How the GOP Is Spinning Its Debt-Limit Vote as a Victory
You'd think a small, temporary retreat would make things easier, but in their retreat, Republican leaders have made promises that put them in a more difficult position.
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After the House passed it and Harry Reid vowed to introduce it in the Senate, the controversial bill's passage now seems inevitable. Too bad, then, that it doesn't offer a permanent solution to our perpetual debt-ceiling crisis.
You'd think a small, temporary retreat would make things easier, but in their retreat, Republican leaders have made promises that put them in a more difficult position.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, viewed as one of the hostage-takers in the upcoming debt ceiling fight, has given in and promised a three-month temporary debt limit increase.
There are several signs House Republicans will agree to raise the debt ceiling without demanding huge concessions in spending cuts.
Jeffrey Toobin on Obama's gay marriage stance, David A. Bell on France's domestic malaise, Matthew Yglesias on dueling hedge-fund managers, Dana Milbank on Obama's new bad-cop routine, and Mark Frazier on an aging China.
The president said at his press conference Monday that he wouldn't negotiate "ransom" with hostage-taking terrorists, which is how he is construing the House GOP threat. So what's left to do if we actually hit the debt limit?
"What I will not do is have that negotiation with a gun at the head of the American people," President Obama said at his press conference Monday.
In the final press conference of his first term, President Obama focused almost entirely on the debt ceiling fight and gun control, accusing Congress of collecting "ransom" while saying that gun proposals including an assault weapons ban "make sense."
Now that the magic coin is no longer on the table, Politico is kicking off the next stage of the debt ceiling fight with a report that House Republicans are "seriously entertaining dramatic steps," including letting the government default or shutting it down altogether.
The highest ranking Democratic Senators urged Obama to "take any lawful steps" to allow the Treasury to pay U.S. debt obligations if the debt limit isn't raised — including, but not limited to, invoking the 14th Amendment.
The easiest way for the United States to keep paying the debts it owes is for Congress to raise the debt ceiling like it usually does. However, House Republicans do not want to do it the easy way. Silly problems call for silly solutions of which there is no shortage.
Amy Davidson on the platinum coin, Edward Kleinbard on Obama's plan B for the debt ceiling, Ezra Klein on Joe Biden in 2016, Meghan Daum on Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Liel Leibovitz on violent video games.
The House Republican political committee tried to make fun of an idea that's been floating around a few weeks: minting a $1 trillion coin to avoid crashing into the debt ceiling. Unfortunately, the group revealed it doesn't know how money works.
David Brooks on Chuck Hagel, Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly on guns, Ramesh Ponnuru on the debt ceiling, Simon Tisdall on Syria, and Michael Specter on genetically modified crops.
Hostage-takers, in most movies, are bad guys. So it's curious conservatives are fully embracing the liberal talking point that House Republicans took the U.S. economy hostage during the debt limit fight of 2011, and plan to make hostage-taking the cause célèbre before the U.S. defaults in March.
There has a been a lot of talk on Twitter about something involving the making of a platinum coin worth $1 trillion in order to avoid the upcoming debt ceiling fight. Don't know what anyone is talking about? Never fear, we're hear to explain the #mintthecoin movement.
Just in case the fiscal cliff problem wasn't bumming you out enough, Tim Geithner has politely reminded everyone that as of Monday, the Treasury Department won't be able to borrow any more money.
The president's latest attempt to portray congressional Republicans as unreasonable now boils down to something like this: What? What did I say? It was y'all's idea all along.
The debt-limit debacle of 2011 created the fiscal cliff of 2012, but the homestretch of this new fight is going to be different than the one that created it. Here's what the next four and a half weeks might look like.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
Call it the partial fix to the partial fix to the partial fix. National Journal's Dan Friedman and Billy House report that leading lawmakers are discussing a plan to make a "down payment" of cuts that would amount to half of the $110 billion in sequestration, which is set to go into effect in January.
Bob Woodward's new book, The Price of Politics, is one of the first history books about last summer's debt crisis and how close the world came to being sent into financial chaos. One person has to to come out looking worse for wear, and it seems to be Eric Cantor.
Ever since the Republican took over the House in 2010, Congressional Democrats have been out-maneuvered in almost every way. But now that's beginning to change as the Senate's top Democrat rallies his troops behind a plan to tame Republican maximalism.
The Congressional Budget Office warns that the scheduled tax increases and spending cuts slated for next year affectionately known as "the fiscal cliff" would in fact lead to a recession, according to their newly released analysis.
Cartoonist Tom Toles on the impending debt ceiling battle.
The last time House Speaker John Boehner hosted a nail-biting debt-ceiling fight, it didn't go so well for him. The Tea Partiers who wanted a fight thought he caved and everyone else thought the House Republicans looked reckless. But Boehner's figured out a better way to play brinksmanship: imagine you're fighting about the debt limit long before you have to.
Why did the "grand bargain" between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner to raise the debt ceiling and overhaul entitlements and the tax code fail back in August?
The White House is reportedly expected to announce a request to raise the debt ceiling by another $1.2 trillion on Friday.
The office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords coordinated a bi-partisan effort to urge the members of the super committee to get something done.
Brewing fight over payroll tax cut shows how hard debt compromise will be
David Camp, Republican member of the debt super committee, says "everything's on the table"
As governor of Massachusetts, Romney favored tax increases with spending cuts
The town hall comments come after new revenue was blocked from the debt deal
The financial backers of the new House GOP committee members
The MSNBC host's anger-fueled rant summons memories of the 'Network'
Her banner reads: "Thanks for the downgrade. You should all be fired."
Romney, Bachmann, Pawlenty have a chance to change perceptions
Analysts attribute the plunging stock market to short-term panic
The ratings agency says there is still time for the government to tackle the possibility of a downgrade before 2013
Republicans, Democrats, and media are in the thick of the blame game
The ratings firm cites the recent Washington fight over raising the debt limit
Little he can do to lower the unemployment rate--except offer a plan to hire veterans
The economy adds 117,000 jobs in July
Finance experts digest today's record plunge
Cartoonist Tom Toles on party relations post-Debt Ceiling
Tea Partiers were twice as likely to contact a representative
Says if Tea Partiers were terrorists, Obama would want to "pal around" with them
A Chinese agency has downgraded its U.S. credit rating as news agencies fume
The Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq all edged lower on Wednesday
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver coins a new demonic food metaphor
Virtually identical headlines have been running for nearly two years
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