UNEXPECTEDLY! HISTORIC USA CREDIT RATING DOWNGRADE!

Way to go, Baracky my man! Another accomplishment to add to your already long list of special moments!

For the first time in U.S. history, S&P has downgraded our credit rating.

Because we are overspent, and won't take the necessary steps to cut the spending.

Hey, Hey, Baracky! You've got the Clowardly Priventard moves *down*, man~!

Can't we impeach this fool yet?

First motha fokka says a word more about George Bush, after this, needs to have teefs dislodged to tinkle on the pavements. Word, biatches.

Hey, Hey Baracky my man! The Only President Worse than You? JEFFERSON DAVIS~!

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UPDATE
DRUDGE:

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New York Times Editor 'Wesley Mouch' Desires to Eliminate the Debt Ceiling

Seriously?

So, NYT Editor 'Wesley Mouch', you see eliminating the debt ceiling as being "for the national good", do you? You say that anytime they like, Congress can cut spending or raise taxes to control the debt?

What if there's a certain political Party that's mastered the art of promising to voters monies looted from the Treasury, as was predicted by de Tocqueville in his work "Democracy in America"? Would you risk the absolute end of the Republic, caused by reaching the real-world limits to spending, borrowing and debt accrual, because the very necessary payback of the debt to debt holders and of course payback of the interest owed on that ever-increasing debt is now realized? Would you desire to allow that particular Party to continue to operate in such a dastardly and destructive way, past the point even when the debt owed exceeds 100% of National GDP, and we risk a hyper-inflationary period that makes the Great Depression seem a pleasant walk in the park?

Yes, I think you would, because without that promise that's now built-in to that particular Party's platform (the new far-Left Liberal Progressive Democratic Party, not kin to the long-subsumed Democratic Party I remember): that Party's platform being a promise to loot Other People's Money, using demonization of 'The Rich' to goad a sense of loathing and hatred for 'The Rich' into average voter's minds, for the purpose of buying votes from those same voters - Moochers so as to stay in power; without that lure, that particular Party might cease to exist. At least to cease to exist in the gross, overindulgent, Statist form it's become today.

It's an addiction, this love of Other People's Money. Democrats, you've got to work on that. And we need to implement a Balanced Budget Amendment, as many states already have, and as a majority of Americans desire.

And there are real limits to spending, borrowing and a nation's well-being. A short course in Economics, not a blind-faith in Party politics and platform, might be in order, 'Wesley'.

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AUSTERITY! AMERICA! AUSTERITY! AMERICA! AUSTERITY!!11!1!1!

Get ready for "it", here "it" comes...

In Europe, austerity is in the air, and in the headlines: "Italy Fast-Tracks Austerity Vote." "Greek Minister Urges Austerity Consensus." "Portugal To Speed Austerity Measures." "Even Queen Faces Funding Squeeze In Austerity Britain." The word has become so instantly ubiquitous that Leftie deadbeats are already opposed to it: "Austerity Protest Takes Place In Dublin." For the rentamob types, "austerity" is to this decade what "Bush" and "Iraq War" were to the last. It can't be long before grizzled old rockers are organizing some all-star Rock Against Austerity gala.

Is there any nation on the planet more deserving of AUSTERITY! than America? We've for long been bloated and disgusting, fat, spoiled, and take all of it for granted.

The problem is structural: Not enough people do not enough work for not enough of their lives. Developed nations have 30-year-old students and 50-year old retirees, and then wonder why the shrunken rump of a "working" population in between can't make the math add up.

By the way, demographically speaking, these categories – "adolescents" and "retirees" – are an invention of our own time: They didn't exist a century ago. You were a kid till 13 or so. Then you worked. Then you died. As Obama made plain in his threat to Gran'ma last week that the August checks might not go out, funding nonproductivity is now the principal purpose of the modern state. Good luck with that at a time when every appliance in your home is manufactured in Asia.

Mark Steyn gets it. Obama and the Democrats don't (yet) get it.

It'll take a downgrade from S&P's and Moody's to get their attention I'm guessing. By the time they 'get it', spoiled Americans will be in the streets, protesting a return to the reality that is normalcy: humans can't be coddled for votes, because they are inherently lazy.

There's a wake-up call coming to fat, dumb and happy Americans.

Let's call it Austerity.

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Failure to Pass the CCB Will Herald the End of Dirty Socialisms. Count On It.

