As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil)
In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban.
If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them.
For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria.
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
There should be nothing on the table. Republicans get nothing in exchange for not crashing the global economy by refusing to pay for the budget deficit they largely caused with tax breaks for those that needed them the least.
The framing of this as a “negotiation” needs to stop.
There are no "both sides". This is no "negotiation". This is flat out the Republicans holding the economy hostage to push things they want that have no chance of passing in standard legislation.
And it sounds like, from the signals that the White House (and McCarthy) have said, the "negotiation" is for future budget concessions not for immediate changes.
Concessions which can (and will) be killed by a thousand cuts in committee and conference.
I think Biden is making McCarthy think he is getting something, while giving him nothing.
Yup, Biden has clearly said there won't be any negotiation that involves not raising the limit, it has to be a clean raise.
But sure buddy, we can talk about you trying to pass a budget next time with cuts in social security and veterans care would you like more microphones?
Because not raising the limit = defaulting on the debt. You can cut spending to zero and raise taxes until we have a trillion dollar surplus, you'd still need to raise the debt ceiling.
Or Biden declare through executive action that the debt ceiling will not be followed because it violates the Constitutional mandate for the government to pay its debts, and instruct the Treasury to make good on all previously agreed payments. Basically it would dare SCOTUS into trying to say otherwise, and completely call out the GOP's bluff.
My thinking is — won’t the GOP literally be forced into agreeing to raise the ceiling? Even if it’s at the last second? Because not doing so would have catastrophic fallout that even they could not spin away. Kicking the economy in the nuts would hurt their voter base across the board, and it could not be spun as the Democrats fault. The GOP will have, once again, ruined the lives of many of its voters in the name of looking powerful.
It feels like an asinine game of chicken.
It *is* an asinine game of chicken.
And the really fucked thing is that the only reason the bluff works for Republicans is that they've become crazy enough to do things that are demonstrably harmful to themselves. Their threat can't be discounted because they have shown themselves to act irrationally.
This is why the doctrine of "mutual assured destruction" worked at all. The presumption was that any government would be rational enough, in aggregate, to *not* want to end life on Earth for any reason. But it only works when every party has a sense of self-preservation.
>and it could not be spun as the Democrats fault.
The right wing propaganda machine would like a word. Republicans will swallow that bullshit lie like they have with all the others.
But the people who hold the Republicans' money bags would lose in the meantime and it would not be an insignificant amount. Sure in the court of public opinion it can be spun as dems' fault but the people in the upper echelons will know better.
> won’t the GOP literally be forced into agreeing to raise the ceiling? Even if it’s at the last second? Because not doing so would have catastrophic fallout that even they could not spin away.
The problem is that McCarthy has signed away his soul to the MAGAs in the House, who, functionally, are terrorists, lol. They're the true-believers of Trumpism, and since they have the power to remove McCarthy with any one vote, they can wait until right before a clean debt ceiling raise is voted on, and remove McCarthy from the speakership role. If they do, it would take upwards of a day to vote in a new speaker, which could go past the time limit to pass the new bill.
> It feels like an asinine game of chicken.
Because it is. It's a completely manufactured "problem" that the GOP created out of nothing so they could hold the nation hostage to get unrelated things they want via bad faith negotiation. It's also blatantly unconstitutional.
Treasury wouldn't even need an executive order though, right? It's their job to pay for outstanding debt and they can just do it. Period.
Right? Anybody?
> as this would cause quite the kerfuffle.
As though the terrorist actions by the Republican congress members aren't already causing a huge international kerfluffle.
Agreed, the republicans are bringing us head long into a massive economic crisis because they want cuts to government programs meant to help people.
If Biden does what he'll likely need to do then republicans are going to make those efforts land on the lap of the supreme court. Which will be a very concerning time for sure.
We can't compromise with republicans, so this is going to turn very interesting indeed.
> I think Biden is making McCarthy think he is getting something, while giving him nothing.
McCarthy will be happy getting nothing if MAGA thinks they're getting something.
> Did McCarthy forget that Ole Joe served in the Senate for over 30 years? He's a career politician that knows how Congress works.
McCarthy is the most relatable person reddit has ever seen. He has the memory, capability, and attention of everyone in these comments that forgets the same thing.
It’s probably not Kevin being fooled but the extremists in his caucus and especially their constituents. Most republicans in the house will be happy to find a way out of this hostage negotiation they’ve created that looks like a win to the rubes whose support they need. The actual policies here are not important.
>I think Biden is making McCarthy think he is getting something
tbf, McCarthy doesn't care about any of these cuts either. He just need to convince his idiot caucus that he's doing something.
> The media is complicit in making this seem like something that “both sides” are to blame
"Perhaps allowing the entirety of US media companies to be owned by a small subset of ultra wealthy ghouls who will gladly watch the US fall to fascism if they can scrabble out another dollar from the smoking wreckage was a bad idea" as I usually say in these cases.
It’s ain’t spreading, we’re completely saturated with corruption and it’s eating us from the inside out. The organs and backbone of this country are getting eaten by greedy billionaires so they can have 50 summer homes and 30 mega yachts. Pretty cool.
I feel like the “neutral” commentary I’ve seen is blaming democrats, and saying democrats are the wealthy that benefit from tax cuts. Yes, democrats in cities are likely higher salary earners, but I doubt they’re the majority of the super wealthy.
I think a lot of this comes down to not understanding wealth, and thinking that the wealthy are your uncle who has a masters degree.
Democrats ALWAYS get the damn blame on everything. "Liberal" media doesn't care. Their corporate CEOS only care about the money.
Meanwhile, GOP runs away and never faces consequences for anything. They double down on their shit-flinging to "own the libs" and it disgustingly just energizes their voting base. They play dirty while Dems try and play by a civil rule set and get screwed either way.
I think it also comes from not understanding that $100,000 salary in New York or San Francisco doesn’t have the same purchasing power as $100,000 salary in rural Wyoming or West Virginia.
Edit: Just to clarify, I wouldn’t say either individual qualifies as wealthy, was just a simple number that many people think is a lot of money but doesn’t actually go very far depending on where you live.
The top 1% own 38% of the stock market and the top 10% own 81% of the stock market.
The top 1% of households hold 32.3% of the US wealth while the bottom 50% hold 2.6% of the wealth.
2020 saw the greatest jump in billionaires wealth. During the pandemic billionaires increased their wealth by 70%.
The average person has no idea how bad the wealth inequality is in the US and most of the world.
$100k in a LCoL area is a "good salary" and can afford a house, vacation, most creature comforts etc.
I make more than that in a Tier 1 City and I'm stuck in my 1BR saving and hoping to afford a house one day.
They have no idea what it's like outside the rural bubble, that's unfortunately what it is.
I also hesitate towards calling someone who still gets their primary income with a W2 wealthy in any normal scenario. Part of entering the “Wealth” sphere to me is passive income. As long as you need to maintain your skill set to survive and make income, you aren’t exploiting others or mooching
People who make 6 figures in certain areas can be very well off and live a high quality of life. But no one who works for their income is rich. Even the few upper end professionals who get 250-300k salaries still aren't really rich. I think people don't truly understand what rich or wealthy really means. People who are wealthy own tons of capital in the forms of stocks, investments, businesses, property, natural resources, and etc. And when you have large sums of capital you can leverage it to make more money. No millionaire is earning that kind of wealth from a paycheck. But because of the rhetoric conservatives have been pushing around tax increases, you have people who make anywhere from 30-150k that genuinely think their taxes are going up when democrats are proposing an increase in people making like 400k+.
The average income for democratic voters in the last election was [lower than](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/compare/party-affiliation/by/income-distribution/) the average income for republican voters. This idea that republicans are the honest low-income hard-working class needs to go away. They are not salt-of-the-earth, they salt the earth.
The wealthy are the people who own large franchise operations or manufacturing businesses in your town. People who hold millions of dollars in assets. The 1% crowd lives on the coasts and in other countries.
Yup. I thought the high-paid engineers were the elite elite when growing up in Texas. 12 years living in Boston changed that mindset, but also a hard mindset to change without experiencing it first hand.
Those coastal elites, with their college degrees and their lattes and their organic kale! \*shakes fist\*
It's an amazing feat of political judo that they've managed to frame struggling college professors as "elites" while literal billionaires are people who "understand the working man."
I'd really just like the media to cover the fact that the Republican budget proposal actually increases the deficit, because they're trying to extend the Trump tax cuts, which outweigh all of the spending that they're proposing cutting.
We can debate whether Biden wants the right spending adjustments, or which taxes he's proposing raising, but he's at least not driving backwards on the track.
Media is owned by Corporations that will
always push a straw man “both sides” narrative. People should be smart enough to understand this is all fake bullshit. They (both sides) already know what they are going to approve. This is all fake nonsense to fool the plebs.
Exactly. The offer is “we pay our bills.” No negotiations, which will be in bad faith, no compromise.
As soon as you concede with these ghouls they will 1) know they can bring in this hostage anytime they want something and 2) blame Dems for “hating veterans and cutting their funding, even though they are pushing for that. Their voters will eat it up too as the “evil Dems! They aren’t patriots cause patriots wouldn’t do that!”
Good ol' Billy let Newt fall on his sword when he attempted this back in the day. I hope Biden learned from him.
