U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urged Congress to raise the national debt limit, now at 8.965 trillion dollars, saying the country may be unable to pay its bills this fall.
“I am writing to request that Congress raise the statutory debt limit as soon as possible,” said Paulson in a letter to Congress. He estimated that the government is likely to bump into the statutory debt limit in early October.
The national debt limit has been boosted several times since President George W. Bush took office in 2001. The last time was in March 2006 when [rubberstamp] Congress agreed to raise the debt ceiling by 781 billion dollars.
In February last year, the Bush administration said it had begun to use a government employee pension fund to avoid hitting the then national debt limit of 8.184 trillion dollars.
This is getting lots of coverage abroad – especially in China where Paulson is handing out free advice on how to run their economy.
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Anyone have a good reference for the thinking behind having a “debt limit” in the first place?
Was it possibly put in place as a self regulating warning flag that internal measures need to be taken to avoid reaching it, or is it only a flagging mechanism to annouce our continual downfall?
Good job CONGRESS. Every one of them should be tossed out of office.
“NO—let ME be the one who lies to you, cheats, steals and tells you what you want to hear.” All pretty obvious.
um, haven’t this president, the previous house majority and the current senate majority clearly shown that republican rhetoric about wanting small unobtrusive government and balance budgets is a big fat lie?
i don’t know about you, but my taxes really aren’t any lower
so what’s new here? i’ll tell you instead of lots of americans getting no-bid welfare handouts, a small cadre of well connected executives get no-bid contracts that pay to ship their jobs overseas, leaving american workers behind.
yay.
Let’s import more goods from China! At least you’re having fun opening the wrappers while future generations can pay for it all. Fuck them… it’s all about me, me, me…
Quite frankly… you can hear the violins playing as the ship is sinking. At least there’s no panic… not yet.
#3
And when we’re at… let’s start another war.
Way to go fiscal conservatives!!
Oh wait, there are no more fiscal conservatives. Perhaps there are some on this blog and otherwise outside of government. But, not inside where it counts.
#2 If your taxes are not any lower now just wait until Billary and Obomba get elected.
My taxes have gone down every time we have had a tax cut so I must be one of those evil people making more than $30k a year, you know, the rich people.
#6.
I don’t want you to pay more – I want CEOs to pay more. You confuse a crumb for the 7 course meals they hand out to the rich.
It sounds like you can be bought quite cheaply & of course the neocons what it that way.
#7, and I just want the government to treat everybody equally, and require that we all pay the same proportional share.
Maybe it’s time to file for chapter 13 and sell off parts of the company, er, country.
#6 Thanks a lot. Your Obomba thing made me laugh pretty hard.
#7 – Sounds The Alarm,
I’m with you on that. I think 15% is a lot of money to pay in taxes for someone making only $30,000/yr and not a lot for someone making $130,000/yr and next to nothing for someone making $13,000,000/yr.
Progressive tax recognizes this. Flat tax does not.
#8 – Sea Lawyer,
I strongly disagree, as stated above. It may make sense to have certain taxes, like AMT, be based on zip code or something that would take area into account. This would help account for the fact that $100,000/yr is barely middle class in Manhattan but is wealthy in East Bumfuck. Still though, flat tax is not the way to go as it does nothing to address anything except that rich people want to pay even less than they already do. (And, by that, I don’t mean a paltry $13,000,000/yr, I’m talking about the billionaires that already pay less in total taxes than the rest of do in FICA alone.)
Then, it’s always easy to laugh at wimmin and darkies, ain’t it.
I think we should give another tax break to the oil companies to further improve the performance of our economy. And while we are at it, let’s get rid of all them darn immigrants that are responsible for our national debt.
#13 – Awake,
The damn immigrants actually are responsible for all of our debt. The Native Americans probably didn’t have much in the way of debt before their conquest, slaughter, and genocide at the hands of European immigrants.
#11, funny how the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment always slips people’s minds when they are looking for ways to fund their big government programs.
In any case, you must be aware that there is a difference in how and when taxes are paid for earned income and for capital gains, correct? It’s usually the case that those evil billionaires possess wealth that has either already been taxed, or exists in the form of stocks and bonds which won’t be taxed until they are sold and a gain (or loss) is realized.
#15 – Sea Lawyer,
I thought it was the triple tax free munis.
Yes. I’m aware of the difference between income and capital gains.
What part of the 14th amendment do you think is violated by a progressive tax code?
Well Congress could refuse to extend the Debt Limit. Then the President would have to explain why his war is costing so much and how it has boosted the current national debt. In fact, Congress could refuse to pass any financial, budget, or tax measures until Bush starts to obey the Congressional Subpoenas. They could even attach riders to their requested bills that said bill would only become law after the appointment of a special prosecutor that answers to Congress.
Yup. We need a strong Democrat leader to reorganize our national finances. Someone like Bill Clinton.
QUOTE:
The national debt limit has been boosted several times since President George W. Bush took office in 2001. The last time was in March 2006 when [rubberstamp] Congress agreed to raise the debt ceiling by 781 billion dollars.
END quote…
I like this statement..
HOw to Ruin a country in 1 easy step.
said before…
there are many ways to take over a country.
War,
Money,
religion
And what did this president do when he FIRSt took office?
He gave MONEY away…
#6 i make decent cheese and the “tax cuts” might have saved me a couple hundred bucks per year (um, yay?)
however that is a pittance compared to the hype republicans gave it
how much did your taxes go down? did it let you buy a better car? bigger house — i rather doubt it.
i think you drank the kool-aid — republican economic policy, whatever their goals are, is going to destroy the middle class, leaving only super rich, kinda poor, and poor
the entire middle class in america right now is gonna be screwed when the bills we’re racking up with red china come due.
and it’s your boy gw who is selling america’ to them, lock, stock and barrel
let me ask you — how will g.w. bring down the debt? — oh, that’s right he CAN’T because he’s leaving office; how convenient.
#19 grog,
That’s a bit dire, don’t you think? However, I must say that Republican presidents do have a tendency to leave unimaginable sums of debt for Democrats to clean up.
It would appear that Republican strategy is to drain the treasury into the Military-Industrial Complex and the Petroleum industry then leave office, whereupon they snipe at tax-and-spend Democrats who are trying to clean up the mess.