Cut, Cap and Balance vote FRIDAY, 7/22/11. Please call your Senators at 202-224-3121, and urge your friends to do the same.

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So, Harry Reid couldn’t manage to pass a Senate budget (800-some days and counting) but trips all over himself to get the Cut, Cap and Balance vote moved up to tomorrow. Bill Wilson ‘splains things to these bastards, who have no real timely choice left but to pass CCB, because Judgment Day is fast approaching...

But if they vote to reject “Cut, Cap, and Balance,” resulting in a downgrade, members risk guaranteeing a future of more austerity, more pain, and more uncertainty for their own constituents. ...

It will tear our society apart. For, the effects of a credit downgrade will be even more far-reaching than just state and municipal debt markets. It will affect real interest rates, lead to inflation, and even higher unemployment. It risks everything from pension funds to mortgage-backed securities.

But it’s even worse than that. A downgrade will most likely crash markets all over the world, erasing trillions of dollars of wealth in the blink of an eye. And it will be on the head of every senator who voted against “Cut, Cap, and Balance” — not to mention Barack Obama, who has sworn to veto it.

A Democratic Party failure to appease S& (eat your)P’s might very well signal the beginning of the end of dirty socialisms. It’d then be a matter (for the survivors) of picking up the peases the morning(s) after.

Two-thirds of Americans favor passage of CCB. Is that enough to sway some of these Democratic Senators who once said they favored a Balanced Budget Amendment?

Hey, Congressperps! Got Spenditol ?

Cut, Cap and Balance vote FRIDAY. Please call your Senators at 202-224-3121, and urge your friends to do the same.

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Cut, Cap and Balance: Too little, too late?

This letter from Diane Black, my TN 06 representative...

Update: Debt Limit Negotiations

A lot has happened this week in regard to the debt limit negotiations and I want to update you all on the events here in Washington, as well as assure you of my outlook going forward.

Our nation's debt is highest it has ever been in history—a staggering $14.3 trillion dollars.  According to a June report by the Department of Treasury, this year our national debt will eclipse our nation's GDP.  Every child born today already owes more than $46,000 to our creditors.  America cannot continue on this path.  Our crushing burden of debt is a threat to future generations, our security, the economy and the very greatness of our country. 

Look no further than this week's announcements by Standard & Poor and Moody's credit agencies.  In the July 13th statement from Moody's, they announced that the organization "has placed the AAA bond rating of the government of the United States on review for possible downgrade given the rising possibility that the statutory debt limit will not be raised on a timely basis, leading to a default on US Treasury debt obligations."

In order to restore certainty in our economy to bolster job growth and keep America competitive, we need to stop spending money we don't have.   That is why next week, the House of Representatives has cancelled our scheduled Constituent Work Week in order to stay in Washington and work to solve this problem.  We will be voting on our Cut Cap and Balance plan, which will:

• Cut total spending by $111 billion in FY 2012
• Caps total federal spending over ten years, eventually leading to spending capped at 19.9% of GDP by 2021
• Requires the passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment before raising the nation's debt limit.

Earlier this week, you heard from me after the president said publicly that he could not guarantee that Social Security checks would go out on August 3nd should Congress not pass a debt limit increase.  However, based on study of the issue, I believe there is enough money for the Treasury to pay out Social Security checks for some time after August 2nd, and that such statements are merely scare tactics.  But what is true, is that should Congress not pass a debt limit increase, the decisions about what bills to pay would be up to the sole discretion of the Treasury Department.

Today a presentation was given to me and my colleagues that explains how August 2nd is in fact the day the United States can no longer pay its obligations, and outlines possible spending scenarios should Congress not reach an agreement on increasing the debt limit.  I hope you will take the time to look over the presentation by the Bipartisan Policy Center and tell me what you think. 
All politics aside, I am committed to getting our country's fiscal house in order.  This burden of debt will be with us long after the debate over raising the debt limit is decided, and I am in this fight for the long haul.  Securing our country's fiscal future remains a top priority of mine, one that will last well past August 2nd.

Click here to view the presentation from the Bipartisan Policy Committee.

To read more about the Center, or their work on the debt limit, click here.

Sincerely,

Diane Black
Member of Congress

Thank you, Representative Black, for your considerations and support of necessary Government actions, desperately needed to correct the problems we are facing. Especially necessary is the Balanced Budget Amendment, which should have been in place before Lyndon Baines Johnson set us on this wild ride to fiscal irresponsibility in 1968.

