“:With a vote on a debt reduction plan favored by Speaker of the House John Boehner apparently in doubt, the attention of lawmakers grappling to meet an Aug. 2 deadline to avoid a default on the national debt has turned to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,” Arik Hesseldahl reports for AllThingsD. “Reid’s plan, which is expected to come to the Senate floor for a vote today, would raise $24.5 billion over 10 years, of which $13.1 billion would be available for deficit reduction, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.”
“So how does $13 billion help solve a $14.3 trillion problem? It helps fills some of the gaps by making the bill more palatable to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle,” Hesseldahl reports. “As one wireless industry lobbyist put it, spectrum auctions are in large part seen as politically neutral territory because they’re not tax increases that Republicans would oppose, and they’re not spending cuts, which so irritate Democrats.”
“Just because spectrum auction revenue is neither a tax increase nor a spending cut doesn’t mean there’s no opposition. Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican and 2008 GOP presidential nominee, blasted the plan and called it a ‘cop-out’ from the Senate floor. Meanwhile, Rep. Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat, told Politico earlier this week that the debt bill is the wrong place to debate wireless spectrum,” Hesseldahl reports. “It wouldn’t be the first time that wireless spectrum has figured in the budget-balancing and deficit-reduction process. Revenue generated from spectrum auctions helped then-President Bill Clinton balance the budget in 1993 and 1997, and President George W. Bush used them to help reduce the federal budget deficit in 2005.”
Hesseldahl reports, “What would all that spectrum be used for? The expectation is that wireless carriers like Verizon Wireless and AT&T would bid on it in order to expand their wireless broadband networks, and thus give smartphone users more bandwidth to slake their apparently insatiable digital thirst.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Talking point to be repeated until further notice:
Extremist Republicans and (scowl) Tea Party extremists need to stop holding the country hostage.
(Make sure to ALWAYS use “extremist,” “Tea Party,” and “hostage.” Note: This memo is not for public consumption.)
… DNC opened a can of worms early – except this goes right on MDN’s account. What does this have to do with Apple? Didn’t even see a somewhat obligatory aside! If I wanted yet another source of political content, I just might see a shrink to discuss what might be an obsession.
Why could’t Apple bid on that spectrum?
What a stupid dick. That’s like saying pissing into the Atlantic Ocean will raise sea temperatures and prevent ice floes from forming, thereby saving the Titanic.
It’s worth a try…
Supposedly, Boehner’s plan is now going to pass with the addition of a balanced-budget amendment:
House Republicans will link passage of a balanced-budget amendment to Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) last-ditch debt-ceiling plan, which GOP lawmakers said would move the measure to passage in a high-stakes vote later on Friday.
Republican lawmakers voiced confidence the enhanced bill would pass muster with conservatives, as Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) predicted the balanced-budget amendment change would bring 10 to 20 more GOP members on board.
Full article here.
DOA.
No shit, Sherlock.
The fact that it’s DOA in a Dem-controlled Senate is the point.
No, the point is the republicans continue to waste valuable time and risk unprecedented economic damage.
Economic damage….Apparently you didn’t read the jobs report today. That ship has sailed and there is no one to blame but “Mr. hope and screw up” Obama and his gang of merry thieves.
On a country they claim to love.
Like I said : Tea Party is history, toast , bye and good ridins!
Compromise makes a return and it don’t need no stinking tea party…Read this and weep come Monday.
I sure hope the people see through the Democrats and their ridiculous antics … The only thing that will save this country is to constrain them, take away their class-race warfare, is have a Balanced Budget and Term Limit Amendments.
(The only extremist are those who cry race, class warfare, and other names other than finding a solution to $14T in debt, $60+T in unfunded mandates
As this article demonstrates, there is no real attempt by Reid, other than to cry fowl when an attempt to slow the increase in government (e.g., trying to kill grandma, babies, etc…)
The question is how much longer will it take those who have become brainwashed to wake up!
The non-partisan view from Canada is that the Republicans are outrageously stupid fuckers and would rather take down the country than work with the Democrats, how stupid is that.
Sounds pretty non-partisan!
