AT 12:01 A.M. TUESDAY, the federal government began shutting down all non-essential functions because Republicans in the House of Representatives refused to fund further operations unless President Obama sabotaged his signature domestic achievement, the Affordable Care Act, that was duly passed by Congress, signed into law by the president, upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court and ratified by a referendum of the people in the form of last year’s election — and that is, as you read this, beginning to fulfill the promise of affordable health insurance for millions of Americans who previously went without it.
That’s right: Republicans are shutting down the government so that our health care system can resume bankrupting the sick.
It is vital to understand that Republicans’ big fear is not that Obamacare will result in death panels and communism, but that it will prove popular, that it will work and be seen as the vast improvement over the previous regime that it actually is.
I predict that once Obamacare is up and running in a year or so, an awful lot of people are going to be saying to themselves, “THIS is it? This is the big, scary, worse-than-Hitler-and-Darth-Vader-put-together thing that the Republicans were going on about?” And then those people are going to conclude, rightly, that the Republican Party has been more than a touch dishonest about the whole thing.
Speaking of (actually) scary things, we simultaneously face the non-trivial possibility that the GOP may be preparing to do something truly unthinkable. Republicans in Congress are giving every indication that they are willing to refuse to raise the federal debt ceiling in another attempt to sabotage a law that, again, was duly and properly enacted into law.
Raising the debt ceiling — that is, authorizing the issuance of new debt when necessary to pay for spending that Congress itself has already authorized — is something that, before the Obama administration, was a routine operation done without a peep of protest by both Republican and Democratic Congresses, under both Republican and Democratic presidents, for the entire span of the history of the United States.
If the president calls the bluff of the Republicans, and they then refuse to back down, there are three possibilities. In descending order, from worst to least bad:
Possibility number one: The United States could default on its debt.
Let me be unambiguous here: The U.S. defaulting on its debt obligations would be absolutely apocalyptic for the U.S. and world economy, destroying a recovery from the near-apocalypse of September 2008 that is still quite fragile. Interest rates would spike, unemployment would soar toward civilization-destroying levels, and the financial markets would crater in truly epic fashion. It would be the end of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency; there might be rampant inflation as the value of the dollar plunged, and there would almost certainly be social unrest on a scale never seen in the United States.
The fact that this possibility is even being contemplated as a possible bargaining chip by a major political party — the bargain, again, being the denial of health insurance to people who previously went without it – is absolute lunacy.
The only possible bright spot in this dark scenario is that the blame for the chaos would be aimed squarely at the Republican Party, which would almost certainly be finished as an influential player in U.S. politics, probably for good.
Possibility number two: The president could continue to meet the obligations of the United States on his own authority, basically disregarding the debt ceiling.
This would set up an interesting (for far-in-the-future historians, at least) constitutional crisis — Congress refusing to raise the debt ceiling actually puts the president in a position where anything he does would be a violation of the law. Refusing to pay obligations required of the executive by law is unconstitutional, as is paying those same obligations by issuing debt not authorized by Congress.
This would result in some chaos in financial markets (though not the apocalypse of option one) and the House might well introduce Articles of Impeachment, but the president would almost certainly be acquitted during his Senate trial.
The bright side of option two would be that it would effectively destroy the future use of the debt limit as a bargaining chip.
Possibility three: The president could mint a platinum coin.
This possibility is the most whimsical solution, and is technically perfectly legal. It originated, as far as I can tell, with a man named Jack Balkin at Yale University, who described it this way:
“Sovereign governments like the United States can print their own money. We have a system of fiat currency and we’ve been off the gold standard for many years now. With fiat currency, you issue coins and simply assert that they have a certain value, which may have little to do with the value of the raw materials you use to make them. But as long as people believe that your money is worth something, the system works.
“The difference between the face value of the coin and the cost of the materials it takes to produce it is called seignorage. So if you create a hundred-dollar coin made mostly of copper and nickel, the seignorage is likely to be close to a hundred dollars. That’s new monetary value pumped into the system.
“… So (the administration) tells the Mint to make a couple of trillion-dollar platinum coins. Then, if the president gives the order, the Mint deposits the two coins in its account at the Federal Reserve. The coins are legal tender. We direct the Federal Reserve to move this money into the Treasury’s accounts, and we are up around two trillion dollars.
“We don’t need to borrow any more money, because now we have plenty of cash on hand. There are a few more bells and whistles … but that’s essentially how it works.”
Since this would be effectively unprecedented, it might have unpredictable effects both legally and economically, but I award it points for chutzpah.
Matt Talbot is a writer and poet, as well as an old Benicia hand. He works for a tech start-up in San Francisco.
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Matt stated: that the Republican Party has been more than a touch dishonest about the whole thing.
