What’s
Wrong Today:
Dispatches from the front lines:
First, from
the Washington Examiner, Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN)
regarding the shutdown:
not going to be disrespected, we have to get something out of this. And I don’t
know what that even is…
When
the Teahadists do something to earn respect in the eyes of the rest of us, they
will be worthy of respect. A good conservative should know that respect isn’t a
right; it has to be earned. Mr. Stutzman, please encourage your Republican
buddies to fight the 2014 and 2016 elections under your platform of getting rid
of Obamacare while also attacking Social Security and Medicare.
Second,
HuffPo reports
that Republicans appear split on whether furloughed civil servants should get
back pay when the shutdown ends. From Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC):
too early to even consider that, but again we’re $7 trillion more in the hole
now than we were [in 1995-1996]…It makes it that much more difficult
His
concerns were echoed by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA):
be less chance of that now considering the great big budget deficit we have
now…We’re in a much worse situation
And we’re
only on Day 3. Maybe we could use the Congress’s own paychecks to fund the
back-pay for federal workers.
Third, Sen.
Rand Paul (R-Ky.) argued Wednesday that there’s no need to raise the debt ceiling because the US can pay the
interest on its debt with existing revenue. Paul argued that since the House
has passed a bill, the Full Faith
and Credit law that mandates payments on debt interest, Social Security,
Medicare and soldier’s salaries will get paid
first.
This means
that Sen. Paul favors a bill that would
cause default for a lot of government spending, since it creates a priority
for repayment. But, that is not what “Full Faith and Credit”, means. It means
that the government backs ALL debt that arises from legislative action or
common law. But Sen. Paul believes that if
the debt ceiling is breached, some government functions just wouldn’t get paid,
and no default would occur. Wrong. From The Hill:
would pass a law saying that the first revenue every month has to go to pay the
interest.
There is more to debt repayment than paying interest. There is that pesky principal that must be repaid as well.
Fourth, Media Matters reports that Fox News is spinning the
shutdown as the “slimdown”. The first report using the “slimdown” term by Fox
News was here:
the Obama administration is portraying as a “shutdown” of the federal
government — complete with signs posted at the entrances to government
buildings, parks and monuments — is turning out to be more of a
“slimdown,” as all but non-essential workers reported to their jobs
Tuesday.
Tell that
to the 800,000 furloughed government employees.
Even Fox
News host Howard Kurtz thinks this is stupid. His column said:
website keeps using the term ‘slimdown’ instead of shutdown, though no one would
claim this was some kind of sensible Weight Watchers method of trimming
government spending.
Finally, The
Daily Beast reports that the
“Hastert Rule” isn’t a rule:
(Denny Hastert was the longest serving Speaker of
the House of Representatives. He is said to have created the “Hastert Rule”
whereby no legislation can be brought to the floor unless a majority of
Republicans in the House are willing to vote for it. It is cited as the reason why House
Speaker John Boehner won’t allow a vote to fund the government with no
Obamacare strings attached.)
But Hastert told The Daily Beast on Wednesday:
Hastert Rule never really existed. It’s a non-entity as far as I’m concerned… if we had to
work with Democrats, we did.
Former Speaker Hastert throws current Speaker Boehner under
the bus. His big point in the interview is that a Speaker has to be able to
count votes if he wants to get things done.
So
perhaps Speaker Boehner won’t let the center-right majority of Republicans and
Democrats in the House have their way UNLESS he can get a majority from within
the House Republicans. If the count of Teahadist Representatives (~30)
mentioned in yesterday’s NYT is correct, there are 180-200
Republicans in the House that would vote to solve the debt ceiling and the
shutdown. That is a majority of House Republicans. It takes 217 votes to pass a bill in the House, so it would only take
about 40 Democrats to join in passing a clean CR and a debt ceiling bill on to
the Senate.
Back to Sen. Paul: he is wrong when he says that
we don’t have to worry about a default. Our 2013 budget is $3.8 Trillion. We
have projected $2.9 Trillion in receipts. The shortfall is $900 billion. We
can’t meet our already approved committed expenditures without an increase in
the debt ceiling. When you can’t pay, you default.
For someone with Presidential
aspirations, Sen. Paul has proven he isn’t qualified. Either he really believes his BS,
and thus is over his head, or he is encouraging more reckless behavior by Republicans.
Either way, he shouldn’t
be a Senator in our Republic, much less a Presidential candidate.
He makes John Boehner
look like a statesman.