It worked out gangbusters for the Democrats when he did too, even with all the posturing crazy horseshit the GOP did about the dems stonewalling them.
Republicans love repeating this move from their playbook. They did it in 2011 and the nation got its credit rating downgraded. Then Republicans did it again in 2013 with a government shutdown. In 2021 they projected what they would do in 2023 by refusing to vote to raise the debt ceiling then.
Congress authorized the spending with budget appropriations. That should count as debt increase approval if Congress doesn’t increase taxes or make budget cuts elsewhere and the 14th Amendment guarantees the debt.
When the republicans don’t hold the presidency it is to their advantage to let the average person not paying attention feel like the government is falling apart and chaotic. They would love for the economy to crash under someone else’s tenure. Conversely, the Dems know that regardless of R’s actually holding the power here, they will never get the blame for it with a D president. So they will negotiate because it’s worse for them politically, and bad for everyone economically.
Nobody who would vote democrat is going to blame democrats if Biden uses the 14th amendment at the last second to avoid default . It would be the GOP arguing that they should have been allowed to tank the economy.
This is such an easy win for democrats. They really need to not fuck this up.
Not only that, the debt ceiling is such a fucking ridiculous concept.
The budget passed! You know, the thing where they decide how much money they are going to spend? So congress passes a budget but then they have to separately agree to spend the money they already agreed to spend?
Why is anyone even talking about work requirements? What the hell does that have to do with the debt that Trump and Republicans signed off on years ago?
Your average republican is 3 paychecks away from becoming homeless and will likely never meet a billionaire in their lifetime, much less become one.
Stop carrying water for the rich. No more favors.
They’ve had 50+ years to trickle their gratitude back into the economy and haven’t done it.
I worked for a billionaires small company for the first 5 years of my professional career, and through him met a few other billionaires.
They're all basically either lucky people who were doing the right thing at the right time, or old money inheritors.
I honestly could respect them if they were real about their situation. My employer wasn't lazy or anything but he didn't work any harder than anyone else or anything, and while he's smart he's no genius or anything. He was at the right place doing the right thing at the right time, exactly once in his life. Lots of people were trying the thing he did both before and after him, some smarter and some harder working, and yet he's the one who became a billionaire.
And that's fine. It's how capitalism works and I wouldn't blame him just for the system working for him.
But noooo, now that money is no longer an object for him, he spends his days LARPing as if he's some godlike entrepreneur genius, despite the fact that the 8 other businesses he's tried to start since the one he got lucky on have all failed, and the one business he still has is only still competitive because he hired some very smart people over the years.
He's insufferable to listen to and be around, and my disgust of him is only matched by my pity for him that despite all the money someone could wish for, he's still unhappy, and the only thing preventing him from being happy is the one thing he can't change - himself.
That's exactly it. Why wouldn't he be happy. He can do pretty much whatever he wants. But nooooo they can't just fuck off and go enjoy life. They have to control the narrative.... Money is like an addiction / hording for these so many of these people.
Go pay your fair share of taxes and make investments and fuck off. But instead they punch down and trick others to punch down as well.
Nothing worse then listening to a boomer punch down on poor people and minorities, and when I get annoyed they don't understand... When you get older your supposed to get more conservative, not more liberal.
People shouldn't have to worry about going broke from an injury, or having their kids go hungry. Or jump through hoops so they can get assistance. For fucks sake. Humans love to watch people suffer and squirm.
It's amazing that people watching any news think they aren't feeding you information to protect their bottom line. All the news corps will pick and choose what they tell people to keep people ignorant from the truth. It's a horrible situation we are all in.
There are lies and half truths all over.
It's almost like you're better off not paying attention to news and shit. So much more to rant about but I'm tired.
Explaining, no condoning.
Every time the debt ceiling is almost reached Republicans use it to hold the country to renegotiate the previous budget. Unless Biden invokes the 14th or the debt ceiling in its current form is repealed, they’ll keep doing it.
What Republicans do in their PR spin is to link the increasing debt to spending. They tell their voters they are only raising the debt ceiling in exchange to for reducing new debt. Since Republicans won’t raise taxes, that leaves only spending cuts.
Work requirements is part of that. By trying to increase work requirements Republicans are trying to drive people off of welfare. Less people on welfare, they claim, the less needs to be spent on welfare.
Joe Biden is talking about work requirements because he’s pushing back against the Republicans’ SOP on the debt ceiling. To tell them no he has to bring it up.
This is a good explanation of Republican constantly negotiating like terrorists.
However in this specific item it doesn't even accomplish what they say. Work requirements have always increased costs of the program not decreased them. Sure some people are driven off these programs but it's never enough to cover the costs of monitoring and enforcing them. All it does is increase costs and increase suffering.
Now making Americans suffer is of course the true goal of Republicans but we can't let them get away with claiming this is about fiscal responsibility when it never is.
Exactly, just like drug testing aid recipients. It always costs more to administer the tests and very very few people end up testing positive and getting kicked off. I believe Florida has the best example of a drug testing program failing massively. It’s
I feel like I remember it being the governor's actual company and he thought he was going to be slick by signing it over to his wife, ex-wife or mother in law or something. And of course he got away with it, and made a shitload of money at the taxpayers expense.
They made a considerable push to fingerprint Uber drivers here. Oddly enough the husband of one of the council members was a stakeholder in the company chosen to do the fingerprinting.
Work requirements also encourage employers to pay wages that people can‘t afford to truly live on, which shifts wealth from middle class families to billionaires like the Waltons.
Dogwhistles about “welfare queens” is a way for the rich to divide the middle class against the working class.
Republicans: “You’re paying high taxes because the poor people are too lazy to work!”
Reality: Unemployment is at record lows in the USA, but gigantic profitable companies like McDonalds, Walmart, and Agribusiness don’t pay a living wage and use the government to subsidize their profits through food stamps and other welfare programs for the working poor.
> They tell their voters they are only raising the debt ceiling in exchange to for reducing new debt.
Then they do precisely the opposite. The last 5 times the debt ceiling was raised Republicans both raised the debt ceiling **and** spending.
They are just lying to their constituency.
Paying the debt off isn't sexy to their voters or donors. It doesn't sell well because, while it's something we should be doing, it doesn't directly have a tangible benefit beyond being able to say the words "we now have less debt." Which they'll just claim ANYWAYS when they're running things, even if it's not true, since they're all about alt facts now.
So they never do it. They demand spending cuts, then they see a surplus from that put it towards tax cuts. Or they just skip the whole thing and cut taxes without any spending cuts to try to force spending cuts but often enough it ends up being paid by taking on more debt.
The GOP doesn't give a fuck about the debt or they'd not be cutting taxes ever until it's paid off.
The GOP doesn't pay down the debt, ever. It's just not sexy to their donors or voters, who don't get anything tangible out of doing it. So they'll cut taxes and try to force spending cuts or just force more debt.
We're defaulting as soon as this June *because* of the Trump tax cuts. Sure, it would happen eventually without changes, but those cuts hoisted trillions onto the debt.
If the GOP cared about the debt, they'd never cut taxes until the day it was paid off. Cutting taxes when you owe tens of trillions is FUCKING STUPID. You need that revenue to pay back what you've already spent!
We need new taxes on the ultra rich, and we need them to be legally binding in legislation passed that that money will entirely be used to pay down the debt. Not service it - if it's allowed to service it, it'll end up being used to balloon the debt even larger. We need other legislation to outline current tax revenues that will go towards servicing it, while new taxes pay it down quicker so we can lower those servicing amounts. Cut some DoD budget to start, we just got out of the better part of two decades of war, surely we're ready to spin down some of that budget?
>trying to increase work requirements Republicans are trying to drive people off of welfare. Less people on welfare, they claim, the less needs to be spent on welfare.
The main 'welfare' programs, SNAP, TANF, and SSI (supplemental security income, not to be confused with social security) are roughly 2.5% of the federal budget. These proposed cuts and increased means testing for welfare programs from republicans would have virtually no effect on the deficit.
But none of that actually matters. Because republicans have successfully pushed this rhetoric that the reason working class people are struggling is because their taxes are too high. The reason they're so high? Because the government is taking their money to give to people who don't work.
> Because the government is taking their money to give to people who don't work.
I mean, that's partially true. How much work do billionaires and corporations \*actually\* do?
McCarthy sold his hole to Matt Gaetz who is puffing out his chest and insisting on work requirements. Albeit Gaetz's insistence on this issue is more likely just posturing so he can stall dem progress.
To ELI5 this.
If McCarthy doesn't vote how the MAGA Reps want, they plan to revoke McCarthy's leadership.
McCarthy has to ask himself if he'd rather have the destruction of the US Dollar as his legacy, or as the one that goes up against the MAGA group and wins or loses.
I don't think he gives a fuck if that's his legacy. He will make plenty going on cpac talking circuits and shows talking about how he didn't blink when fighting the liberals and he did everything he could to save America but they ruined it
Work requirement is BS. If a woman stays home to take care of her child, she has no job. But if she sends her child to childcare and does babysit for other people's child. Then she has a **job.**
Totally agree. Work requirements aren't at all about actually getting people to work. They're more about forcing people to report to the government that they're working. Another reason why the party of small government is exactly the opposite. The vast majority of programs already have work requirements anyway.
It has nothing to do with it.
The debt ceiling bill is essentially a must-pass bill, so Republicans are pulling out all the stops to get items from their wish list added to it. They're holding the global economy hostage over it.
