Debt Ceiling Quotes

I think there needs to be a meeting to set an agenda for more meetings about meetings.

The American people are fed up...with political posturing.' True, but also an example of political posturing.

The debt ceiling is not what causes our problems, it's the only thing that might help solve our problems.

As tensions built in the increasingly calamitous debt ceiling stalemate, two sources say, Boehner traveled to New York to personally beseech David Koch’s help. One former adviser to the Koch family says that “Boehner begged David to ‘call off the dogs!’ He pointed out that if the country defaulted, David’s own investments would tank.” A spokeswoman for Boehner, Emily Schillinger, confirmed the visit but insisted, “Anyone who knows Speaker Boehner knows he doesn’t ‘beg.’ ” But the spectacle of the Speaker of the House, who was among the most powerful elected officials in the country, third in line in the order of presidential succession, traveling to the Manhattan office of a billionaire businessman to ask for his help in an internecine congressional fight captures just how far the Republican Party’s fulcrum of power had shifted toward the outside donors by 2011.

Fascism feeds on social and economic grievances, including the belief that the people over there are receiving better treatment than they deserve while I’m not getting what I’m owed. It seems today that almost everyone has a grievance: the unemployed steelworker, the low-wage fast-food employee, the student up to her ears in debt, the businessperson who feels harassed by government regulations, the veteran waiting too long for a doctor’s appointment, the fundamentalist who thinks war is being waged against Christmas, the professional with her head brushing against a glass ceiling, the Wall Street broker who feels unfairly maligned, the tycoon who still thinks he is being overtaxed. Obviously, personal gripes—legitimate or not—have been part of the human condition ever since Cain decided to work out his jealousy on his brother. What is an added concern now is the lack of effective mechanisms for assuaging anger. As described above, we all tend to live in media and information bubbles that reinforce our grievances instead of causing us to look at difficult questions from many sides. Rather than think critically, we seek out people who share our opinions and who encourage us to ridicule the ideas of those whose convictions and perspectives clash with our own. At many levels, contempt has become a defining characteristic of American politics. It makes us unwilling to listen to what others say—unwilling, in some cases, even to allow them to speak. This stops the learning process cold and creates a ready-made audience for demagogues who know how to bring diverse groups of the aggrieved together in righteous opposition to everyone else.

When the House voted last year, 144 of its Republican members said no—they voted to put their country into bankruptcy. Just eighty-seven Republicans voted yes, to allow the government to meet its obligations. Perhaps this was just symbolic—those 144 knew that Democrats (198 of them, as it turned out) would all vote yes, so the debt ceiling was raised with votes to spare. Yet some of the Republicans sounded as though they would welcome default, and more expressed confidence that default wouldn’t really matter. Symbolic or not, that 144 members of the House were willing to cast a vote to default on the full faith and credit of the United States is a sign of our times. Those 144 House Republicans acted on an impulse that was first legitimized in 1981, when Ronald Reagan became the fortieth president of the United States. Reagan, who loved speech-making, made things clear on the Capitol steps from which he delivered his inaugural address. “Government,” he said on that occasion, using one of his favorite lines but now speaking about the institution he had just been elected to manage, “is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

the president finally understood what he was up against. “I think he came in truly trying to be post-partisan,” she said. “I think it took the debt ceiling fight to make him see that they hated him more than they wanted to succeed. It was an irrational deal, driven by their funders.” Two and a half years into his presidency, she said, “he finally realized they would rather kill him than save themselves.

Timothy Geithner recently came out and said it’s time to abolish the nation’s debt ceiling altogether, essentially raising the feds credit card limit to “infinity”, which they will need immediate access to when hyperinflation hits.

So how do we take advantage of the potential benefits that a sovereign currency affords the people of our nation while at the same time guarding against the risk of overspending? You might be tempted to argue that we already have safeguards in place. The debt ceiling limit, the Byrd rule, and PAYGO might look like effective checks on overspending. They aren’t. And it’s not because it’s easy for Congress to get around the rules. It’s because under current budgeting procedures, Congress doesn’t have to consider inflation risk when it wants to spend more. Remember, it put the Federal Reserve in charge of price stability. So, members of Congress only ask whether new spending will increase the deficit, not inflation. That’s the wrong question.

