The US House of Representatives passed what has been called the “Cut, Cap and Balance” bill yesterday evening. The Tea Party catering bill allows the federal government to increase the US borrowing cap by $2.4 trillion, but only after Congress sends a balanced budget amendment to the states and makes immediate spending cuts. Will this bill become law?
Long story short — it will not.
Republicans with their dogma of “no more taxes” are keeping their Tea Party supporters satisfied by refusing to cooperate in any manner whatsoever.
The Democrats are not far behind, but this is not a game of rock paper scissors. The two sides cannot simply blame the other while in front of the camera, bicker in the House and the Senate and somehow expect someone to crumple and fold.
How the public is not outraged is a mystery. The nation is on the brink of bankruptcy, and a handful of bureaucrats are pretending to be idealistic at the risk of throwing the nation into disarray.
The debt ceiling is no longer a debate; it is a game of chicken. If there is no compromise, then the US defaults. Neither party wants this to occur, but coming to a compromise is apparently an even worse scenario.
Raising the debt ceiling with no strings attached is out of the question for Republicans, as is raising taxes.
Democrats refuse to cut spending to government programs. However, it is not as though these things never happen.
The US debt ceiling increases constantly, most recently in February 2010. But people would not suspect that with the recent attention to the issue.
Those who informed themselves with five-second sound bites likely assume that this is an unprecedented event and that the best course of action is to not raise the legal limit of borrowing power.
However, the only unprecedented action would be the defaulting of America’s debt, which can and will occur unless the debt ceiling is raised. The default can be alternatively avoided by cutting funding to government programs or by raising taxes, neither of which is preferable.
What most people might be asking is, how did we get here? Simply put, countries borrow money from one another all the time, accumulating debt and eventually paying it back.
Presidents and their term may catch the flak, but you can justify it only so far. True, the Bush administration increased the debt by over $4 trillion thanks to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Obama stimulus package and overall effect of the recession did little to keep the national debt from increasing another $4 trillion dollars.
However, it is up to the members of the legislative branch to come up with a solution, and blaming the current or former executive branch is not going to solve the problem.
Where are cuts really needed? Both in defense (war) programs, and social services. Two areas that the Republicans and Democrats respectively do not want to touch.
David Haydon is a political science senior and may be reached at [email protected].
Page 1.
Dana's selective editorializing at work…
In fact, Dana, western media has been anything but anti-Muslim; it is the exact opposite of that.
Words like Islamic terrorist, Islamic Jihad, and direct quotes extolling warfare and violence from the Qur'an are all but taboo for the western media.
Page 2.
If one relied on the western media – and only the western media – one would not know that there have been over 17,000 Islamist terrorist attacks since 9/11. Meanwhile you are hard-pressed to name four terrorist attacks committed by non-Muslims, and those you mention are NOT done by Christian fundamentalists, but by deranged individuals who do NOT look to Christ for guidance. (In fact I'd guess 90+% of the people who read your article have never even heard of Robert Cottage or Nathan Worrell.)
Simply put, Christ was a man of peace who never lifted a finger in anger against anyone. McVeigh was an atheist and he most certainly acted in violation of all of Christ's teachings.
In contrast to this, Mohammed was a warrior who led 60+ battles against non-Muslims, and whose followers today shout out "Allahu Akbar" when they commit terrorist attacks
Not only you are dumb, you are blind as well. Here are just a few terrorist attacks by non-Muslims:
Baruch Goldstein, Cave of Patriarchs Massacre, 1994
All seven Crusades – Terrorism by Christians against other Christians, Muslims, Jews
Pogroms against Jews
Religious persecution between Catholics, Protestants, Puritans, etc
Also essentially all wars in Europe
World War 2
World War 1
Terrorism – a practice of terror. Make people very afraid and you've succeeded.
Not only you are dumb, you are blind as well. Here are just a few terrorist attacks by non-Muslims:
Baruch Goldstein, Cave of Patriarchs Massacre, 1994
All seven Crusades – Terrorism by Christians against other Christians, Muslims, Jews
Pogroms against Jews
Religious persecution between Catholics, Protestants, Puritans, etc
Also essentially all wars in Europe
World War 2
World War 1
Terrorism – a practice of terror. Make people very afraid and you've succeeded.
Not only you are dumb, you are blind as well. Here are just a few terrorist attacks by non-Muslims:
Baruch Goldstein, Cave of Patriarchs Massacre, 1994
All seven Crusades – Terrorism by Christians against other Christians, Muslims, Jews
Pogroms against Jews
Religious persecution between Catholics, Protestants, Puritans, etc
Also essentially all wars in Europe
World War 2
World War 1
Terrorism – a practice of terror. Make people very afraid and you've succeeded.
El-Kurd, Fox News does not represent America. Just because one news organization had an anti-Muslim bias does not mean that all of America's media was like that.
Also pray explain what ultra-Zionist means. And how about mega-Zionist? Super-Zionist? Supra-Zionist? Hyper-Zionist? Hypo-Zionist? Netanyahu is *merely* extremely hawkish and right-leaning.
Snore. More of the same from Dana El-Kurd. Dana is the Glenn Beck of The Daily Cougar.
Yoyo
The Crusades were declared after Islam had ruthlessly conquered all of the Middle East, all of North Africa, huge swaths of Asia, Southern Italy, Spain and was moving towards Rome. And you’re blaming Christians for this? What would you have had them do? Be the Buddha and let blood-thirsty Muslims continue to rape their women and kill their men?
Furthermore, Christ was a man of peace. War declared in his name – arguably even at the defense of Christianity – is a sin. In Islam Jihad against non-Muslims is a basic tenet. They are, Islam and Churistianity, as night is to day.
I'd like to make clear I did not intend to denigrate Buddhism in my previous post. Buddhism is arguably the most intelligent, logical, healthy, honest and therfore most beautiful of the so-called religions, in my opinion.