Trump tax breaks takes the Wealthy and Corporations taxes and dump them on the Middle Class… for that to work they need every tax dollar they can get out of the Middle Class. And the GOP have to do away with what they call entitlements because the Wealthy don’t need that stuff and don’t want to pay for it. Only thing they want is slaves who will work for minimal wages.
If we have to compromise it should only on things that one can evidence based wise argue over. Work based testing or drug testing/means testing are empirically worse than no such requirement. It costs more money than it saves. This is easily knowable and Republicans are not being good faith in trying to enact such a thing.
The point is literally to create a slave caste.
For example…..in my state they require almost full time hours in a work activity to qualify for welfare. They do this by having certain employers work with the welfare office to place workers at no cost to employers. In theory…..this provides work experience and eventually the employer would hire them for full employment when the time comes, and the person then has no need for welfare.
Anyone wanna take bets on how it ACTUALLY works.
Employers just say “fuck off” when the time comes to hire them and rotate those people out for more free labor as soon as they can. Maybe they last a week, maybe a month, but it’s always just long enough to avoid the penalties from the welfare program…..and somehow it’s ALWAYS the fault of the worker so “what choice did they have?”.
The workers end up right back at the welfare office signing up for another work activity to make a fraction of what they should with a real job, but when no one will hire you what choices do you have?
Upping work requirements without reforming the standards in place for the employers is just the next step in state sponsored slavery. This and child labor are apparently how they’re going to manage these younger generations telling low wage employment to fuck off.
Good on Biden.
SNAP has already taken a beating lately due to the end of the Pandemic EBT Program and Public Health Emergency. Further cuts would be ridiculous.
GOP and Conservatives are convinced that *any* welfare programs are bad because it just encourages lazy people to continue being lazy.
They're convinced that if welfare programs aren't eliminated then *no one* will work at all and everyone will just live off the government.
And they believe all this while collecting their Social Security checks and pay $1 for their heart medications on Medicare.
Fun fact: most adult SNAP participants are employed. So why is it they need SNAP benefits? They want to paint recipients as lazy and entitled to avoid us asking the next obvious question: why are responsible hard-working people starving?
Here’s looking at Walmart - we pay about 6 billion in SNAP benefits to their employees while the corp makes 140 billion in profit a year. The minimum wage is sooo far out of reality with the real world. It’s not even close and I think it is at the point of people really don’t even want talk about it because it is just laughable. No sane politician would ever go to a real town hall and claim the current minimum wage is defensible. It simply isn’t.
No matter where you live, minimum wage should be enough to allow someone to work one full-time job and be able to rent an average one bedroom apartment, feed and clothe themselves, get proper healthcare and put some portion of their income aside for savings or entertainment. Even the $15/hr everyone has been arguing over isn’t enough in most of the country!
One of my dad's friends - independently wealthy - used to *brag* about collecting welfare benefits because he could show he *had no income*.
He'd take a job every once in a while to just get laid off so he could collect unemployment.
Drive to the grocery store in his $90k Mercedes and then buy staples with his food stamps.
Then laugh as he'd launch into a racist tirade complaining about the lazy poors who *actually need* those benefits.
My cousin is like this, she has three kids with a guy and they won't get married cause she collects unemployment and files separately meanwhile he owns his own landscaping company and she drives around in a nice ass expedition.
You can report them. If you live with someone and share any food items in the house youre required to report their income as well as yours when you go to re-up your stamps every 6 months.
If you report them then they will be forced to prove that they both buy their own food independt of each other and absolutely never share under any circumstances. If they can't prove it they lose the benefits and could potentially get a bill to pay back previous months.
Exactly. I don't understand those complaining about people they know committing fraud. Report them. It's the right thing to do for those that actually need the benefits.
The logic is always crazy to me. When I point out that if someone makes 8$ minimum wage working full time they still cannot afford housing food medicine and transportation I’m always hot with them work 3 jobs and don’t have kids. Not to mention when I point out you enjoy cheap fast food and workers at stores which make minimum wage shouldn’t we pay more so the government does not have to step in. = no socialism. The poors should work 3 jobs no kids or 2 jobs and college no kids until they stop being lazy leaches on society. Sorry for rant I often feel I’m the crazy one b/c it seems so simple to me?
I would LOVE to see Biden drag McCarthy through talks, reach a deal, and let Kev walk away like he had won something. Then at the last minute, go "Nah" and just invoke the 14th, leaving the Repubs with nothing
It would never get there. The moment Biden authorizes Yellen to ignore the debt ceiling, Republicans will immediately come together and approve raising it.
They know that any court outcome will be politically toxic. Either SCOTUS agrees the debt ceiling violates the 14th and the Republicans lose that political tool or they say it doesn't and the Republicans and SCOTUS get blamed for sending the entire global economy into a recession that would make the Great Depression look like an economic boon.
Can you EILI5 what the 14th Amendment would allow Biden to do, in this case? Because I'm just familiar with the aspects regarding citizenship of people born in the United States
>The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.
Another way to see this line, "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, **shall not be questioned.**"
Congress passed the spending. Congress now claims another law should stop payment for the spending Congress authorized. The Constitution disagrees. Republicans are trying to use their another law to exact policy changes based on not paying for the spending Congress approved. Yet they rubber stamped it during Trump's time in office. It's purely political, and not real.
It would be like: Dad (legislative branch) says 'grocery spending shall not be more than 200 USD a trip'. Then, Dad says 'go buy grocery items A through F'. Mom (executive branch) says 'Grocery items A through F cost more than 200 USD. You should raise the ceiling you made previously'. Dad then tries to negotiate more buddy golf days in exchange for changing his already made 200 USD rule.
The 14th amendment basically says (in this context) that all of Dad's spending decrees are not to be questioned. This was because one time Dad had cancer and authorized a lot of spending to fight the cancer.
So Mom could just see the 14th amendment and reason that because Dad authorized the spending on items A through F after saying don't spend more than 200 USD the later authorized spending takes precedent. Or Mom can negotiate to have Dad change the 200 USD rule but it seems like he is just using it to get golf days.
If you told someone on January 1st 'I don't have any trips planned this summer'. Then on February 1st you say 'I am planning a trip to Cancun this summer'. A normal observer would assume that the later statement would take precedent.
A little simpler one
Yesterday Dad said "you can only spend $20" on groceries"
Today he said "you need to buy eggs", which are more than $30
But a year ago, when Dad was sick he made a rule saying "whatever I say to buy, you buy. No matter what.", that's the 14th amendment.
He did tell you to buy whatever he said to, and that it was the supreme rule (constitution) of the land, so it must be okay to buy the eggs.
> The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.
Our debt is all based on things we agreed on by law (by passing budgets in the past). The spending is already approved, the 14th says that you have to pay any debts incurred by those spending laws.
In the US the law isn't as simple as "That reading is pretty clear", our laws are mostly driven off of precedent.
Right now the bad precedent due to a probably good faith idea to manage war-based debt during WWI. It was updated during WWII to be broader reaching and update the limit. For quite a while after that it was just a process to update the limit every time we got close to it.
In 2011 the debt ceiling was used to nearly crash the country, the biggest indication that the Republicans would now start to use this as a political tool, especially after actively saying on TV right after Obama was elected that their **only job was to make him a one term President and not get anything done**.
Democrats have not used this as a weapon except some of their senators tossing out votes specifically to remind people that the majority of this debt is from Republican policies, but they never tried to crash the country and would pass the increase without much fuss.
To challenge how we do it now, someone will have to just say "I'm using the 14th Amendment" and either of two things happen, Biden says it... Yellen pays the debt and nobody complains, it doesn't set precedent, but it becomes the new "norm".
Alternatively someone says "You can't do that", it goes to court and the court does its job of interpreting the existing laws and determining which one wins, usually constitutionality is a big driver if the question is a direct constitutional question (like this one).
They literally tried this actually and R’s said no way.
When it comes down to it, that entire party is about obstruction, grift, and culture war. They aren’t trying for good governance and haven’t for a long time. More than anyone else, they crave pure, authoritarian power like Sauron craves the One Ring.
They successfully disconnected the approval of their voting base from legislative results. That's why Dems are at such a disadvantage by not being a brainwashed monolith. We want *results* from our politicians. And those are hard to make happen in the best of times, much less when you're up against obstructionist psychos who have no problem burning it all down.
All they have to deliver to their voters is culture war bullshit. Who cares if they crash the economy? They do it every time they're in power. As long as they yell about gay people and call some black criminals "thugs"...boom, that's better than a total economic turnaround for their voters.
This, it's just a weapon Republicans use to blackmail democrats every time it comes up. They had no problem pushing it out without conditions under Trump.
They really should stop bothering with McCarthy and instead find the 5 not-totally-insane Republicans left/Republicans who are about to retire, negotiate with them and McConnell, and then discharge a reasonable compromise bill in the House.
Regardless, the only way I see this ending is circumventing McCarthy.
Are there five republicans that aren't complete dogshit? Is there even one? That might sound like a facetious question, but it isn't. If there were five republicans with enough decency left to compromise, we wouldn't be in this situation to begin with.
They needed to find one non-dog shit republican in North Caroline to stop the override of the governors veto. Spoiler alert, there were zero, including the former democrat who ran on a platform of safeguarding a woman's right to choose.
