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FISCAL CLIFF

John Boehner Offers Debt Ceiling Increase

Reports say putting off a fight to raise the debt limit is part of latest offer in fiscal cliff negotiations

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by Lisa Fine

Staff Writer t

House Speaker John Boehner has reportedly offered to delay for a year any fight over raising the federal debt limit, a move that may give up some leverage for Republicans but jump start the fiscal cliff negotiations again.

Boehner, R-Ohio, made the proposal to President Obama on Friday, in the latest round of negotiatons to avoid the "fiscal cliff" -- a term that refers to the $500 billion in automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that will kick in if a debt-reduction deal is not reached by the end of the year, the Washington Post reports.

A spokesman for Boehner told the Post that any debt limit increase would have to be matched with spending cuts.

By March, the national debt is expected to hit the $16.4 trillion limit set last year. Unless Congress raises the debt ceiling in time the country is at risk for a government default. Some Republicans view this threat as a good opportunity for leverage to demand additional spending cuts from Obama, the Post said.

The debt ceiling issue is key because Obama and Boehner would probably rather avoid a repeat of what happened in 2011, when a drawn out battle over the debt limit ended with only hours to spare or the government would have run out of money. The contentious episode led to the first ever downgrade of the nation's credit rating and will cost taxpayers 18.9 billion in additional interest costs over the next decade, Politico reported

Via The Washington Post and Politico
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Comments (view in Forum)

  • u
    David944
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    You can’t blame Boehner for how people voted in the last election. If we go off the cliff no one will be able to say republicans obstructed the president to cause it.

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  • u
    mtkopf
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    I actually applaud boehner bc for the first time in his role as Speaker he is actually exhibiting some leadership skills.
    I do, however, reserve the right to retract any support for the speaker if he is unable to get the house GOP in line.
  • PoliticalSpice
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    I think this weakens let dems ability to cut military spending. Obama should respond to Boehners demand that any debt limit increase be matched with spending cuts, by submitting a proposal that all such cuts come from military budget. Closing all military bases in other countries and cancelling pork barrel military spending on the F-35 for starters. Social Security is not driving the debt, so the issue is not even relevant to the debt debate. Medicare, medicare, and food stamps should not be touched until the military is cut to the bone. The constitution provides a way to have a very affordable military budget, we should stick to that.
  • DARSB
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    Dear Mr Speaker, your party had lost the popular vote in 4 of 5 of the last elections. You return to the House next month with an eroded majority. Your party will have fewer Senate seats next session, and Mr. Obama was returned to the White House. Congress has an approval rating with the public somewhere between Charles Manson and Hitler. Thanks to the tantrums of your Teapartistas in the summer of 2011 the USA lost its splendid credit rating, and set the stage for today's crisis.

    In short, you have no leverage. I'm glad to interpret this action as dawning recognition of your part of that condition. Keep up the cooperation, please.

    Your friend,

    DARSB
  • MongoAPillager
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    @David944 who would of thought we would have traveled so far down the road to socialism that we would berate our leaders for not taxing us heavier.we are chastizing our leaders when they fight raising taxes and cutting spending,are we really THAT STUPID!!!!
  • u
    David944
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    @MongoAPillager My comment was directed to be a reply to DARSB I agree with you and socialism is going to suck, but that is where we find ourselves .

  • View all 12 replies >

  • Jean
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    let it go over the cliff. we have to balance our money coming in and going out of our households.....or file bankruptcy......they need to start living in the real world with the rest of us. a collapse would wake a whole lot of people up.
  • Jeff_Woehrle
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    Just so we are clear, Republicans have put up $100 billion per year in tax increases and Obumble promises to cut $100 billion per year in spending. With fiscal 2012's deficit at over $1,000 billion, that leaves $800 billion to be borrowed.

