Archive for 2011

JENNIFER RUBIN: A Position, A Plan, And A Walk.

The House Republicans have a position on the debt reform that is substantively sound and politically attuned to their base: cuts greater than the amount which the debt ceiling will be raised. There is no indication that Democrats or the president will accept that.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R- Ky.) has a plan, which isn’t ideal unless you think a bipartisan deal is possible or you think Republicans won’t be blamed for a default.

The president took a walk, abruptly leaving the White House meeting. Democrats say he was “badgered” by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) Heavens, can’t have that. He also has no viable plan that can pass the House (or even the Senate).

So where are we? Yesterday Cantor reiterated, “Though none of the plans being discussed right now could garner the 218 votes needed for House passage, we have found areas of agreement.” So if not the McConnell plan, then what?

Read the whole thing. And may I suggest that what we really need for the long term is constitutional reform?

UPDATE: A proposed constitutional amendment from Bob Krumm.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Obama Exposes Social Security’s Big Lie.

In trying to score political points against the GOP by warning that retirement checks were in jeopardy if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, President Obama exposed the fraud at the heart of Social Security. . . . Obama beat everyone, however, with his scaremongering claim that Social Security checks are at risk if he doesn’t get his way on the debt ceiling. “I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on Aug. 3 if we haven’t resolved this issue,” he told CBS News, “because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.”

Wait! What happened to Social Security’s “guarantee”? You know, the iron-clad assurance of Social Security benefits in exchange for paying into the program your whole working life? It’s something Democrats constantly talk about, particularly when attacking Republicans who propose privatizing the program.

If it were privatized, your check wouldn’t be at the whim of a President with a politicized agenda.

UPDATE: Reader Donald Gately writes:

If I was in the GOP leadership, I would go on every media outlet available, and ask “why won’t President Obama just take Social Security payments out of the lock box? Wait, what do you mean, the government has already spent that money”?

This could be a huge “teaching moment”.

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Morgan Collins emails:

Re: Donald Gately’s note about the lock box being empty.

That’s true enough in the sense that the lock box is full of debt the government owes itself. But in event of reaching the debt limit the lock box debt can be converted into negotiable Treasury debt (it’s a special class of debt now – intragovermental holdings) and sold if the proceeds are used to meet Social Security obligations.

The Treasury Secretary knows this. The President knows this. The executive has the authority and resources to continue to meet SS obligations even if we’re at the debt limit.

Note this is a separate calculation from the Monthly Receipts minus Priority Spending that we’ve been seeing lately. SS doesn’t need to be prioritized, and conversion of intragovernmental holdings to negotiable debt does NOT affect the debt ceiling.

The President’s scaremongering about SS checks is extremely dishonest and demagogic.

Indeed. And, say, if they’re selling off Treasury debt to pay Social Security, wouldn’t that open up some debt-ceiling headroom for dealing with other bills? Or am I missing something?

MORE: Reader Bill McConnell emails: “Lockbox or not, Social Security revenues are currently about the same as Social Security payments. What would be the logic for not issuing SS checks? I don’t think O engages his brain sometimes before he speaks. Surely that answer had not be vetted by his crack staff – no pun intended.”

KARL ROVE: Obama Owns the Debt-Ceiling Fiasco: It doesn’t help that he’s declared high-speed rail and even unspent stimulus funds as untouchable.

UPDATE: Reader Steven Soerens writes: “Yesterday you highlighted the idea that an increase to the debt ceiling should be expressly limited to the amount necessary for covering the increased cost of borrowing to roll-over the debt. I suggest to add the additional stipulation that whatever program(s) President Obama decides to defer payment should be declared ‘non-essential’ and de-funded from next year’s budget.”

I think that any bill to increase the debt ceiling should limit Presidential air travel to half the hours of the previous year, along with any other conditions. Let him veto it then.

MY ADVICE: JUST DON’T TALK. Prosecutors defend House steroid hearings that ensnared Clemens. Yeah, they might subpoena you, but just have your lawyers tell them you won’t talk without immunity. A contempt-of-Congress charge isn’t that likely, and not that serious if proffered. Plus, if they ask you if you want to be found in contempt of Congress, you can always respond, a la Mae West, “I was tryin’ to conceal it. . . . .”

ANN ALTHOUSE: Obama lied about a central fact about his own life which he used — powerfully — to push health care reform. “Those terrible, heartless corporations have been a theme of the Obama presidency. He has been trying to structure American brains around that idea, so he can win acceptance of policies that most Americans don’t want, and that story of his personal agony played an important role in pushing through an immense federal power.”

I TOLD YOU SO: Last week’s unemployment number revised upwards “from 418K to a whopping 427K.” Keep that in mind when looking at this week’s number of 405K, described here as “probably totally bogus.” There’s probably some good news in spite of the bogosity, but watch for another upward revision next week. That seems to be the pattern.