Why don’t we consider moving in together? While we head for this event?” She gulped. “What?” she asked weakly. “Let’s clear the debt, get Kid Crawford out of the picture, I’ll take on your upkeep rather than Vanni and Paul shouldering your food and board, and we’ll evolve into…” He cleared his throat. “We don’t have to explain anything. People will just say, ‘Dr. Michaels likes that nice pregnant girl.’ We’ll share a house. I’ll be your roommate. You’ll have your own room. But there will be late nights you’re worried about some belly pain or later, night crying from the babies. You don’t want to do that to Vanni and Paul and—” “I was just going to go home to Seattle. To my mom and dad’s.” “They have room for me?” he asked, lifting his fork and arching that brow. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said, slamming down her fork. “You can’t mean to say you plan to just follow me and demand to live with the babies!” “Well, no,” he said. “That would be obsessive. But Jesus, Ab, I don’t want to miss out on anything. Do you know how much babies change from two to six weeks? It just kills me to think you’d take them that far away from me. I mean, they are—” “I know,” she said, frustrated. “Yours.” “Yeah, sweetheart. And they’re also yours. And I swear to God, I will never try to take them away from you. That would be cruel.” He had just aimed an arrow at her sense of justice. The shock of realization must have shown on her face, but he took another bite, had another drink of his beer, smiled. “Live together?” “Here’s how it’ll go if you stay with Vanni and Paul. Toward the end, when you’re sleepless, you’ll be up at night. You’ll be tired during the day, but there will be a toddler around, making noise and crying. And you’ll have all those late pregnancy complaints, worries. Then you’ll have a small guest room stuffed to the ceiling with paraphernalia. Then babies—and grandmothers as additional guests? Newborns, sometimes, cry for hours. They could have Vanni and Paul up all night, walking the floor with you. Nah, that wouldn’t be good. And besides, it’s not Paul’s job to help, it’s mine.” “Where do you suggest we live? Here?” “Here isn’t bad,” he said with a shrug. “But Mel and Jack offered us their cabin. It’s a nice cabin—two bedrooms and a loft, ten minutes from town. Ideally, we should hurry and look around for a place that can accommodate a man, a woman, two newborns, two grandmothers and… We don’t have to make room for the lawyers, do we?” “Very funny,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Abby, we have things to work out every single day. We have to buy cribs, car seats, swings, layette items, lots of stuff—it’s going to take more than one trip to the mall. We have to let the families know there will be babies coming—it’s only fair. We should have dinner together every day, just so we can communicate, catch up. If there’s anything you need or anything you’re worried about, I want to be close so I can help. If you think I’m going to molest you while you’re huge with my babies—” “You know, I’m getting sick of that word, huge.

In order to ensure that only states which had achieved monetary stability should participate in the euro, five ‘convergence criteria’ were established regarding rates of inflation and of interest; ceilings for budget deficits and for total public debt; and stability of exchange rates. Budget deficits, for example, were not to exceed 3 per cent of GDP and public debt was to be limited to 60 per cent of GDP, unless it was ‘sufficiently diminishing’ and approaching the limit ‘at a satisfactory pace’. Only states that had satisfied the criteria were to be allowed to participate; and once again, stages and a timetable were fixed, in order to give at least a minimum number of states the time to do so. Others

(That’s not the same as, or nearly as bad as, failing to raise the debt ceiling and defaulting on government debt.)

We are now seeing angels outsourcing due diligence to entities they assume will do it better. In one case, the entity is Y Combinator, the elite accelerator. Yuri Milner’s DST Fund and Ron Conway’s SV Angel fund recently announced that they will invest in every single startup coming out of Y Combinator. The seed rounds will provide $150,000 to every single one of the 40 startups that wants it, without any due diligence on their own part whatsoever. The capital is in the form of convertible debt with no cap and no discount. The loan will convert when and if the startup raises a proper angel or VC capital round at the same valuation that’s set in the round. Most convertible debt has a valuation ceiling and also gets a discount on conversion. The angels are banking on the premise that Y Combinator, in vetting the startups it stewards, has performed satisfactory due diligence. Milner has effectively shut out any other angel investors by offering such attractive terms. It’s almost free money. I’d be surprised if any of the 40 startups in each Y Combinator class decline such an offer.

I think he came in truly trying to be post-partisan,” she said. “I think it took the debt ceiling fight to make him see that they hated him more than they wanted to succeed. It was an irrational deal, driven by their funders.” Two and a half years into his presidency, she said, “he finally realized they would rather kill him than save themselves.