Wow. Let’s back up a bit here. The entire passage of Obama care was based on false pretenses and lies.
Very weak, if not embarrassingly disingenuous to call the Republican’s liars after the multitude of lies from Dems and Obama on this subject.
Death panels…govt getting between you and your doctor (as opposed to insurance companies, I suppose)…govt takeover…job killer…will blow up the deficit. All lies, and all in re a health care system originally introduced by the Heritage Foundation, proposed in Congress by Bob Dole and implemented in Massachusetts by Mitt Romney.
The right is deathly afraid Obamacare will succeed since, if it does, the GOP will continue even further down the path toward becoming the 21st century version of the Whigs.
Interesting fact is that there are more Republicans in elected offices in the USA than Democrats. Lets just look at the Senate, House and state Govs. Rep 309-Dems276. Plus all the state houses controlled by Reublicans which is more than Dems. Now lets look at public polls on Obamacare. Range against from about 54% to as high as 80%. I see no demise of the GOP. May want to clarify that statement.
More interesting facts….Obama received five million more votes than Romney. Democratic candidates for the House received two million more votes than republicans. Dems gained two seats in Senate despite defending two-thirds of seats up for election. Yes, the GOP is dying. Livesay conveniently disregards the impact of gerrymandering.
Benician Gerrymandering as been going on for years. You got your 2 mil+ votes because of California. That is where all or most of it occured. Still could not take back the House. All house seats are about the population size with a couple of exceptions. Why is it that the Republicans hold a commanding advantage in the house. Even if the Dems got all the votes and seats in California they still would not have had enough to back the House.. Why is that Benician? Now Benician it is your chance to predict the 2014 outcome of the House and Senate elections. None of this you first stuff. Stick your neck out and give us your prediction. Do you have the courage to do that Benician?
Chicago’s fourth district.
Bob, Republicans have a long way to go when it comes to drawing district boundaries to suit their needs
You are correct Dennis. That is not how the Dems see it. They seem to think they are exept.
I didn’t say gerrymandering was illegal or nefarious. I said it explains why the rethugs captured more house seats despite being outvoted by 2 million. Despite my providing this explanation in my previous response, you again ask:
“Why is it that the Republicans hold a commanding advantage in the house. ” Try reading for comprehension, Livesay. The question was answered, but for your benefit, I’ll repeat: Gerrymandering. Because of the way CD’s are currently drawn, the Dems have to take 55% of the vote to win back the House. Why has the rethug house gone insane? Because 200 of them are in districts overwhelmingly righty, and your cowardly caucus is too afraid to behave responsibly because they’re either tea party insane, or are afraid of being primaried by someone tea party insane.
As to predictions for 2014, asked and answered a few months ago. Refer to your archives.
Is that not true for Republicans also in many states? Try the North East and then California. The Dems could win them all and still not take back the House. Please repeat your prediction. Thank you. At present California is a fine example of what the Dems are trying to do. It takes 218 to be in control. What about the other 235 if 200 favor Republicans. Does that mean Dems cannot even win in their own majority districts?
Oh I see like what happened in California. Gerrymandering has been going on for years. Remember Texas Benician? Huge Gerrymandering in that state by the Dems. Does that count in your Gerrymandering remarks. It will happen again and again. Also remember House seats are the same size in population with a couple of exceptions. The Republicans hold a commanding lead. Also remember Benician that 2 mil+ vote count happened primarily in California. Even at that stuill could not take back the House. Why is that Benician?
Yes lets not forget that not one single republican voted for the Obamacare monstrosity and the procedure used to do so was inappropriately used to get it through. The president has said that the average family would save $2500 dollars per year under Obamacare. The recently released government actuarial numbers are showing that “actually” that same family will be spending $7500 dollars more per year for healthcare under OC. That is a $10k swing. So much for affordable. I went onto the California OC site this morning and checked just to see what it would cost for me to insure my family of four. The annual premium was $22,757 dollars. That is just short of $1900 per month. This was the basic bronze plan. With that plan came a $9000 dollar annual deductible, $60 dollar copays for doctor visits, $75 copay for non generic meds, and after all that, I would STILL be responsible for 40% of the bill. $300 dollar copay for emergency room or hospital visits. The prices only went up from there. Then I tried to look up doctors and hospitals in my area, and the search result was “NONE FOUND”. There is a disclaimer on the site. Paying the premium guarantees that you have coverage, it does not guarantee that you will get healthcare.
More facts. It was upheld by the supreme court only by virtue of changing the law at the bench to declare that not signing up was not a fine but a tax, which is what the dems were saying it wasn’t all along. The judicial branch can’t do that but somehow it seemed to make its way through.
Republicans do not want to bankrupt the sick. That is just stupid, irresponsible commentary.