UPDATE: A Wall Street reader emails:

The reported unemployment claims data is nearly worthless these days, as the seasonal adjustments are based on outdated
automaker retooling schedules. The adjusted data this week shows a decline of 22,000…great news, right? Wrong. It’s a statistical
mirage. Actual claims rose a full 10 percent week over week, up 45,000. Here’s the govt press release.

The other economic news this morning was uninspiring too…pipeline inflation creeping up, and flat-lining core retail sales. Anecdotally, I hear social security recipients are holding off on spending, as they fear Obama may indeed halt their checks next month.

Insert hope and change snark here.

Consider it done.

JAMES TARANTO: America Tunes Out: Why is Obama such a bore? One historian blames Reagan.

Michael Goodwin of the New York Post “listened intently” to President Obama’s Monday press conference, but only “for 15 minutes or so.” That’s 15 minutes or so longer than the duration of our own intentness, but we did listen falteringly to the whole thing. By contrast, as the president “droned on,” Goodwin reveals that he “did something I never did before during an Obama appearance: I turned off the TV.”

“Enough,” writes Goodwin. “He is the Man Who Won’t Listen to Anybody, so why should anybody listen to him? . . . I will leave that unhappy duty to others. I am tired of Barack Obama. There’s nothing new there. His speeches are like ‘Groundhog Day.’ ”

Goodwin is dead wrong about that last point, and he owes Bill Murray an apology. “Groundhog Day” was a terrific movie. Apart from that quibble, though, we feel Goodwin’s pain, and we suspect most Americans do. The World’s Greatest Orator is almost always uninspiring, condescending, self-aggrandizing, peevish and grim. He is also, as Goodwin notes, ideologically inflexible.

Read the whole thing.

ROGER SIMON: America The Broken. “America is broken and it’s no consolation that the rest of the world is broken along with it. I had to laugh when I stumbled, while web surfing, on a 2007 United Nations ranking for Ireland — whose debt rating has just been slashed to junk — as the fifth best country to live in. If it is, we’re all in a heap of trouble. For America is still Reagan’s shining light on the hill for everyone, like it or not. We are the daddy. We are the grown-up holding the world together. Everyone knows it even whey they lie about it or bemoan it. Only the grown-up is hurting now too. And the world is badly wounded because of it. It is against this background that we watch with particular dismay, maybe closer to horror, the budget debate in Washington.”

MICHAEL WALSH: COMEDIAN-IN-CHIEF: “Here’s a joke for you: President Obama nearly bankrupts the country with his out-of-control deficit spending — then demands responsible fiscal leadership from the Republicans.”

Plus this: “How else to explain Obama’s adamant refusal to put some serious numbers on the table? The administration’s talks with the GOP leadership broke down over the weekend largely because the president is only willing to offer — wait for it — a grand total of $2 billion in real spending cuts in 2012. That’s it — $2 billion with a “b,” out of a projected deficit of more than a trillion dollars. No wonder Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that no solution to the debt problem is possible as long as Obama is in office.” But, says Walsh, McConnell isn’t a lot better.

IN MICHIGAN, ABUSE OF POWER: “A public school district in Michigan has used its phone alert system to point voters toward the recall effort against Gov. Rick Snyder. . . . use of the system to advance a political endeavor, such as the Snyder recall, appears to have been a violation of the state’s campaign finance law.”

SMOKING-GUN EMAIL? Operation Fast and Furious: Designed to Promote Gun Control. “Internal ATF emails seem to suggest that ATF agents were counseled to highlight a link between criminals and certain semi-automatic weapons in order to bolster a case for a rule like the one the DOJ announced [Monday]. . . . Operation Fast and Furious is looking more and more like a set up from the beginning.”

More here.

GOP DEBT CEILING ACE IN THE HOLE: Obama’s Birthday Bash.

The president is planning an extravagant fundraising bash Aug. 3 at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, including a birthday concert teeming with celebrities and – for couples contributing $35,800 – a private dinner with the president. All this just one day after the government is scheduled to run out of cash!

Undoubtably, the sight of so much money getting thrown around and dissolute stars crooning to Obama will make a stirring contrast with a federal government bankruptcy featuring unpaid government workers, seniors and soldiers wondering how they’ll afford the groceries, shuttered national parks, and angry investors trying to cash out their Treasury Bills.

If the government defaults, you can be sure the birthday bacchanal will do much more to harm Obama’s reelection prospects than help them.

Indeed.

REUTERS: U.S. Dollar “On The Run.” “The U.S. dollar was on the run in Asia on Thursday after a ratings warning from Moody’s and a hint of further policy easing from the Federal Reserve unleashed a wave of panic selling, much to the relief of the hard-pressed euro.”

UPDATE: What An American Bank Run Would Look Like. “Putting together all of the above, there are anywhere between $967.3 billion and $2.6 trillion in physical claim satisfying pieces of paper which everyone would scramble to grab if the sky was falling, and against these there are just under $30 trillion in paper claims on said hard paper.”

You know you’re in trouble already when you’re talking about “hard paper.”