However, we might be coming to fiscal sanity just a wee bit too late.

I think the U.S.’s vaunted AAA credit rating gets dinged no matter what, because there’s no way BHO and the Democrats, with or without Team R’s contributions – detractions, will agree to the S&P’s demands that they see 4 trillion in cuts ‘n tax increases, or else…

Standard & Poor's still anticipates that lawmakers will raise the debt ceiling by the end of July to avoid those outcomes. However, if the government is forced to undergo a sudden, unplanned fiscal contraction--as a result of Treasury efforts to conserve cash and avoid default absent an agreement to raise the debt ceiling--we think that the effect on consumer sentiment, market confidence, and, thus, economic growth will likely be detrimental and long lasting. If the government misses a scheduled debt payment, we believe the effect would be even more significant and, under our criteria, would result in Standard & Poor's lowering the long-term and short-term ratings on the U.S. to 'SD' until the payment default was cured.

Congress and the Administration are debating various fiscal consolidation proposals. At the high end, budget savings of $4 trillion phased in over 10 to 12 years proposed by the Adminstration, (separately) by Congressional leaders, as well as by the Fiscal Commission in its December 2010 report, if accompanied by growth-enhancing reforms, could slow the deterioration of the U.S. net general government debt-to-GDP ratio, which is currently nearing 75%. Under our baseline macroeconomic scenario, net general government debt would reach 84% of GDP by 2013. (Our baseline scenario assumes near 3% annual real growth and a post-2012 phaseout of the December 2010 extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.) Such a percentage indicates a relatively weak government debt trajectory compared with those of the U.S.' closest 'AAA' rated peers (France, Germany, the U.K., and Canada).

We expect the debt trajectory to continue increasing in the medium term if a medium-term fiscal consolidation plan of $4 trillion is not agreed upon. If Congress and the Administration reach an agreement of about $4 trillion, and if we to conclude that such an agreement would be enacted and maintained throughout the decade, we could, other things unchanged, affirm the 'AAA' long-term rating and A-1+ short-term ratings on the U.S.

This pretty much seals it. Tax increases will trigger another downturn; cuts in handouts will trigger street protests; then S & P dings; the resulting fallout across the economic spectrum ushers in a real and painful economic crisis. I don’t think the word ‘depression’ would correctly describe it; we’ll need a new term.

Fun times will be had by all.

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Michele Bachmann makes a Gaffe! Eric Cantor, the burr under Obama's Saddle! and, Gallup shocks!

Andrew Klavan points out Michele Bachmann's numerous gaffes...

Michelle Bachmann is running for president and she's supported by the Tea Party. You know, the "angry" ... "emotional" ... "ugly" middle Americans with "low-sloping foreheads" who believe in constitutional government, lower spending and the rule of law. Let's join our MSM pals and freak out when Bachmann says something so we can let everyone know about it and she won't be elected in 2012. Is this fun or what?

In other news, Eric Cantor (R, VA; Democrat's newest Evil Monster) speaks out to NRO on his performance that sent Barack Obama scuttling like a bug from that infamous White House meeting...

“This is not a game,” Cantor says. “We have serious problems. We have put out very thoughtful proposals to try to address them. But sometimes, around here, that doesn’t always make it through.” ...

The president “got very agitated,” Cantor told reporters Wednesday night at the Capitol. Cantor added that Obama then told him not to “call my bluff,” and said that he would take his argument to the “American people.”

Reflecting on the episode Thursday afternoon, Cantor chuckles over how dramatically the president behaved. He chalks up the heated conversation to politics more than anything. “They’re just not serious,” he says. “Even those things identified in the Biden talks have been cast aside, only touchable if we raise taxes.”

“I was willing to compromise,” Cantor contends. “I said, Mr. President, we want to do it right. I said, I agree with you, we ought not to go beyond August 2. But because the votes are not there in the House, I asked whether he was willing to come off his statement that he will veto that. That’s what led to the blowup.”

The impasse, he predicts, will continue, unless President Obama can agree to work with Republicans on a short-term extension coupled with significant spending cuts. “It is certainly at a point of frustration right now, but we are not giving up hope,” he says. One of the points he keeps making to the president, he says, is that Republicans have already shown that they will share the sacrifice, pointing to the House GOP budget, which tackles entitlement reform, as his main example. Democrats, he says, are the ones who need to show a similar commitment to fiscal discipline.

