Obama Signs Debt Ceiling Increase

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Crisis averted. President Obama signed the debt ceiling compromise this afternoon after the Senate easily ratified it by a 74-26 margin. The bill allows for raising the debt limit by $2.4 billion while slashing spending, although not by as much as anyone involved in the negotiations would have us believe.

The president said after the Senate vote, "It’s an important first step to ensuring that as a nation we live within our means. This is, however, just the first step. This compromise requires that both parties work together on a larger plan to cut the deficit.”

Any aspirations Obama has for bipartisanship went out the window like a cup full of tobacco juice when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told Fox News' Neil Cavuto that the GOP will be holding the debt ceiling debate hostage in the future, since it's now a proven model.

It set the template for the future. In the future, Neil, no president — in the near future, maybe in the distant future — is going to be able to get the debt ceiling increased without a re-ignition of the same discussion of how do we cut spending and get America headed in the right direction. I expect the next president, whoever that is, is going to be asking us to raise the debt ceiling again in 2013, so we’ll be doing it all over.

We noted the lack of talk about jobs creation during these negotiations, although the GOP has argued they were looking out for job creators during these negotiations. The Economic Policy Institute believes the deal could harm an already sluggish Gross Domestic Product and cost the country 1.2 million jobs by the end of 2012, based on current economic policy. It could also set the nation up for a double-dip recession.

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By Chuck Sudo in News on August 2, 2011 4:30 PM

Comments [rss]

Navin_Johnson

Manufactured crisis averted

BlueFairlane

The problem with this whole debacle is that Congress took an act that is routine but very important and tied it to all sorts of requirements. One side said the debt ceiling vote needed to drastically cut spending. The other said it needed to somehow create jobs. The truth is, it simply needed to raise the frickin' debt ceiling. All the other parts of this debate are superfluous, and can be addressed all on their own.

That's what we need to remember as we moan and groan about this deal. This is not the whole of the economic argument by a long shot. Every action anybody wanted to attach to this thing can be taken all on its own ... and in fact would work far better if it's not taken under duress at the exact moment the country runs out of money.