As for the debt ceiling, Matt do you run up your credit cards to the max and then call the credit card company and continually ask them for one extension of credit after another and then keep going to the max after each granting of such? That is not how things work in the real world. Part of the problem with budgeting in the government is base line budgeting. We, as real people (in business), look at how much we spent last year and we consider our expenses and our revenues. If we want to increase our profitability, we have three choices. 1) reduce expenses. 2) increase revenue. 3) both. We do our budgeting based upon how we performed the previous year and make adjustments going forward. The government doesn’t do this. They throw last years budget out the window and start fresh. Then they create this new giant of a budget that may be two times what it was last year. Congress looks and it and says now way. So the pres cuts it back from the new projected number by 20% and then they come out and publicly declare that they have cut the budget by 20%. But in actuality they are spending more, so how can it be a reduction. Here is an example using really basic numbers. Let’s say last year, your budget was $1000. This year you make a new budget from scratch and say your budget for the new year is $2000. That is a 100% increase. Congress looks at that and says crazy. So they cut the budget back 20% to $1600 dollars and then declare that they cut the budget by 20%. In actuality they increased the budget compared to last year by 60%. The government does this routinely and they stand up and blatantly lie to the American people every time they present a new one. Years ago, I sold computer equipment into the state departments of California. At the end of the fiscal year we would get lots of orders because they had to spend all of their budgeted money by the end of the fiscal year because if they didn’t’, their budget would be cut. So they spend the whole amount and then ask for more the next year, declaring they came up short of what all they wanted accomplish.
The point of all of this is that the government is too big and spends too much money. There is just no sustainability in spending more than you take in. We as citizens know this, but it seems to not matter to the government. When will it stop? It will stop when we can no longer keep raising the credit card spending limits. We are decades past the time when we need to be doing some major trimming. We have over 300 government agencies here in CA alone. Obama with all of his czars and cronies, it has to stop. We just simply can’t afford it.
In marriages, money disagreements often leads to divorce. I am ready to divorce Obama. I want out of the choke hold on my hard work and my income. I pay way more than my fair share and I give more charitably than that millionaire Al Gore. I am doing my part and then some and the government just wants to keep taking more. Enough is enough.
I say choke the snot out of them. If there is civil unrest, bring it on!
I don’t accept all your “facts”, JLB, and few of your conclusions. You want to reduce government spending? Cut the Pentagon budget in half. Cut the NSA budget by two-thirds. Cut the Homeland Security budget for new buildings by three-quarters. Increase spending everywhere else, including national infrastructure, child care and education. Reestablish the WPA for infrastructure labor. We’ll start to see improvement quick.
Just because you refuse to accept the facts, doesn’t make them untrue. It just makes you unreasonable.
JLB,
Recognize that when dealing with people who still pine for the New Deal and the WPA, facts are not a relevant subject.
You mean the laws that brought us out of the Great Depression? Oh, yeah…almost forgot…you pine for the Hoover Great Depression and the Bush Great Recession.
Benician:You mean the laws that brought us out of the Great Depression?
No, I mean the laws that got some people through the Depression. A huge difference that those who worship at the shrine of FDR do not understand.
Rethugs got us into the Depression and Great Recession, Dems got us out. Facts hurt. No word salad will change that.
If someone or a department is non-essential, why do we have them?
Seniors by now should have their new Evidence of Coverage for 2014. Most premiums will be about the same with some increases. The major increases are for prescriptions, 50% increase in most common used; maximum out-of-pocket amount as high as 75% increase. That is just the beginning. There is much more in EOC that will shock Seniors. As we all know they need more healthcare attention at this could have a big impact on their fixed incomes. Sorry Obamacare is ans will not be the answer. This is not a scare tactic it is a fact.
Careful there Robert, you may upset some on this forum with those darn facts!
First…you’re lying. Second, are you really concerned about seniors paying more when you want to cut Medicare and Social Security?
Benician this is Robert Livesay , are you saying I am lying? Well I will tell you what. Would you like to meet with me and go over the EOC? If it is me you are calling a lying individual I have never said I wanted to cut S/S and Medicare only a do over on payroll deductions in favor of the poor, low income and middleclass. Give me a date, time and place and we can straighten this out very quickly.
I’m no fan of Obama care. That said, shutting down the government is not the solution. Every day the government is shut down is costing us millions in back pay and lost production. If Obama care is really as bad as they say, let it continue. Next election we will know who to vote for.
Sounds logical.
Shhhh…don’t let out the big secret. If Obamacare is as bad as the right claims it is, they’d happily let it be implemented…reveal itself as a failure…and use it for political gain in 2014 and 2016.
A little common sense shows that obamacare is a train wreck. And yes it is already showing itself to be a failure. It’s just that the heartless republicans would much prefer to save many Americans and our financial structure and our economy from the expensive experiment doomed to fail.
