Sorry to Burst Your Bubble

A Conversation between Friends - Very Left, Very Right

Liberal Friend:

in my opinion, our president is the only person in this whole

situation who is looking out for our country.

Living The Dream:

Sorry to burst your bubble.


ha ha ha ha.  let's look at the FACTs related to him...

 1) Submits budget in February asking for INCREASES in budget

 2) Changes tune several months later to say we MUST decrease

spending, it is essential, etc.

 3) Had a deal done but when Gang of 6 came out he changed the

baseline and demanded more taxes...Reid had plan with no taxes,

GOP had plan with no taxes.  Deal was being done and he comes

out on Monday and says there must be taxes...we all know there

will not be taxes so he his running down the clock further.

4) Finally, he & Geithner have gone around talking "default, default, default"       

*This is not about default...there will be no default.

*It's about the rating agencies which should not matter to begin with.

*Phony savings in Iraq and Afghanistan of $1TT which were already counted and the "related" additional 400bb in "saved" interest is nothing more that BS from Reid.

*If this were about his precious election getting past 1yr, I'd say, fine compromise it.  However, S&P and Moodys have said they want AT LEAST $4TT which Dems don't get in 1 yr...thus, timing issue does not fix it.

*Reid had the ability to get this passed back in December - after not passing a budget while in complete control of the entire govt due to fear of upsetting the electorate - but he went on record that he wanted the Republicans to do.  Spineless.

**** I believe politically, the Prez has the ST advantage for the final resolution and your buddies in the media will certainly paint it that way.  However, unlike Clinton, he will not find himself running against his Congressional counterpart (Bachmann notwithstanding) whom he can then call "evil" as did Clinton on Dole.

*** The markets suck PRIMARILY b/c the economy sucks.  GDP in 1q was just reassessed down to 0.4% from 1.9%- holy cow!  No one has jobs.  Housing is not allowed to clear.  Business leaders are spooked.  Investors don't trusth him. HE MADE IT a lot frickin' WORSE.

Liberal Friend:

I don't know enough of the details to attempt to counter your points.  But you raise an important issue that I've been thinking about ... if the rating agencies are saying that it's not the debt ceiling alone, it's their expectation of massive cuts in spending over multiple years that are needed to maintain the AAA, then why have they only started saying this in the recent weeks?  Why didn't they bring it up one yr ago, three yrs ago, etc.?

Living the Dream:

exactly.  first, they suck.  they suck, they suck.  second, i hear they just downgraded Greece two days ago...they are always late to the party.  third, there should not even be a debt ceiling but here we are.  HOWEVER, if we didn't have one in place and the agencies were true to their "models" then we already would have been downgraded.  Fourth, going direct to your question, they have spoken about it in the past.  It hasn't gotten lots of press until recently and, to my knowledge, the actual figures I've been hearing are more recent.  A little group has been talking about over tea for the last two years.  Finally, the US govt (GOVT AGAIN!) are the ones that have enabled the agencies to begin with.