For a Jerk-Off Panty-Waste Liberal Democrat from Canada, yeah, I agree, sounds… well, non-partisan.
But as a dumb fuck from Canada, who is too stupid to know, we should educate the brain comatose Canadian. The TEA Party “candidates” have only been in political “power” 6 months and as a grassroots organization with no political power, other than the right to vote, the TEA Party itself, only a little more than a couple of years. Hardly enough time to screw up the country, let alone take it down. The Liberals in power have been doing too good of a job! Thus the reason of the birth of the TEA Party. Think you can keep that in that mush that’s crammed into that numskull of yours?
You really improve on the impression’s one might have regarding the intelligence of Canadians, you know that don’t you?
The Tea Party is not grass-roots, it’s astroturf, bought and paid for by the looter elites who are too blinded by greed to recognize that a healthy, fair economy will make them richer long-term than any amount they can squeeze out by destroying the safety net that 80% of Americans will need at some point in their lives. When you look at who paid for the meeting rooms and who paid for the busses to move these kooks around you get to some very large checkbooks quite quickly.
You are one deranged ahole, libtard, commie, quivering! Tea party is American. You commie-libtards are as anti-Amercian as it gets. We will vote you F*ckers out and use your tactics right back at you. I hope the government shuts down. That would be spectacular.
Regarding your critique of the intelligence levels of Canadians, I guess it wouldn’t do much good to point out your somewhat-less-than-objective assessment of our political, social, and economic situation; or your various spelling and grammar errors (for instance, “Panty-Waste” should be “Pantywaist”; one word and no hyphen). There are other things I won’t take the time to comment on, other than to wonder at your obsessive capitalization of “TEA.” Unless the word is an acronym, your capitalization is inconsistent with both American and British English (Canada uses British spelling, which is probably news to you).
I look forward to your enlightened response.
Mark
Stop speaking for the whole country you troll! many people in Canada (myself included) see it way different than that. A true non-partisan view would be, what can be done by both sides to straighten out this mess. R-tard!
Just to make things clearer for our American friends, 42 to 43% of those who vote, voted for the slightly right of center party in the last federal election.
That means that well over 50% of the voters voted for the 4 different left wing parties, only one of them being slightly left of center.
Obviously the right won a handy majority.
If we had just 2 parties, and there is a move afoot to unite the left, we would be in the same 50% – 50% mess that your country is in.
@FedUp
I’m with you. The Democrats want a “fair and balanced approach,” which means they want to increase taxes.. Cutting spending only diminishes their power. I’m fine with not raising the debt limit at all. Force them to live within their means and make the hard choices: #1 Pay the interest on the debt, #2 Fund entitlement obligations until reform can be made, #3 Fund military families, and cut the defense budget by pulling out of the wars, #4 give the responsibility and stewardship of non-essential federal bureaucracies to the states like the Forest Service, EPA, FEMA, DOE, ED, DOL, HUD, DOT, USDA. The states could do a much better job at managing the needs of the citizens. Generally, the closer the government is to the people, the more responsive it is.
Solving the fiscal problems of the federal government through spending cuts alone is not necessarily the best approach. I am not fond of taxes, myself, but I do believe in paying as you go. Unfortunately, both political parties have contributed to a national debt in excess of $14T which, even at historically low interest rates, requires ~$600B of debt service per year.
Step 1 is to quit increasing the debt by reducing the annual federal deficit as quickly as possible towards a balanced budget. I am willing to accept moderate tax increases to balance the federal budget if most of the deficit reduction is achieved through spending cuts. The “balanced approach” of $3 in spending cuts to $1 in increased revenue sounds reasonable to me.
Step 2 would be to pay down the accumulated debt. This process would gradually reduce the debt service payment (assuming a constant interest rate). If it were my home budget, I would use those funds to pay down the principal more quickly, thus accelerating the process. At some point in the distant future we would be in a solid financial position from which we could consider cutting taxes or adding/modifying a few programs. Until then, austerity is the name of the game.
I used this approach to pay off over $19,000 in debt over a couple of years. I expect similar financial prudence from my government.