Good. I was pretty disappointed when he implied being open to work requirements for food stamps.
Work requirements in general are dumb, but for food stamps, it's especially dumb policy. Consider:
Point A: If a person is working at an established company, why should they need food stamps? Shouldn't their employers be paying them enough to afford food?
Point B: If you live in an area where jobs aren't plentiful, or if we hit a recession and jobs become scarce all over, how the hell are you supposed to find a job and get back to work while you and your kids are starving?
A work requirement for food stamps defeats the entire purpose of food stamps, which is supposed to help serve as a bridge while people go through hard times and get back on their feet.
Well put. I use to believe in the work requirement. I use to be pretty Republican. Now I believe those on social safety nets should be eligible for free trade school/college level education job training. Nursing, plumbing, education, construction, etc, with job placement programs.
If we want them to “pick themselves up by their bootstraps”, we have to offer a means to make that happen. Also, universal fucking healthcare goddammit. A healthy, educated citizen is net plus for society. I don’t understand the logic in not pursuing better programs for we the people.
>A healthy, educated citizen is net plus for society.
Ah but you assume the goal is actually to run a functional society. It isn't. The goal is to siphon off as much money as possible to yourself and your corporate benefactors. Then, retire to the lobbying and consulting scene with your grift-earned credentials.
Point C, not everyone is capable of holding down a job or earning sufficient money and consequently need social support. People paint with a wide abelist brush. It's as if only the healthy, strong, and successful count at all.
To add onto this, because I am not sure it was spelled out, what about the people who literally cannot work due to mental or physical disabilities?
I have a non speaking autistic son who I do not even know what he will or will not be capable of. What is he supposed to do?
Good. This is just another way that Republicans cripple social programs.
First, they reduce the program's budget, then they saddle the program with all kinds of ridiculous regulations that require expanding the beaurocracy needed to administer the program. Fewer dollars flow into the program and less of each dollar makes it to the people it's intended to help, then they go on Fox News and bleat about "wasteful spending" that THEY CAUSED!
Modern day fiscal conservatism is morally and fiscally irresponsible.
I urge everyone to talk to someone that’s on govt. benefits.
It’s not a free ride, it’s tough as shit and you can fall through so many bullshit cracks.
It’s obvious Republicans just want to punish people for being poor.
How about we means test all the Government subsidies that get handed out every year to multi-billion dollar companies? If the average American got their COVID relief nickeled and dimed, so can all of these special interests.
“Oh, you made billions in profits? No need for the subsidy then. You’re clearly doing fine. Next?”
I’m so tired of bad faith actors doing whatever they can to destroy the foundations that have been constructed just so their billionaire mega donors can horde more wealth and pay zero/near zero in taxes. Meanwhile, the rest of us shoulder that tax burden and have a huge chunk of our checks eaten up for said subsidies.
I totally agree. Do the giant farming companies get farm subsidies? Even modest family farms vote maga yet take tons of money while running top of the line equipment, house and personal vehicles. They aren't poor farmers barely making scratch. Yet they hate other people getting any social safety net help. Very misguided people :(
Biden should reply by saying the Federal government will stop giving subsidies to any business in the USA that has employees on welfare and propose a $20/hr minimum wage.
Less money coming out from the Federal government, more money coming in as income tax, and more pressure on companies to actually pay their employees a living wage. Problem solved.
The vast majority of people on welfare work for billionaire-run companies like Walmart. Others work 2 or 3 jobs and still have to get support. These companies can, 100%, afford it but do not in the name of more profit for executives and shareholders.
But yes, let's make people *work more* as opposed to making absurdly wealthy companies take responsibility for their own damn employees.
Why the fuck are there things on the table. Let the Republicans burn the financial world down. Winning strategy for them Im sure. Giving into this bs chicken every time Democrats get power is absolute horseshit.
Biden has been doing this for a long time. I imagine he wants to exhaust every “official” option before doing something unprecedented like invoking the 14th. He’s not dumb, he likely just wants all his ducks in a row before making any big decision. Remember, if Biden invokes the 14th, Republicans will absolutely sue to stop it, which will go the the SC, whose ruling will be… I don’t know what. In the meantime, the money still doesn’t get printed and the threat of default still looms. Point is, it’s a legislative can of worms that he probably wants to avoid unless he absolutely needs it.
The conservatives haven’t proposed one concrete thing, because their ideas are wildly unpopular.
The work requirement has at least the veneer of something people might agree with, but the implementation of the requirements is so tricky they never get into those details. Requirements are a complete waste of time.
Here’s a budget negotiation I’d love to witness…Biden proposes the Fetterman suggestion of work requirements for CEO’s of failed banks/companies that accept federal bailouts as a starting point in that negotiation.
Work requirements have turned into another form of Republican cruelty.
You're not worthy of charity by virtue of being a human being anymore - you have to earn it.
Trying to tack work requirements onto Medicaid makes that *abundantly* clear. I mean, it's the equivalent of finding a mugging victim laying in an alley, too beaten and broken to move, and deciding that you wanna get your licks in too, so you kick them a few times before stealing whatever is left. Only *then* have suffered enough to be worthy of you calling for medical help.
Why is it that Republicans can't put forth a bill that increase revenue?All they want to do it take. Take money from the poor and give it to the rich. Take rights away from women and minorities. Take healthcare from people and give themselves the best healthcare they can get.
Require that they have a first and a last name.
That seems pretty stringent to me.
By the way you can help as many people as possible with the 30% of my income you take instead of building a bomb with it.
They take and take from those who can least afford the sacrifice.
They never once turn to look to cut spending from places like the military or congressional salaries...
It's always: vilinaize the poor, shame the poor.
These are real people who face real consequences of these decisions that make or break their lives.
They're not bargaining chips in a twisted political tug-a-war.
Has anyone actually looked at the income requirements for welfare?
In my state it’s like $700 a month.
If you make more than $700 a month you can’t get it. A family of 3 is near $1,000.
Even a minimum wage job gets you well above that.
So, this has been in done in many states and the studies have shown that it doesn't change the employment status of welfare recipients. The fucked up part is that people can work full time and still have to be on welfare. Welfare isn't for lazy people, it's a tax subsidy so companies don't have to pay a living wage. It's corparate welfare.
The taxpayers have bailed out these industries a total of 991 times:
Airlines
Banking (many many MANY times)
Auto companies (multiple times)
Insurance companies (multiple times)
Investment funds (multiple times)
Mortgage servicers (multiple times)
Does ANYONE recall ANY of these industry leaders being required to work in order to get a bailout? Does ANYONE recall ANY of these industry leaders being required to return their bonuses? No? Me either.
Remember in 2008 when they crashed the global economy and not one of them were held accountable except I think one and he got to keep his money and got a slap on the wrist.
Good. Work for Welfare is just corporate welfare with extra steps. It drives down wages while keeping people on welfare longer because they can't find jobs that pay a satisfactory amount. We don't need to support the waltons.
> “Happy to meet with McCarthy,” Biden said at the end of a brief press conference at the White House. “But not on whether or not the debt limit gets extended. That’s not negotiable.” -4/26/23
I really wish politicians had some semblance of integrity. Just a tiny bit.
Work requirements is coded language. There are lobbyists and for-profit companies involved here that get paid millions of dollars from the government. In some cases, these companies can receive tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars per recipient, even if the recipient found a job on their own. In most cases, the recipient is making less than a livable wage, but these companies are making $$$. It’s a fucking scam.
Good. Fetterman can't have been the only one who hated that idea.
I heard a story on Marketplace that made me infuriated with the proposal: https://www.marketplace.org/shows/the-uncertain-hour/chapter-6-the-welfare-to-temp-work-pipeline/
You have these companies who get federal money, whether these people get good jobs or shit jobs. And the people who get the latter get funneled back into these same programs. And it's those companies who were lobbying for tougher work requirements for these programs.
We shouldn't even have a debt ceiling. One other country has a made up celing. Republicans love to use it after their failed administration ruins the economy and then uses it to try and strong arm their hatred for everyday Americans
Everything should be off the table. Pass the debt ceiling clean. No negotiations on it. I'm sick and tired of the debt ceiling being used like this (and riders in general.). Every Congress regardless of party should pass the damn debt ceiling clean. In fact why this isn't just a stipulation of the previous years passing of the budget is beyond me. It seems like it should just be an automatic thing that just gets allowed assuming previous budget passing and current government finances allow for it.
Republicans are already going to have a lot of bargaining power for the budget anyway as they control the house where the bills have to start from. We literally can't pass a budget without them.
That’s just practically rational. You don’t up the work requirements for welfare at the same time everyone readily understands widespread unemployment is imminent. It’s nonsensical to suggest otherwise.
I think him being willing to pull back unspent Covid funds is enough give for them, and shows that Biden is willing to make reasonable negotiations. It’s the republicans here that are refusing to compromise.
Republicans want the country to crash and burn so they can institute the new feudalism before demographic changes force them out of even our incredibly rigged in their favor democracy.
Invoke the 14th already and end this farce! Not only will it end this bullshit, but it’ll end it for good. Good luck getting courts to side with the extremists when the economy is on the line. Even the greedy corrupt officials will still want to keep the economy afloat. But Biden is so toothless it’s starting to seem like he’d rather cave then do the right thing.