Still, Cantor wonders whether Obama already has, in essence, shut down the opportunity for a cuts-laden compromise. “I really do question when I’m sitting in the room, hearing the president say that we must not have any movement unless it takes us through the election,” he says. “That, to me, seems very political. I’d like to get it right, rather than just do something.” ...

“I’ve given the vice president credit and will continue to give him a lot of credit,” Cantor says. “He was able to keep apart philosophical differences and focus on how we can reduce spending. But after about six weeks, he began to hear marching orders from the other side of this building. They began to sound the alarm that the cuts had gone too far.” ...

Since then, Cantor says, the discussions have gone downhill, with the White House chipping away at the cuts it had openly considered during the Biden meetings as parts of a possible debt-limit package. Coming out of the Biden talks, Cantor says, “I believed that we were at a $2.2, $2.3 trillion–type number, Well, the president said that he felt like we were more at $1.7, maybe $1.8 trillion if you massage it. Then, yesterday, after staff members met at the White House, we get a paper telling us that the number is barely at $1.4 trillion.”

At about the time the far-left started howling about their 'entitlements' and the 'unfairness!' that the 'evil rich' were allowed to live in relative splendor compared to the dirt-poor and ragged Democrats aimlessly wandering the streets looking for one of Barack Obama's 'shovel-ready' jobs promised on the way after the first couple bailouts (that were nothing more than payoffs to BHO's cronies who got him elected in the first place).

The good news? The latest Gallup polling data suggests that a 'generic' Republican candidate would retire this little dirty socialist prezzidint-man in 2012 by a statistically-significant 8 points.

I could come out, as some maddened and crazed LeftLibProggs say, and proclaim'Game Over'. But I won't say that, because I realize that there's a lot of time between now and November 2012. And things are just getting better for Baracky by the minute, aren't they?

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Barack Hussein Obama has Threatened Senior's Social Security!

 

We now know BHO's targets: helpless Seniors living on Social Security. If there is a 'debt crisis', an inability to pay the promises of this overextended Federal Government come August 2, instead of choosing bulky Federal agencies to cut (the EPA, the NEA, for instance); instead of sending some fat-butted bureaucrats home for an extended period of time, Barack Hussein Obama targets the most vulnerable of Americans: those relying on Social Security checks...

The Treasury says the $14.29 trillion debt cap must be raised by Aug. 2 or the government will run out of cash to pay all its bills. Mr. Obama warned in an interview with CBS News that he could not guarantee that the government would be able to send checks to recipients of Social Security, military pensions and other government benefits next month without a debt-ceiling increase. "There may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it," he said.

The bastard is playing the 'Granny Card'...

This may have been the President's strategy all along: Take the debt-limit talks behind closed doors, make major spending cuts seem possible in the early days, but then hammer Republicans publicly as the deadline nears for refusing to raise taxes on business and "the rich."

This would explain the President's newly discovered fondness for press conferences, which he has rarely held but now rolls out before negotiating sessions. It would also explain why Mr. Obama's tax demands have escalated as the August 2 deadline nears. Yesterday he played the Grandma Card, telling CBS that seniors may not get their August retirement checks. Next he'll send home the food inspectors and stop paying the troops.

The reality is that Mr. Obama is trying to present Republicans with a Hobson's choice: Either repudiate their campaign pledge by raising taxes, or take the blame for any economic turmoil and government shutdown as the U.S. nears a debt default. In the former case Mr. Obama takes the tax issue off the table and demoralizes the tea party for 2012, and in the latter he makes Republicans share the blame for 9.2% unemployment.

Mitch McConnell realizes what he's dealing with; I can't really blame him for trying his level best to come to a reasonable solution. But when you're dealing with a Dirty Socialist who's trained in all things Alinsky, who is playing the Cloward-Piven fiddle like a maestro, what else is there to do?

Republicans don't want granny to starve. That's far from a solution. What most of us want is Government slashed to bare bones; out of our lives; entire agencies defunded (the aforementioned EPA and the NEA for starters) and lots and lots of bureaucrats out of jobs (where they at least can't meddle in our private affairs).

Mitch McConnell, just before he offered this chance at a deal, stated the Truth of the Year (bolded and raised in font so's you can't miss it):

"After years of discussions and months of negotiations, I have little question that as long as this president is in the Oval Office, a real solution is unattainable."

Hear, Hear.