Step 2 only works when you have adults in the White House. The first thing Bush did when he saw a budget surplus that could have been used to pay down the debt was to declare “If Government has a surplus, they’re taking too much of your money.” Then he gave the surplus to his rich friends.
No quivering you jackass. The money is our hard earned property that the government takes from us by force and wastes and gives to the mainly drug addicted and habitual-generational welfare abusers. Not to mention the unions in the government to use as a slush fund to send right back to the democrat national party. We know exactly what is going on. You liberals would be in jail if you did this outside of government. There is so much waste and corruption in government. We need to massively shrink it and make people have personal responsibility. You are the problem quivering.
The democrats want to the rich to pay the same tax rate as the average American “closing the loopholes”. That’s what the republicans demonize as “raising taxes” and won’t allow this.
Talking about the past is a useless issue but this issue needs actions now that are in the best interest of this country not in the best special interests of the rich.
“Force them to live within their means…” Do you realize that the debt doubled under George W. Bush, a Republican? Do you realize that by not raising the debt, the Republicans are reneging on a promise to pay made when Bush decided to sell Treasury bonds to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Do you realize that when George W. Bush cut taxes for the wealthy he did so at the expense of everyone in this country who was not wealthy? Are you wealthy? Are you seeing millions of dollars a year in savings, without having to worry about a failing infrastructure because you can afford to live in gated communities where the need for police, and many other social services, is not essential? Can you afford to send your kids to the best prep schools and colleges, regardless of the increasing cost of education and the cutting of federal and state funds for that education?
Do you realize the chaos, litigation, financial entanglements… that would ensue if each state had their own EPA, FEMA, DOE…? Imagine a coal plant in Pennsylvania polluting much of eastern Ohio: Ohio’s EPA says that Pennsylvania needs to control emissions; Pennsylvania’s EPA says “Screw you, Pennsylvania; we’re creating jobs. If our pollution is poisoning your air and water, it’s too bad.” One of the reasons the nation federalized in the eighteenth century was that it was difficult to achieve many objectives vital for the survival of our nation, whether it was raising troops, paying debt, raising funds… In many instances, the states are perfectly capable of managing the needs of the citizens, but for others, a lack of a strong central government would mean a stalemate, as each state and region has drastically different needs and goals.
Had Wall Street, with the complicity of the nation’s banks and government not gamed the system to the point of destruction, we would not be in the grave situation we’ve been in for the past few years.
People don’t realize that taxes are a vital part of a functioning nation. The problem is how those taxes are collected, from whom, and how the revenue is allocated. We’ve done a terrible job all around by allowing multi-billion collar corporations pay little or no taxes, skewing the tax system in favor of the wealthy (read the book “Perfectly Legal”), and using much of the revenue to either pay interest on a debt that was allowed to accrue past the point of all reason (both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for this), and giving vast amounts of money to defense contractors at the expense of our cities, citizens, and overall infrastructure.
Without compromise, nothing will get done. To blame Democrats, without acknowledging the culpability of Republicans is to lack an understanding of our situation.
Right on! Take away the free rides these democrat voters keep voting themselves. Their goal is to flat out destroy all American values and the United States. Patently obvious. We will vote them out and abolish unions!!!!!!!
The republicans hysterical about $14T in debt are the same republicans who voted over and over for the expenses that incurred the debt. They also cheerfully rubber-stamped debt increases SEVEN times in the last ten years to put 2+ wars, Medicare Part D, and enormous tax give aways on America’s credit card, and YOU likely voted for them. And now you believe the same republican liars and hypocrites want to solve the crisis they created?
Nope, not the same Republicans. You’re thinking of the establishment Republicans, like Boehner, who feign concern over the debt to get public attention but are actually fine with, say, proposing a debt limit agreement with a decade of budgets that never balance. He is of a rather different breed than the newly-elected Tea Partiers (e.g. Rand Paul) who hate debt from wherever it comes, who want to end our wars and Medicare Part D and so many other things that establishment Republicans have spent money on, and who will vote for Boehner’s debt compromise about as readily as they would vote for an increase in taxes: absolutely never. Just clearing things up.
Are those the same republicans in the House who voted FOR the Ryan budget which will add yet more $trillions to the debt?