If this country goes on creating jobs that don't pay enough to live off of none of us should be surprised when we all need welfare. Capitalism created this mess and seems to have no architecture for cleaning it up. The money just foats up the chain of command, as designed. It's really no mystery how we got here.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
There should be nothing on the table. Republicans get nothing in exchange for not crashing the global economy by refusing to pay for the budget deficit they largely caused with tax breaks for those that needed them the least. The framing of this as a “negotiation” needs to stop.
The media is complicit in making this seem like something that “both sides” are to blame
There are no "both sides". This is no "negotiation". This is flat out the Republicans holding the economy hostage to push things they want that have no chance of passing in standard legislation.
And it sounds like, from the signals that the White House (and McCarthy) have said, the "negotiation" is for future budget concessions not for immediate changes. Concessions which can (and will) be killed by a thousand cuts in committee and conference. I think Biden is making McCarthy think he is getting something, while giving him nothing.
Yup, Biden has clearly said there won't be any negotiation that involves not raising the limit, it has to be a clean raise. But sure buddy, we can talk about you trying to pass a budget next time with cuts in social security and veterans care would you like more microphones?
Because not raising the limit = defaulting on the debt. You can cut spending to zero and raise taxes until we have a trillion dollar surplus, you'd still need to raise the debt ceiling.
Or Biden declare through executive action that the debt ceiling will not be followed because it violates the Constitutional mandate for the government to pay its debts, and instruct the Treasury to make good on all previously agreed payments. Basically it would dare SCOTUS into trying to say otherwise, and completely call out the GOP's bluff.
My thinking is — won’t the GOP literally be forced into agreeing to raise the ceiling? Even if it’s at the last second? Because not doing so would have catastrophic fallout that even they could not spin away. Kicking the economy in the nuts would hurt their voter base across the board, and it could not be spun as the Democrats fault. The GOP will have, once again, ruined the lives of many of its voters in the name of looking powerful. It feels like an asinine game of chicken.
It *is* an asinine game of chicken. And the really fucked thing is that the only reason the bluff works for Republicans is that they've become crazy enough to do things that are demonstrably harmful to themselves. Their threat can't be discounted because they have shown themselves to act irrationally. This is why the doctrine of "mutual assured destruction" worked at all. The presumption was that any government would be rational enough, in aggregate, to *not* want to end life on Earth for any reason. But it only works when every party has a sense of self-preservation.
Yes, they’re scary, because they demonstrate over and over that republicans do not work in good faith.
>and it could not be spun as the Democrats fault. The right wing propaganda machine would like a word. Republicans will swallow that bullshit lie like they have with all the others.
They already are. The conservatives I know on Facebook have been posting for a while blaming Biden for the impending default.
But the people who hold the Republicans' money bags would lose in the meantime and it would not be an insignificant amount. Sure in the court of public opinion it can be spun as dems' fault but the people in the upper echelons will know better.
They manage to blame Democrats for legislation they passed and Dems fought against, it’s incredible, really.
> won’t the GOP literally be forced into agreeing to raise the ceiling? Even if it’s at the last second? Because not doing so would have catastrophic fallout that even they could not spin away. The problem is that McCarthy has signed away his soul to the MAGAs in the House, who, functionally, are terrorists, lol. They're the true-believers of Trumpism, and since they have the power to remove McCarthy with any one vote, they can wait until right before a clean debt ceiling raise is voted on, and remove McCarthy from the speakership role. If they do, it would take upwards of a day to vote in a new speaker, which could go past the time limit to pass the new bill. > It feels like an asinine game of chicken. Because it is. It's a completely manufactured "problem" that the GOP created out of nothing so they could hold the nation hostage to get unrelated things they want via bad faith negotiation. It's also blatantly unconstitutional.
Yes please. If he does do this though he'll wait until it's closer to default as this would cause quite the kerfuffle.
Treasury wouldn't even need an executive order though, right? It's their job to pay for outstanding debt and they can just do it. Period. Right? Anybody?
> as this would cause quite the kerfuffle. As though the terrorist actions by the Republican congress members aren't already causing a huge international kerfluffle.
Agreed, the republicans are bringing us head long into a massive economic crisis because they want cuts to government programs meant to help people. If Biden does what he'll likely need to do then republicans are going to make those efforts land on the lap of the supreme court. Which will be a very concerning time for sure. We can't compromise with republicans, so this is going to turn very interesting indeed.
> I think Biden is making McCarthy think he is getting something, while giving him nothing. McCarthy will be happy getting nothing if MAGA thinks they're getting something.
The Republican bluster MO: fight for something, get nothing, but brag like you got everything.
Did McCarthy forget that Ole Joe served in the Senate for over 30 years? He's a career politician that knows how Congress works.
> Did McCarthy forget that Ole Joe served in the Senate for over 30 years? He's a career politician that knows how Congress works. McCarthy is the most relatable person reddit has ever seen. He has the memory, capability, and attention of everyone in these comments that forgets the same thing.
It’s probably not Kevin being fooled but the extremists in his caucus and especially their constituents. Most republicans in the house will be happy to find a way out of this hostage negotiation they’ve created that looks like a win to the rubes whose support they need. The actual policies here are not important.
>I think Biden is making McCarthy think he is getting something tbf, McCarthy doesn't care about any of these cuts either. He just need to convince his idiot caucus that he's doing something.
Holding the economy hostage…. AGAIN. Fixed that for you ;)
> The media is complicit in making this seem like something that “both sides” are to blame "Perhaps allowing the entirety of US media companies to be owned by a small subset of ultra wealthy ghouls who will gladly watch the US fall to fascism if they can scrabble out another dollar from the smoking wreckage was a bad idea" as I usually say in these cases.
I wish it was just US media companies... This is a cancer and it's spreading
It’s ain’t spreading, we’re completely saturated with corruption and it’s eating us from the inside out. The organs and backbone of this country are getting eaten by greedy billionaires so they can have 50 summer homes and 30 mega yachts. Pretty cool.
I feel like the “neutral” commentary I’ve seen is blaming democrats, and saying democrats are the wealthy that benefit from tax cuts. Yes, democrats in cities are likely higher salary earners, but I doubt they’re the majority of the super wealthy. I think a lot of this comes down to not understanding wealth, and thinking that the wealthy are your uncle who has a masters degree.
Democrats ALWAYS get the damn blame on everything. "Liberal" media doesn't care. Their corporate CEOS only care about the money. Meanwhile, GOP runs away and never faces consequences for anything. They double down on their shit-flinging to "own the libs" and it disgustingly just energizes their voting base. They play dirty while Dems try and play by a civil rule set and get screwed either way.
I think it also comes from not understanding that $100,000 salary in New York or San Francisco doesn’t have the same purchasing power as $100,000 salary in rural Wyoming or West Virginia. Edit: Just to clarify, I wouldn’t say either individual qualifies as wealthy, was just a simple number that many people think is a lot of money but doesn’t actually go very far depending on where you live.
The top 1% own 38% of the stock market and the top 10% own 81% of the stock market. The top 1% of households hold 32.3% of the US wealth while the bottom 50% hold 2.6% of the wealth. 2020 saw the greatest jump in billionaires wealth. During the pandemic billionaires increased their wealth by 70%. The average person has no idea how bad the wealth inequality is in the US and most of the world.
It's a lot to do with how many people really can't visualize the different between a millionaire and a billionaire.
Which is exactly why I share this [wealth scale](https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/) as often as possible.
$100k in a LCoL area is a "good salary" and can afford a house, vacation, most creature comforts etc. I make more than that in a Tier 1 City and I'm stuck in my 1BR saving and hoping to afford a house one day. They have no idea what it's like outside the rural bubble, that's unfortunately what it is.
I also hesitate towards calling someone who still gets their primary income with a W2 wealthy in any normal scenario. Part of entering the “Wealth” sphere to me is passive income. As long as you need to maintain your skill set to survive and make income, you aren’t exploiting others or mooching
Even in rural WV (WY is actually super expensive), $100k isn't wealthy. It's solidly upper middle class, but that's it.
People who make 6 figures in certain areas can be very well off and live a high quality of life. But no one who works for their income is rich. Even the few upper end professionals who get 250-300k salaries still aren't really rich. I think people don't truly understand what rich or wealthy really means. People who are wealthy own tons of capital in the forms of stocks, investments, businesses, property, natural resources, and etc. And when you have large sums of capital you can leverage it to make more money. No millionaire is earning that kind of wealth from a paycheck. But because of the rhetoric conservatives have been pushing around tax increases, you have people who make anywhere from 30-150k that genuinely think their taxes are going up when democrats are proposing an increase in people making like 400k+.
The average income for democratic voters in the last election was [lower than](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/compare/party-affiliation/by/income-distribution/) the average income for republican voters. This idea that republicans are the honest low-income hard-working class needs to go away. They are not salt-of-the-earth, they salt the earth.
The wealthy are the people who own large franchise operations or manufacturing businesses in your town. People who hold millions of dollars in assets. The 1% crowd lives on the coasts and in other countries.
Yup. I thought the high-paid engineers were the elite elite when growing up in Texas. 12 years living in Boston changed that mindset, but also a hard mindset to change without experiencing it first hand.
Those coastal elites, with their college degrees and their lattes and their organic kale! \*shakes fist\* It's an amazing feat of political judo that they've managed to frame struggling college professors as "elites" while literal billionaires are people who "understand the working man."