Let's see what the House does today. I'll bet the plan as presented by Mr. McConnell is changed significantly; so that this little prezzidint-man will have to CUT, CUT, CUT! things he really doesn't want to cut.

We now know what he does want to cut, don't we?

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9.2% (Nine point two percent) Unemployment: Yes, it's HIS.

Scale: Ten, Eight, Six, Four. Percent. Unemployment.

Just so's you know.

This guy, Barack Hussein Obama, said unemployment would not get above 8.5% (eight point five percent) with that stimulus; since it did, he does not deserve re-election, with the failed policies he's driving. Us. Right into the ditch.

You're welcome.

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Oh, and on the Debt Ceiling discussions happening tomorrow:

1) Senate Democrats (of the far-Left) tells BHO in no uncertain terms, NO CUTS...

“I have talked to some of my colleagues, including some that you might not expect, who say if [White House officials] bring to the Senate a piece of crap that comes down heavy on working families and children and the elderly and they expect me to matter-of-factly vote for it, they'll have another thing coming,” Sanders said. He added that he would filibuster such a deal.

“I do worry that the White House is misreading the Senate and taking things for granted,” Whitehouse said. “There has not been enough communication to alleviate that potential misreading.”

Sanders wants Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to rule out any benefit cuts, as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has done.

2) House Democrats (of the far-Left) tells BHO in no uncertain terms, NO CUTS...

Behind their leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Democrats are solidifying their resistance to including any entitlement cuts in a debt-ceiling package.

Pelosi met privately with President Obama and Vice President Biden Friday morning to lend the White House "a clear understanding of the terms for how we go forward," she told reporters afterwards.

At a closed Democratic Caucus meeting following the White House pow-wow, Pelosi was much less reserved when she relayed how she'd told Obama in no uncertain terms of the caucus' opposition to any cuts in Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, according to a number of lawmakers who attended the gathering.

"The [caucus] cheered Pelosi when she said she was not going to back up, and that's the message she's delivering to the White House," said Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

"She was speaking for all of us," added Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.).

Obama stunned Democrats this week when he signaled an openness to Social Security and Medicare cuts

3) The Far-Left Nutroots Base (here, Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher) tells BHO in no uncertain terms, NO CUTS (you bastard!)...

What we’re watching is the death of the Democratic Party. Or, at least the Democratic Party as most of us have known it. The one that has taken its identity in the modern era from FDR and the New Deal, from Keynesianism and the social safety net. Despite any of its other shortcomings (and they are myriad), the Democratic Party has stood as a symbol for commitment to these principles. As recently as 2006, Democrats retook the House in a surprise wave election because the public feared that George Bush would destroy Social Security, and they trusted the Democrats over Republicans to secure it. Just like George Bush, Obama now wants to “save” Social Security….by giving those who want to burn it to the ground the the very thing they’ve wanted for decades.

Any member of any party who participates in this effort does not deserve, and should not get, the support of anyone who values Social Security and cares about its preservation. The amount of damage that the Democrats under Obama have been able to do has been immeasurable, by virtue of the fact that they are less awful that George Bush. But where George Bush failed, Obama will probably succeed.

Which means we’re watching another casualty here: Democracy. Or at least, the illusion that we live in a democratic society. The public, regardless of party, overwhelmingly opposes cuts to Social Security and Medicare. But elected officials of both parties are hell-bent on conspiring to bring the programs to an end. They seem to have come to grips with a fact that the public has not: their tenure in office depends on carrying out the wishes of oligarchical elites.

There is only one thing you can reasonably conclude as you watch the political theater that is transpiring: what the voting public thinks really isn’t all that important. And to the extent that it does matter, it can easily be channeled by those with sufficient money to pay the tab. Samuel Johnson said that patriotism was the last refuge of scoundrels, but in our modern era, that honor goes to tribalism. The list of horrors that people found intolerable when George Bush was in office, but are now blithely accepting because “Sarah Palin would be worse,” grows longer every day.

We’ll fight this, because it’s the right thing to do. We will probably lose. But we will make it as painful as possible for any politician from any party to participate in this wholesale looting of the public sphere, this “shock doctrine” for America. And maybe along the way we’ll get a vision of what comes next. Because what we believe in as Americans, and what we stand for, is not something the Democratic party represents any more.

Squeal, you white-headed little pig, squeal. For I lurves to hear you squeal.

And you thought Boherner was the stopping point for any compromise deal, didn't you?

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