ALL the republicans in the House now have voted for increased debt. This manufactured crisis was never really about fiscal responsibility (otherwise the Ryan budget would not have increased debt), it’s about the political agenda of erasing the New Deal and the Great Society programs. Which you may like, but no politician, t-party or otherwise, would be able to do outright and survive reelection *unless* they had the political cover of a desperate crisis.
And attempting to win a political agenda by threatening to wreck the economy is despicably anti-American.
If the current WiFi spectrum has been auctioned off to AT&T and their ilk we would not have wifi now. The only thing they want to do with that spectrum is sit on it until they can figure a way to nickel and dime us to death for it.
Dingy Harry. What the slight majority of Nevada voters were thinking in returning that fool to the senate is unknown.
Likely, they weren’t thinking about it at all since they were too busy losing their jobs and being foreclosed upon.
That’s right, I would never vote for a Mormon. Oh wait, yes I would, Romney 2012!
Obama policies +$1.4 trillion to national debt…
Bush policies +$7 trillion to national debt…
Why weren’t all the right wing nuts screaming during the last administration?!?! Quite telling.
Tea Party ideologues are going to sink the economy. New taxes coming via increased interest rates and the jobless rate will likely skyrocket. A majority of Americans want COMPROMISE and a BALANCED approach to our debt problems, not extremism.
I was screaming back then. I was against the war in Iraq and the prescription drug plan.
Next time try making a reasoned argument instead of pointing fingers.
As you can see from the current debt crisis, there is no reasoning with far-right ideologues. ‘Compromise’ and ‘bipartisanship’ are dirty words in their book.
Perhaps you were against the Bush policies that added $7 trillion to our debt via two poorly planned wars, unfunded prescription drug benefits and tax cuts for some who didn’t really need them. However, you seem to be in the minority because I don’t recall any righties demanding Bush make extreme cuts the seven times he increased the debt ceiling. I also haven’t heard any on the right discussing the $7 trillion his policies added to the debt.
Will Tea Party ideologues pledge to reimburse those negatively affected by their recklessness?!?!
Look, I’m really not trying to troll, nor do I consider myself an ideologue. I think smaller government is better for the people. The nature of government is to grow and when it grows it begins to oppress the people.
I concur with your viewpoint. The problem is that we have two political parties that are so polarized that they cannot hold meaningful discussions to reach a compromise solution. The Tea Party has some worthy objectives, but is actually making the situation worse by refusing to consider any form of compromise, and taking the rest of the GOP with it.
I believe both parties are sinking the American people. They should stop fighting against each other and treat it like it was there bank accounts.
That is what the Tea Party wants- not allways raising taxs (AKA Revenue, unless it is needed to sound bad and then taxes is used ito replace Revenue)
They think 13 billion is saving?! They send that in a day. We are lost. Our leader have there head so far up there arse, it is not even worth acknowledging.
Sad the idioits that built and sailed the titanic are in office in there new life..,,,
You lie.
G.W. Bush added $4 trillion to the U.S. debt over his 8 years.
Obama added $4.3 trillion to the U.S. debt over his 2+ years.
These are facts. Look them up. Stop lying, liar.
POLICIES is the key word here.
POLICIES enacted during the PREVIOUS administration have CONTINUED to ADD to the debt during the current administration. The current administration also enacted POLICIES in an effort to fix an economy in free fall that was inherited from the PREVIOUS administration.
That said, BOTH parties are to blame for years of spending without balancing the books. However, a BALANCED approach to solving our debt problems is the way to go. How can ANYONE defend cuts to education, infrastructure, veteran’s programs, senior programs, etc while providing tax breaks to big oil, hedge fund managers and the ultra-wealthy?!?
Those are facts *only* if you ignore the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which are not included in your Bush numbers, but are included in your Obama numbers.
You need to relax, think about solving the problem, and quite talking in bold.