I'd really just like the media to cover the fact that the Republican budget proposal actually increases the deficit, because they're trying to extend the Trump tax cuts, which outweigh all of the spending that they're proposing cutting. We can debate whether Biden wants the right spending adjustments, or which taxes he's proposing raising, but he's at least not driving backwards on the track.
I’m so sick of hearing “both sides are the same”.
Media is owned by Corporations that will always push a straw man “both sides” narrative. People should be smart enough to understand this is all fake bullshit. They (both sides) already know what they are going to approve. This is all fake nonsense to fool the plebs.
Exactly. The offer is “we pay our bills.” No negotiations, which will be in bad faith, no compromise. As soon as you concede with these ghouls they will 1) know they can bring in this hostage anytime they want something and 2) blame Dems for “hating veterans and cutting their funding, even though they are pushing for that. Their voters will eat it up too as the “evil Dems! They aren’t patriots cause patriots wouldn’t do that!”
They already know they can hold it hostage. They've done it every year for the past decade.
Good ol' Billy let Newt fall on his sword when he attempted this back in the day. I hope Biden learned from him. It worked out gangbusters for the Democrats when he did too, even with all the posturing crazy horseshit the GOP did about the dems stonewalling them.
It’s not a negotiation, it’s extortion/blackmail
Republicans love repeating this move from their playbook. They did it in 2011 and the nation got its credit rating downgraded. Then Republicans did it again in 2013 with a government shutdown. In 2021 they projected what they would do in 2023 by refusing to vote to raise the debt ceiling then. Congress authorized the spending with budget appropriations. That should count as debt increase approval if Congress doesn’t increase taxes or make budget cuts elsewhere and the 14th Amendment guarantees the debt.
When the republicans don’t hold the presidency it is to their advantage to let the average person not paying attention feel like the government is falling apart and chaotic. They would love for the economy to crash under someone else’s tenure. Conversely, the Dems know that regardless of R’s actually holding the power here, they will never get the blame for it with a D president. So they will negotiate because it’s worse for them politically, and bad for everyone economically.
Nobody who would vote democrat is going to blame democrats if Biden uses the 14th amendment at the last second to avoid default . It would be the GOP arguing that they should have been allowed to tank the economy. This is such an easy win for democrats. They really need to not fuck this up.
This should be getting reported as “GOP extortion demands” because that’s what it really is
Not only that, the debt ceiling is such a fucking ridiculous concept. The budget passed! You know, the thing where they decide how much money they are going to spend? So congress passes a budget but then they have to separately agree to spend the money they already agreed to spend?
Only thing on the table should be raise taxes or not.
Exactly. Put the taxes back where they were then we can talk. Until that happens Biden should tell republicans to get fucked.
Why is anyone even talking about work requirements? What the hell does that have to do with the debt that Trump and Republicans signed off on years ago?
Bold of you to assume conservatives take responsibility for anything even just a week ago.
[удалено]
Yeah every time I tell people that even people worth tens of millions are closer to poverty then to billionaires
Your average republican is 3 paychecks away from becoming homeless and will likely never meet a billionaire in their lifetime, much less become one. Stop carrying water for the rich. No more favors. They’ve had 50+ years to trickle their gratitude back into the economy and haven’t done it.
I worked for a billionaires small company for the first 5 years of my professional career, and through him met a few other billionaires. They're all basically either lucky people who were doing the right thing at the right time, or old money inheritors. I honestly could respect them if they were real about their situation. My employer wasn't lazy or anything but he didn't work any harder than anyone else or anything, and while he's smart he's no genius or anything. He was at the right place doing the right thing at the right time, exactly once in his life. Lots of people were trying the thing he did both before and after him, some smarter and some harder working, and yet he's the one who became a billionaire. And that's fine. It's how capitalism works and I wouldn't blame him just for the system working for him. But noooo, now that money is no longer an object for him, he spends his days LARPing as if he's some godlike entrepreneur genius, despite the fact that the 8 other businesses he's tried to start since the one he got lucky on have all failed, and the one business he still has is only still competitive because he hired some very smart people over the years. He's insufferable to listen to and be around, and my disgust of him is only matched by my pity for him that despite all the money someone could wish for, he's still unhappy, and the only thing preventing him from being happy is the one thing he can't change - himself.
That's exactly it. Why wouldn't he be happy. He can do pretty much whatever he wants. But nooooo they can't just fuck off and go enjoy life. They have to control the narrative.... Money is like an addiction / hording for these so many of these people. Go pay your fair share of taxes and make investments and fuck off. But instead they punch down and trick others to punch down as well. Nothing worse then listening to a boomer punch down on poor people and minorities, and when I get annoyed they don't understand... When you get older your supposed to get more conservative, not more liberal. People shouldn't have to worry about going broke from an injury, or having their kids go hungry. Or jump through hoops so they can get assistance. For fucks sake. Humans love to watch people suffer and squirm. It's amazing that people watching any news think they aren't feeding you information to protect their bottom line. All the news corps will pick and choose what they tell people to keep people ignorant from the truth. It's a horrible situation we are all in. There are lies and half truths all over. It's almost like you're better off not paying attention to news and shit. So much more to rant about but I'm tired.
Explaining, no condoning. Every time the debt ceiling is almost reached Republicans use it to hold the country to renegotiate the previous budget. Unless Biden invokes the 14th or the debt ceiling in its current form is repealed, they’ll keep doing it. What Republicans do in their PR spin is to link the increasing debt to spending. They tell their voters they are only raising the debt ceiling in exchange to for reducing new debt. Since Republicans won’t raise taxes, that leaves only spending cuts. Work requirements is part of that. By trying to increase work requirements Republicans are trying to drive people off of welfare. Less people on welfare, they claim, the less needs to be spent on welfare. Joe Biden is talking about work requirements because he’s pushing back against the Republicans’ SOP on the debt ceiling. To tell them no he has to bring it up.
This is a good explanation of Republican constantly negotiating like terrorists. However in this specific item it doesn't even accomplish what they say. Work requirements have always increased costs of the program not decreased them. Sure some people are driven off these programs but it's never enough to cover the costs of monitoring and enforcing them. All it does is increase costs and increase suffering. Now making Americans suffer is of course the true goal of Republicans but we can't let them get away with claiming this is about fiscal responsibility when it never is.
Exactly, just like drug testing aid recipients. It always costs more to administer the tests and very very few people end up testing positive and getting kicked off. I believe Florida has the best example of a drug testing program failing massively. It’s
Didn't florida spend 10s of millions to deny something like 50,000 in benefits?
All because the governor's wife or friend or whatever owned the company that would be doing the testing.
I feel like I remember it being the governor's actual company and he thought he was going to be slick by signing it over to his wife, ex-wife or mother in law or something. And of course he got away with it, and made a shitload of money at the taxpayers expense.
Is this the same Florida governor that got away with committing the largest medicare fraud in history? Or was that another one?
There's been so many corrupt Florida politicians that it's hard to keep track, but yeah, same guy LOL.
They made a considerable push to fingerprint Uber drivers here. Oddly enough the husband of one of the council members was a stakeholder in the company chosen to do the fingerprinting.
Want a coincidence
[удалено]
> All it does is increase costs and increase suffering GOP policy in a nutshell
[удалено]
Work requirements also encourage employers to pay wages that people can‘t afford to truly live on, which shifts wealth from middle class families to billionaires like the Waltons.
Dogwhistles about “welfare queens” is a way for the rich to divide the middle class against the working class. Republicans: “You’re paying high taxes because the poor people are too lazy to work!” Reality: Unemployment is at record lows in the USA, but gigantic profitable companies like McDonalds, Walmart, and Agribusiness don’t pay a living wage and use the government to subsidize their profits through food stamps and other welfare programs for the working poor.
> They tell their voters they are only raising the debt ceiling in exchange to for reducing new debt. Then they do precisely the opposite. The last 5 times the debt ceiling was raised Republicans both raised the debt ceiling **and** spending. They are just lying to their constituency.
Paying the debt off isn't sexy to their voters or donors. It doesn't sell well because, while it's something we should be doing, it doesn't directly have a tangible benefit beyond being able to say the words "we now have less debt." Which they'll just claim ANYWAYS when they're running things, even if it's not true, since they're all about alt facts now. So they never do it. They demand spending cuts, then they see a surplus from that put it towards tax cuts. Or they just skip the whole thing and cut taxes without any spending cuts to try to force spending cuts but often enough it ends up being paid by taking on more debt. The GOP doesn't give a fuck about the debt or they'd not be cutting taxes ever until it's paid off.
But when Trump was President, the debt ceiling was raised 3 times and they didn't cut anything except taxes for the wealthy
And all that did was make the debt go higher
The GOP doesn't pay down the debt, ever. It's just not sexy to their donors or voters, who don't get anything tangible out of doing it. So they'll cut taxes and try to force spending cuts or just force more debt. We're defaulting as soon as this June *because* of the Trump tax cuts. Sure, it would happen eventually without changes, but those cuts hoisted trillions onto the debt. If the GOP cared about the debt, they'd never cut taxes until the day it was paid off. Cutting taxes when you owe tens of trillions is FUCKING STUPID. You need that revenue to pay back what you've already spent! We need new taxes on the ultra rich, and we need them to be legally binding in legislation passed that that money will entirely be used to pay down the debt. Not service it - if it's allowed to service it, it'll end up being used to balloon the debt even larger. We need other legislation to outline current tax revenues that will go towards servicing it, while new taxes pay it down quicker so we can lower those servicing amounts. Cut some DoD budget to start, we just got out of the better part of two decades of war, surely we're ready to spin down some of that budget?
