Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Op-ed: The debt ceiling/default debacle...the sky ain't falling

Op-ed:
The debt ceiling/default debacle...the sky ain't falling
By: Diane Sori

October 17th…the day Obama claims the sky will fall as the US goes into default...or so he says.

October 17th…the day Treasury Department spokespeople have said that the government’s cash-on-hand will only be $30 billion when everyday our government must spend at least $60 billion…and they claim there is NO way of reducing payments by an across-the-board percentage to stay under the debt limit.

By October 17th “The debt ceiling must be raised…this cannot and should not be a matter of negotiation,” so bloviates Obama mouthpiece Jay Carney.

And as October 17th draws near “The president is risking default by not having a conversation with us,” says Speaker of the House John Boehner.

But the thing is they’re ALL wrong for there is NOTHING magical about October 17th as the debt ceiling was actually reached back on May 19th.

And on that day as we knew they would, the Treasury Department did some clever ‘hokus-pokus’ paper shuffling and tapped into exchange-rate funds to ‘miraculously’ find $303 billion in extra funds, and they also delayed some pension fund payments and drew down an emergency fund to get even more cash on hand…thus allowing us to NOT run out of money to pay our bills until the end of October or later…if we actually run out at all.

Guess what...we won’t.

And all this bru-haha about debt ceilings is just nonsense for what NO one…NOT Obama…NOT Prince Harry…NOT John Boehner…and for sure NOT the media...will tell “We the People’ is that the debt ceiling in and of itself does NOT dictate how much the government is allowed to spend simply because that's Congress' job to do when the budget is set each year. The debt ceiling does only one thing and one thing alone…it lays the amount of dollars the government can borrow to fulfill obligations that Congress has already passed into law.

And herein lies the real problem…we have NO budget and have NOT had one for going on four years now…four years under Obama’s watch.

So with NO budget in place Obama was unleashed to spend our money basically unfettered for there were NO budget constraints that would have reigned him in. And make NO mistake about it…if we had had a budget…a working budget…in place all these years we would NOT be in the position we find ourselves in today…and Barack HUSSEIN Obama and his Democratic cohorts built this mess and own it all.

And now we have the doom and gloomers circling overhead like vultures…circling and crying that if the House refuses to raise the debt ceiling the federal government will be forced to raise taxes on ‘We the People’ to meet its obligations…and raise them high…as if they aren’t high enough already.

But that is NOT likely to happen nor is it even the truth as the mid-term elections are coming up, and those up for re-election in both parties know that to even suggest raising taxes would be political suicide.

So if taxes will NOT be raised to meet our obligations and with notes coming due must the House Republicans…who right now are standing strong…be forced to acquiesce to Obama to avoid default…NOT so fast for default can be avoided by simply paying the interest on notes due.

And rest assured we have plenty of funds to do just that as Obama and Reid are truly trying to pull the wool over the American people’s eyes as they whine that America will be broke. But once again they’re wrong for as per Forbes, the fiscal 2013 debt service for the twelve months that ended on September 30 will end up being around $420 billion. IRS revenues for the calendar 2012 tax year will end up being around $2.3 trillion, and together this equates to over a five and a half times the monies needed for debt ceiling coverage.

So while we have plenty of cash to meet our current obligations as stated by the numbers above, there obviously is NOT enough for everything. With around $850 billion estimated to be the deficit for fiscal year 2014, some services will obviously have to be cut…and cut across the board…while leaving services like Social Security, Medicare, and of course interest on the debt alone as they MUST be met as per law…and these Obama must protect at all costs if he is to save his ‘legacy.’

So Obama and his Democratic cohorts will be forced to compromise…even if it’s at the 12th hour…and Boehner and crew must use ObamaCare as the means to turn this battle into their favor. And with the Bipartisan Policy Center report estimating that Congress would need to raise the debt ceiling by around $1.1 trillion to allow the government to meet all of its obligations in full…NOT just making interest payments…through the end of 2014, Obama needs to make nice-nice with Republicans or the entire phony debt ceiling/defaulting debacle risks exploding in his face.

And that will be a legacy he’s worthy of.
http://thepatriotfactor.blogspot.com/2013/10/op-ed-debt-ceilingdefault-debacle.html


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