Uh, conservatives were, but they couldn’t be heard over the vitriolic nonsense coming from the left. Conservatives howled at Bush spending and growing the Federal Government, but you couldn’t hear them while lefties were marching around calling him Hitler and such nonsense. Keep in mind though, Bush was in office for 8 years. Look at any chart and the rate of Obama expenditures is higher and if he keeps going, he will DWARF Bush II spending by the 8th year.
http://coralvillecourier.typepad.com/community/2010/07/bush-era-spending-vs-obama-era.html
Note the dramatic steep change when the Democrats take over.
There is no compromise to double digit government growth in comparison to single digit economic growth. Either we’re going to fix the out of control spending, or we aren’t. We’re just going to spend ourselves into insolvency.
The talk of compromise always makes me laugh. We need to cut the government size in half over the next 3 years, not cut the size of planned increases (which is what Obama calls compromise).
Please stop to consider the massive financial collapse that Bush handed to Obama along with two wars. I doubt that the deficit or the economy would have been any better if Bush could have stayed in office for a third term. That is what the fanatics fail to consider in their zeal to replace Obama. They are willing to sacrifice the country in order to gain power again. That is truly foolish and despicable in my opinion.
In 8yrs Bush added almost 5 trillion to our debt
In less than 3 years Obama is almost at 4 trillion
If we continue for 8yrs under Obama it will be over 10 trillion
And I was screaming at Bush for more than the just extra trillions he was spending.
Obama: ‘We have to live within our means’
Obama on debt ceiling in 2006:
“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.”
Dear Mr. Perspective: You first need to the reasons why the U.S. debt and deficit were increasing in 2006. Two wars – one completely avoidable and the other extended because of the opening of the second war. A flawed prescription drug plan. And massive tax cuts that reduced federal revenue. Those were not good reasons to increase spending/decrease revenue, and deserved to be questioned.
Is it not reckless now to push the debt well past 14T? How much debt is enough? 20T, 25T?
The reduction in revenue stemmed directly from the economic collapse of September 2008, and not from the controversial Bush tax cuts. As a matter of fact, during the Bush years, with the lower top tax rate (35 percent), Uncle Sam collected an average of 17.1 percent from the economy in federal taxes—very much in line with historical figures going all the way back to 1951.
Uncle sam collects 2.2T a year and this is not enough? The government regardless of who’s running it needs to begin to live within it’s means as it preaches to the rest of us.
Actually, that debt has risen closer to 4.1 trillion since Obama took over than 1.4. (And it does reach 4.1 trillion if you count TARP which was passed late in the campaign, but which he supported.) It’s over 1.4 trillion just THIS YEAR! In 2009 alone he put his signature to an $800 billion stimulus plan.
The fact that we’re here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. Leadership means ‘The buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.
There is one good thing… EVERYONE is FINALLY discussing how much freaking money this country is wasting instead of JUST conservatives.
MANY people from across the political spectrum have been concerned about spending for quite some time. There is no need to get “holier than thou” on this subject. Neither party has performed well overall during the past 30 years.
What I don’t understand is why these teabag conservatives claim to be Christians. Why would they even bother with a religion whose figurehead is famous for giving away free health care to the poor, and telling people to pay their taxes?
Anyway, Woodrow Wilson showed us that cutting spending during a recession is a surefire way to create a prolonged depression. And what is the GOP trying to do? Make sure we don’t salvage our faltering economy. I guess these anti-American extremists are indeed terrorists.
Do you even own an American History book?
Please tell me you are not a Republican trying to make the left look stupid.
Here we go again. Ugly-time.
And stupid, too. Why the obsession with destroying your own credibility?….
Keep the politics in Uranus.
Yeah, ugly time indeed.
Most of the people I used to know here on MDN have given up and quit all this political jazz. Even though I know this post will b censored and removed I’d like to try to say goodbye.
I’m done with MDN. It’s just too political for someone like me who hates all things politics. I’m a Mac guy, first, last, and always. I’ll go to Mac sites.
Solong folks
Harry Reid couldn’t save a grizzly from an amoeba! He is scum to the core and bought union votes to steal the last election! He is the worst Srnate Majority Leader in American History to go with the worst President and former House Speaker, Princess, there is no god, Pelosi! Don’t u just love when politicians meddle in technology and our lives?!!
Very well said. So simple and so true. anakniperdo 2012!
Only term limits will solve our problems in Washington.