    Yup. Real progress right thar...
  • Dan_Tien
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    The country is facing either a $500 billion in automatic tax hikes and spending cuts or an alternative debt-reduction deal, but the debt ceiling is still expected to be reached by March of 2013. I must have a different concept of debt-reduction than the Congress does.
  • o
    woodtick57
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    yes you do. even my former congresswoman MIchele Bachmann didn't understand what it is ....Sad that those idiots keep getting elected...
  • u
    Grubby
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    Obama WANTS the country to go off the cliff. He has a total lack of any kind of leadership. Obama is an anti-leader, driving people apart instead of together. No amount of compromise by republicans will be enough for him. He will continue to raise the demands, drive the country off the cliff, then attempt to blame the republicans. In Obama's mind, this has nothing to do with what is good for the country. It is all about politics, which is the only thing this Idiot in Chief knows.
  • Bobolinsky
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    Shouldn't it be the democrats turn to cave on something? As a fiscal conservative, I know that my positions aren't part of the conversation anymore and it's like I'm watching two parties deciding to the best way to burn down the community... but shouldn't there be some give and take?
  • CATTLEPROD
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    Boehner is a R.I.N.O. of the worst order. That fake tan of his needs to be the first to go if he's serious about cutting spending. I am sure the tanning beds he uses are paid for by taxpayer dollars. Maybe they're solar operated. How much you wanna bet topix leaves this post, because I am making fun of the obvious cosmetic nips and tucks of a republican, and not a certain congresswoman from california, who has family members on the politix advisory board.
  • PNWest
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    The most vile and disgusting comments on this board come from those of you on the right. That's why they are most often removed.
  • Denizen_Kate
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    Does Boehner use tanning beds? I was under the impression that he was taking extensive vacations in tropical garden spots on our dime. Don't they all?
  • CATTLEPROD
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    @Denizen_Kate Not ignoring you den, just been working alot. Yeah, it really gets on my nerves the "fact finding" trips they all take at our expense, he must be better than most at disquising his expendetures, because there is no reason for a man fron southern ohio to have that kind of tan this time of year. Even though I know he hasnt really been there much, it would be mostly washington, even so, whos on the beach right now in that area? It can only be a fake tanning bed tan or what you said, an actual sun induced skin darkening. And even then, I would say, how did you get the time dude? Theres no work to be done right now? Lets look into that little piece of pork in the budget. It may turn out to be a whole slab of bacon, with a ham and roast.
  • armed_liberal
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    Boehner has no problem borrowing a few more trillion as long as he doesn't have to raise taxes on oil companies and billionaires. Republicans spent silly for a decade and refuse to pay the tab. Republicans want to screw retirees out of Social Security and Medicare. Rats, dirty sewer rats!
  • o
    woodtick57
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    @armed_liberal

    again, they are not increasing the credit limit, they are allowing the gov't to pay the debts we have already incurred.
  • PNWest
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    Too little. Too late. We need much larger tax hikes on the rich and minimal spending cuts. Either that or let the GOP drive the economy over the cliff. Then we'll lower taxes for the bottom 98% and see how the American people feel about cuts to social programs. If that happens the GOP will be primed for massive mid-term defeats in 2014.
  • PNWest
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    @woodtick57 Then maybe we should make some bigger cuts to military spending. Then raise taxes a little more on the rich. We've got a long way to go until we hit the 91% rate we had in the post WWII years when we built the middle class.
  • o
    woodtick57
    !
    @PNWest there were many factors that went onto that great increase in the middle class. You mentioned one of them, WWII, when we had the only industrial base left and all the world needed our goods, we could have hardly failed at increasing our economic wealth as a nation.

    Noone paid 91% on all their income, there were massive deductions and thye only paid those rates on the last bit of their income that put them in that rate, the rest of their income was taxed at the lower quintile percentages....

    The military is one of our biggest wastters of money. That sacred cow must defintely be trimmed down.
  • PNWest
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    @woodtick57 You have described the progressive tax policy that we've pretty much always have had. Nothing new there. 91% tax on all income over say $3.2M (or you pick a number) annually.

    Damn right we ought to trim military spending. It's out of control.

  • View all 11 replies >

  • jessejaymes
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    As neither a Republican or Democrat but a long time political observer with a Masters in Political Science I tell you this. The GOP has no leverage to negotiate. They can block. They can obstruct but that tactic has only found them falling and further out of majority public favor. Without "taking sides" in who is wrong or right in their rhetoric, I remind both sides that your parties rarely do anything that they claim they are doing. Congress is more about pork barrel spending by hiding spending bills as riders in unrelated legislation passed. Both parties do it constantly. Until you people are willing to throw your own out of Congress nothing changes. There needs to be line item veto, elimination of the filibuster and allow for the party that the American people elect to run this country regardless of which party the majority is as any given time. This gridlock is nothing more than a smokescreen to the American public that Congress isn't interested in your business. They are only doing the bidding of those who give them money. You people need to wake up. Both sides.
  • LGRepublican
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    If the GOP has no leverage as you say, then it boils down to this, would you rather be responsible for no deal getting done or be responsible for a bad deal getting done? Seems to me that doing nothing is preferable to doing something bad considering you'll get them blame no matter what.
  • jessejaymes
    !
    @LGRepublican You may be right. The Dems pretty much went along with Bush II after 9-11 and look what that got us. Nothing but debt and dead bodies.
  • harold_lloyd
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    Don't let all the froth hide the real goal, and that is to reduce the debt, not just the deficit.
    A deal that doesn't do that is a bad deal for the citizens.
  • artjeb
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    A hundred billion spending cut ? Now a hundred billion tax increase just a big pile of manure comming from the idiots in DC Riders includid in passed legeslation will just keep what we have. More brilliant stupidity from D C
  • FFX_VA
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    So Boehner removed two of Obama's roadblocks, taxes on the rich & the debt ceiling. Now Obama is clearly in command of whether or not we go over the cliff. All he has to do is propose a meaningful set of spending cuts and its a done deal. Think he can handle that?
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