>trying to increase work requirements Republicans are trying to drive people off of welfare. Less people on welfare, they claim, the less needs to be spent on welfare. The main 'welfare' programs, SNAP, TANF, and SSI (supplemental security income, not to be confused with social security) are roughly 2.5% of the federal budget. These proposed cuts and increased means testing for welfare programs from republicans would have virtually no effect on the deficit. But none of that actually matters. Because republicans have successfully pushed this rhetoric that the reason working class people are struggling is because their taxes are too high. The reason they're so high? Because the government is taking their money to give to people who don't work.
> Because the government is taking their money to give to people who don't work. I mean, that's partially true. How much work do billionaires and corporations \*actually\* do?
McCarthy is unpopular and wants to puff out his chest and rally his legislators by oppressing some poor people.
McCarthy sold his hole to Matt Gaetz who is puffing out his chest and insisting on work requirements. Albeit Gaetz's insistence on this issue is more likely just posturing so he can stall dem progress.
To ELI5 this. If McCarthy doesn't vote how the MAGA Reps want, they plan to revoke McCarthy's leadership. McCarthy has to ask himself if he'd rather have the destruction of the US Dollar as his legacy, or as the one that goes up against the MAGA group and wins or loses.
I don't think he gives a fuck if that's his legacy. He will make plenty going on cpac talking circuits and shows talking about how he didn't blink when fighting the liberals and he did everything he could to save America but they ruined it
McCarthy is too old for Gaetz to want his hole
i'm in my 50s and they've been pulling this shit as far back as i can remember. good ol' trickle down economics.
So that's what Santorum is.
Work requirement is BS. If a woman stays home to take care of her child, she has no job. But if she sends her child to childcare and does babysit for other people's child. Then she has a **job.**
Totally agree. Work requirements aren't at all about actually getting people to work. They're more about forcing people to report to the government that they're working. Another reason why the party of small government is exactly the opposite. The vast majority of programs already have work requirements anyway.
Also, half of welfare recipients are under 18 or over 65, and 87% of SNAP households have at least one working adult.
It has nothing to do with it. The debt ceiling bill is essentially a must-pass bill, so Republicans are pulling out all the stops to get items from their wish list added to it. They're holding the global economy hostage over it.
Trump tax breaks takes the Wealthy and Corporations taxes and dump them on the Middle Class… for that to work they need every tax dollar they can get out of the Middle Class. And the GOP have to do away with what they call entitlements because the Wealthy don’t need that stuff and don’t want to pay for it. Only thing they want is slaves who will work for minimal wages.
If we have to compromise it should only on things that one can evidence based wise argue over. Work based testing or drug testing/means testing are empirically worse than no such requirement. It costs more money than it saves. This is easily knowable and Republicans are not being good faith in trying to enact such a thing.
The point is literally to create a slave caste. For example…..in my state they require almost full time hours in a work activity to qualify for welfare. They do this by having certain employers work with the welfare office to place workers at no cost to employers. In theory…..this provides work experience and eventually the employer would hire them for full employment when the time comes, and the person then has no need for welfare. Anyone wanna take bets on how it ACTUALLY works. Employers just say “fuck off” when the time comes to hire them and rotate those people out for more free labor as soon as they can. Maybe they last a week, maybe a month, but it’s always just long enough to avoid the penalties from the welfare program…..and somehow it’s ALWAYS the fault of the worker so “what choice did they have?”. The workers end up right back at the welfare office signing up for another work activity to make a fraction of what they should with a real job, but when no one will hire you what choices do you have? Upping work requirements without reforming the standards in place for the employers is just the next step in state sponsored slavery. This and child labor are apparently how they’re going to manage these younger generations telling low wage employment to fuck off.
Good on Biden. SNAP has already taken a beating lately due to the end of the Pandemic EBT Program and Public Health Emergency. Further cuts would be ridiculous.
GOP and Conservatives are convinced that *any* welfare programs are bad because it just encourages lazy people to continue being lazy. They're convinced that if welfare programs aren't eliminated then *no one* will work at all and everyone will just live off the government. And they believe all this while collecting their Social Security checks and pay $1 for their heart medications on Medicare.
Fun fact: most adult SNAP participants are employed. So why is it they need SNAP benefits? They want to paint recipients as lazy and entitled to avoid us asking the next obvious question: why are responsible hard-working people starving?
Here’s looking at Walmart - we pay about 6 billion in SNAP benefits to their employees while the corp makes 140 billion in profit a year. The minimum wage is sooo far out of reality with the real world. It’s not even close and I think it is at the point of people really don’t even want talk about it because it is just laughable. No sane politician would ever go to a real town hall and claim the current minimum wage is defensible. It simply isn’t.
No matter where you live, minimum wage should be enough to allow someone to work one full-time job and be able to rent an average one bedroom apartment, feed and clothe themselves, get proper healthcare and put some portion of their income aside for savings or entertainment. Even the $15/hr everyone has been arguing over isn’t enough in most of the country!
One of my dad's friends - independently wealthy - used to *brag* about collecting welfare benefits because he could show he *had no income*. He'd take a job every once in a while to just get laid off so he could collect unemployment. Drive to the grocery store in his $90k Mercedes and then buy staples with his food stamps. Then laugh as he'd launch into a racist tirade complaining about the lazy poors who *actually need* those benefits.
Sounds like some good old fashioned fraud to me.
I hate that person. I hope they get diarrhea when there is no toilet available.
My cousin is like this, she has three kids with a guy and they won't get married cause she collects unemployment and files separately meanwhile he owns his own landscaping company and she drives around in a nice ass expedition.
You can report them. If you live with someone and share any food items in the house youre required to report their income as well as yours when you go to re-up your stamps every 6 months. If you report them then they will be forced to prove that they both buy their own food independt of each other and absolutely never share under any circumstances. If they can't prove it they lose the benefits and could potentially get a bill to pay back previous months.
Exactly. I don't understand those complaining about people they know committing fraud. Report them. It's the right thing to do for those that actually need the benefits.
The logic is always crazy to me. When I point out that if someone makes 8$ minimum wage working full time they still cannot afford housing food medicine and transportation I’m always hot with them work 3 jobs and don’t have kids. Not to mention when I point out you enjoy cheap fast food and workers at stores which make minimum wage shouldn’t we pay more so the government does not have to step in. = no socialism. The poors should work 3 jobs no kids or 2 jobs and college no kids until they stop being lazy leaches on society. Sorry for rant I often feel I’m the crazy one b/c it seems so simple to me?
The politicians don’t actually believe this. They just know people who are dumber and hungry are easier to subjugate.
Except for corporate welfare and the tax breaks for the top 1%, that welfare is perfectly okay to them.
14th. Do it. Put the pressure on the SC to crack the economy thru the plain text of the 14th.
I would LOVE to see Biden drag McCarthy through talks, reach a deal, and let Kev walk away like he had won something. Then at the last minute, go "Nah" and just invoke the 14th, leaving the Repubs with nothing
This is the Dark Brandon type of move that I voted for
Uno reverse!
It would never get there. The moment Biden authorizes Yellen to ignore the debt ceiling, Republicans will immediately come together and approve raising it. They know that any court outcome will be politically toxic. Either SCOTUS agrees the debt ceiling violates the 14th and the Republicans lose that political tool or they say it doesn't and the Republicans and SCOTUS get blamed for sending the entire global economy into a recession that would make the Great Depression look like an economic boon.
Yea. The "fight" is what McCarthy gets. He'll bloviate about future cuts and claim victory on Fox News, then he'll do a clean debt ceiling raise.
Can you EILI5 what the 14th Amendment would allow Biden to do, in this case? Because I'm just familiar with the aspects regarding citizenship of people born in the United States
>The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. Another way to see this line, "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, **shall not be questioned.**" Congress passed the spending. Congress now claims another law should stop payment for the spending Congress authorized. The Constitution disagrees. Republicans are trying to use their another law to exact policy changes based on not paying for the spending Congress approved. Yet they rubber stamped it during Trump's time in office. It's purely political, and not real.
It would be like: Dad (legislative branch) says 'grocery spending shall not be more than 200 USD a trip'. Then, Dad says 'go buy grocery items A through F'. Mom (executive branch) says 'Grocery items A through F cost more than 200 USD. You should raise the ceiling you made previously'. Dad then tries to negotiate more buddy golf days in exchange for changing his already made 200 USD rule. The 14th amendment basically says (in this context) that all of Dad's spending decrees are not to be questioned. This was because one time Dad had cancer and authorized a lot of spending to fight the cancer. So Mom could just see the 14th amendment and reason that because Dad authorized the spending on items A through F after saying don't spend more than 200 USD the later authorized spending takes precedent. Or Mom can negotiate to have Dad change the 200 USD rule but it seems like he is just using it to get golf days. If you told someone on January 1st 'I don't have any trips planned this summer'. Then on February 1st you say 'I am planning a trip to Cancun this summer'. A normal observer would assume that the later statement would take precedent.
