn the US in a 3rd world country when they caused the whole debt ceiling fiasco. Not to mention while benefiting their rich friends at the same time.
The fact that Hillary Clinton would adopt the same tough line toward China during her presidential campaign as Bill Clinton did 16 years earlier would be less of a surprise were it not for her husband's intervening presidency. Bill Clinton abandoned his firm stance on China after taking office. The day after the debate where he accused the first Bush of coddling China, his campaign put out a statement blasting the "butchers of Beijing" and faulting the president for deciding "that we should give Most Favored Nation Status to Chinese communists who deny their people's basic rights." Soon after taking office, Clinton too was giving Most Favored Nation status to the Chinese communists and in 1998 became the first president to visit the "butchers of Beijing" since Tiananmen Square, even participating in a welcoming ceremony on the square. Two years later, he pushed through legislation making China's Most Favored Nation status permanent instead of requiring annual renewal.
Clinton came around to more or less the same conclusion as the two Bushes -- that China is too big, too important, too economically vital to try to isolate and that engagement through diplomacy and trade are the best ways to influence its behavior. He called his a "principled, pragmatic approach," much as the Bushes do their own policies. During a speech before leaving for China in 1998, Clinton rejected those who called on him to boycott, dismissing the argument "that somehow going there would absolve the Chinese government of its responsibility for the terrible killings at Tiananmen Square nine years ago or indicate that America is no longer concerned about such conduct." There was little to gain by snubbing his hosts, he said. "We do not ignore the value of symbols. But in the end, if the choice is between making a symbolic point and making a real difference, I choose to make the difference."
As of September 2012, debt held by the public was approximately $11.27 trillion or about 72% of GDP; intra-governmental holdings stood at $4.74 trillion, giving a combined total public debt of $16.02 trillion[4][5] [6] in July 2012, $5.3 trillion or approximately 48% of the debt held by the public was owned by foreign investors, the largest of which were China and Japan at just over $1.1 trillion each.[7]
In a recent study, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) analyzed American jobs lost to China between 2001 and 2011. During that time, “the trade deficit with China eliminated or displaced more than 2.7 million U.S. jobs, over 2.1 million of which were in manufacturing,” according to the report. Based on the study, 24/7 Wall St. identified the 10 states that experienced the most job loss as a result of the deficit between 2001 and 2011.