Sensibly people should be concerned about any plan that has an owners name on it but is unwilling to be on board with it for himself and his family.
Please explain how it’s showing itself to be a failure. Is it the millions anxious to enroll on Day 1? Is it the story after story I’m reading of Republicans in real life discovering how it benefits them? Is it the rethugs need to lie about it in its attempt to destroy it? If it were truly a train wreck, why would the rethugs have to lie?
If it’s such a disaster, why did the Heritage Foundation originally suggest it. Why did Republicans in Congress propose it? Why did the rethug standard bearer in 2012 implement it in his state when he was governor? Why did Jim DeMint say Romneycare should be a model for national health insurance? Ahhhh…that’s right…that was all before the black guy became president.
Rethugs have no regard for ‘saving’ Americans and our financial structure. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be continuing the sequestration cuts, oppose every jobs plan…including much needed infrastructure improvements…they’d propose a health care plan of their own, they wouldn’t have allowed for a government shutdown and they wouldn’t be threatening to vote against a debt limit increase. They’re actually taking joy in the shutdown (Michelle Bachman: It’s what we wanted!), though it has impacted 800,000 jobs and taken 300M out of the economy every day. Yeah, they care about Americans. Get real.
Benician said: Please explain how it’s showing itself to be a failure. Is it the millions anxious to enroll on Day 1?
I am not shy about admitting when I am wrong and it looks like the response to 0bamacare is far better than I anticipated. I thought they would get about 650,000 hits on day one, but they reported over 5 million hits. Damn, 0bamacare fans must be giddy with delight.
California 0BamaCare: 5 Million hits on Day One
Oh wait, they lied, it was 645,000 hits, not 5 million.
Well, I did over estimate the amount though.
So, when everyone in the GOP lies about death panels, the cost, loss of jobs, etc….that’s the same as someone at the California exchange giving a bad number on the # of hits…which was corrected the next day. Yeah…good counter. Run with that.
Benician said: So, when everyone in the GOP lies about death panels, the cost, loss of jobs, etc. … Yeah…good counter. Run with that.
Lying by the Democrats was already covered on this thread, I assumed you were paying attention. Chalk that up to another error on my part.
Now go ahead, once again you will need to get the last word in.
Funny how the guy who gets the last word 90% of the time…no matter how inane the point you’re making to do so…complains about someone potentially getting the last word. Another common DDL-theme. Just like your tendency to counter substantive points with trivial blather. Rethugs lie and lie and lie and lie as a matter of political strategy. The GOP propaganda channel has a record of lying so severe, it’s viewers become more uninformed the more they watch. But, someone misrepresented the hit count on the Calif. exchange, so it’s all equal. We now await your next Palin-esque word salad to get your cherished last word.
Oh, BTW, is it really true you don’t live in Benicia? Please inform us…how many other community forums do you drench with your Faux talking points blather?
Benician is your daughter a low income person? We do have a plan for folks in thaty low income bracket. It is and still is called Medicade/Medical. It is a very good program for the folks in the low income bracket or do need other help. I support that program.
We also have the ACA.
How about starting with the fact that large numbers of people are reporting that their premiums are sky rocketing? It is anything but affordable. Romney care is not the same as Obamacare. Apples to Oranges comparison.
As for your other commentary, centered around name calling, is not worth a response. The republicans recongnize that we can not continue to spend more than we take in. If we do, we will become another Greece. So if people like you want to just keep spending into total collapse, who else is going to put the emergency brake on?
My daughter says her premiums will be cut by 80% and her copay by 67%. I can live with that. If you think your rates are skyrocketing, I suggest you lobby the rethugs and demand single payer.
“Sensibly (sic) people should be concerned about any plan that has an owners name on it.”
It’s called the Affordable Care Act. Are you referring to Mr. Affordable?
Semantics
You brought it up, and it was central to your point.
His name is all over it and it also happens to be the accepted name for it used by everyone. I should have know you would pick on that minor detail rather than address the point as it was intended.
I don’t think it’s a minor detail at all. It was an overarching criticism based on a falsehood. He didn’t name it Obamacare — his political enemies did. Whether that’s now the common term is irrelevant.
How many other “minor” falsehoods are you trying to pass off here as facts?
JLB said:I should have know you would pick on that minor detail rather than address the point as it was intended.
That’s the way the opposition rolls, JLB. When a valid point is made, they either attack the poster, the sources, or focus on a minor distraction. Saul taught them that.
My point is valid and unrefuted. And the only people I know who have read “Rules for Radicals” are conservatives. But simple minds require straw men to beat down.
You’re hilarious. Pot, meet kettle. It’s actually a tactic you use all the time here. “Yeah…but the Calif exchange misrepresented the # of internet hits…so all lying is alike!”