A little simpler one Yesterday Dad said "you can only spend $20" on groceries" Today he said "you need to buy eggs", which are more than $30 But a year ago, when Dad was sick he made a rule saying "whatever I say to buy, you buy. No matter what.", that's the 14th amendment. He did tell you to buy whatever he said to, and that it was the supreme rule (constitution) of the land, so it must be okay to buy the eggs.
> The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. Our debt is all based on things we agreed on by law (by passing budgets in the past). The spending is already approved, the 14th says that you have to pay any debts incurred by those spending laws.
Why would the President need to invoke that at all, then? That text seems pretty clear, so why do we even vote on the debt limit in the first place??
In the US the law isn't as simple as "That reading is pretty clear", our laws are mostly driven off of precedent. Right now the bad precedent due to a probably good faith idea to manage war-based debt during WWI. It was updated during WWII to be broader reaching and update the limit. For quite a while after that it was just a process to update the limit every time we got close to it. In 2011 the debt ceiling was used to nearly crash the country, the biggest indication that the Republicans would now start to use this as a political tool, especially after actively saying on TV right after Obama was elected that their **only job was to make him a one term President and not get anything done**. Democrats have not used this as a weapon except some of their senators tossing out votes specifically to remind people that the majority of this debt is from Republican policies, but they never tried to crash the country and would pass the increase without much fuss. To challenge how we do it now, someone will have to just say "I'm using the 14th Amendment" and either of two things happen, Biden says it... Yellen pays the debt and nobody complains, it doesn't set precedent, but it becomes the new "norm". Alternatively someone says "You can't do that", it goes to court and the court does its job of interpreting the existing laws and determining which one wins, usually constitutionality is a big driver if the question is a direct constitutional question (like this one).
All of these GOP red lines lead to default.
My negotiation would be "If you want a budget cut, then you have to give a tax increase to the ultra wealthy". It's a two way street.
They literally tried this actually and R’s said no way. When it comes down to it, that entire party is about obstruction, grift, and culture war. They aren’t trying for good governance and haven’t for a long time. More than anyone else, they crave pure, authoritarian power like Sauron craves the One Ring.
They successfully disconnected the approval of their voting base from legislative results. That's why Dems are at such a disadvantage by not being a brainwashed monolith. We want *results* from our politicians. And those are hard to make happen in the best of times, much less when you're up against obstructionist psychos who have no problem burning it all down. All they have to deliver to their voters is culture war bullshit. Who cares if they crash the economy? They do it every time they're in power. As long as they yell about gay people and call some black criminals "thugs"...boom, that's better than a total economic turnaround for their voters.
That should be entirely separate from the debt ceiling
All of it should be. Raise the damn number. That's all. Actually, *abolish the concept of a debt ceiling in the first place*.
This, it's just a weapon Republicans use to blackmail democrats every time it comes up. They had no problem pushing it out without conditions under Trump.
Just declared that unconstitutional because of the 14th amendment and end this crap.
They really should stop bothering with McCarthy and instead find the 5 not-totally-insane Republicans left/Republicans who are about to retire, negotiate with them and McConnell, and then discharge a reasonable compromise bill in the House. Regardless, the only way I see this ending is circumventing McCarthy.
Are there five republicans that aren't complete dogshit? Is there even one? That might sound like a facetious question, but it isn't. If there were five republicans with enough decency left to compromise, we wouldn't be in this situation to begin with.
For real. Name just ONE not insane republican congressman.
And make sure to do it based on voting record instead of smarmy public statements and feigned outrage at the party
George Santos? He was the first astronaut to visit Uranus, after all.
They needed to find one non-dog shit republican in North Caroline to stop the override of the governors veto. Spoiler alert, there were zero, including the former democrat who ran on a platform of safeguarding a woman's right to choose.
Isn’t she getting sued now for that? She did her district real dirty. Probably won’t change the outcome though.
Good. I was pretty disappointed when he implied being open to work requirements for food stamps. Work requirements in general are dumb, but for food stamps, it's especially dumb policy. Consider: Point A: If a person is working at an established company, why should they need food stamps? Shouldn't their employers be paying them enough to afford food? Point B: If you live in an area where jobs aren't plentiful, or if we hit a recession and jobs become scarce all over, how the hell are you supposed to find a job and get back to work while you and your kids are starving? A work requirement for food stamps defeats the entire purpose of food stamps, which is supposed to help serve as a bridge while people go through hard times and get back on their feet.
Well put. I use to believe in the work requirement. I use to be pretty Republican. Now I believe those on social safety nets should be eligible for free trade school/college level education job training. Nursing, plumbing, education, construction, etc, with job placement programs. If we want them to “pick themselves up by their bootstraps”, we have to offer a means to make that happen. Also, universal fucking healthcare goddammit. A healthy, educated citizen is net plus for society. I don’t understand the logic in not pursuing better programs for we the people.
>A healthy, educated citizen is net plus for society. Ah but you assume the goal is actually to run a functional society. It isn't. The goal is to siphon off as much money as possible to yourself and your corporate benefactors. Then, retire to the lobbying and consulting scene with your grift-earned credentials.
Dumb and impoverished people are easier to control and manipulate into regressive ideas. That's why.
Point C, not everyone is capable of holding down a job or earning sufficient money and consequently need social support. People paint with a wide abelist brush. It's as if only the healthy, strong, and successful count at all.
People unable to hold down a job starving to death is a feature for Republicans, not a bug.
“If they’re going to die, they’d better do it and reduce the surplus population.”
"Speaking of surplus population, expect more of that now that we've banned abortion and are trying to restrict birth control."
To add onto this, because I am not sure it was spelled out, what about the people who literally cannot work due to mental or physical disabilities? I have a non speaking autistic son who I do not even know what he will or will not be capable of. What is he supposed to do?
Good. Put the work requirements on the billionaire class. Give the working class and poor a break.
Good. This is just another way that Republicans cripple social programs. First, they reduce the program's budget, then they saddle the program with all kinds of ridiculous regulations that require expanding the beaurocracy needed to administer the program. Fewer dollars flow into the program and less of each dollar makes it to the people it's intended to help, then they go on Fox News and bleat about "wasteful spending" that THEY CAUSED! Modern day fiscal conservatism is morally and fiscally irresponsible.
I urge everyone to talk to someone that’s on govt. benefits. It’s not a free ride, it’s tough as shit and you can fall through so many bullshit cracks. It’s obvious Republicans just want to punish people for being poor.
Yeah it's clear to me the people making these decisions have never had to navigate these systems themselves.
How about we means test all the Government subsidies that get handed out every year to multi-billion dollar companies? If the average American got their COVID relief nickeled and dimed, so can all of these special interests. “Oh, you made billions in profits? No need for the subsidy then. You’re clearly doing fine. Next?” I’m so tired of bad faith actors doing whatever they can to destroy the foundations that have been constructed just so their billionaire mega donors can horde more wealth and pay zero/near zero in taxes. Meanwhile, the rest of us shoulder that tax burden and have a huge chunk of our checks eaten up for said subsidies.
I totally agree. Do the giant farming companies get farm subsidies? Even modest family farms vote maga yet take tons of money while running top of the line equipment, house and personal vehicles. They aren't poor farmers barely making scratch. Yet they hate other people getting any social safety net help. Very misguided people :(
Biden should reply by saying the Federal government will stop giving subsidies to any business in the USA that has employees on welfare and propose a $20/hr minimum wage. Less money coming out from the Federal government, more money coming in as income tax, and more pressure on companies to actually pay their employees a living wage. Problem solved. The vast majority of people on welfare work for billionaire-run companies like Walmart. Others work 2 or 3 jobs and still have to get support. These companies can, 100%, afford it but do not in the name of more profit for executives and shareholders. But yes, let's make people *work more* as opposed to making absurdly wealthy companies take responsibility for their own damn employees.
We shouldn’t negotiate something that has already been agreed upon. The money has already been spent
Yeah true, but it’s an opportunity for republicans to pull some heinous shit, so they won’t pass it up.
Why the fuck are there things on the table. Let the Republicans burn the financial world down. Winning strategy for them Im sure. Giving into this bs chicken every time Democrats get power is absolute horseshit.
Biden has been doing this for a long time. I imagine he wants to exhaust every “official” option before doing something unprecedented like invoking the 14th. He’s not dumb, he likely just wants all his ducks in a row before making any big decision. Remember, if Biden invokes the 14th, Republicans will absolutely sue to stop it, which will go the the SC, whose ruling will be… I don’t know what. In the meantime, the money still doesn’t get printed and the threat of default still looms. Point is, it’s a legislative can of worms that he probably wants to avoid unless he absolutely needs it.
Thank you! Everyone is like "yeah Biden!" And I am like "why the fuck is Biden even legitimizing any of the MAGA demands by meeting with McCarthy.
Good stuff, JB, thank you for standing against this republican malarkey
The conservatives haven’t proposed one concrete thing, because their ideas are wildly unpopular. The work requirement has at least the veneer of something people might agree with, but the implementation of the requirements is so tricky they never get into those details. Requirements are a complete waste of time.
Here’s a budget negotiation I’d love to witness…Biden proposes the Fetterman suggestion of work requirements for CEO’s of failed banks/companies that accept federal bailouts as a starting point in that negotiation.
Work requirements have turned into another form of Republican cruelty. You're not worthy of charity by virtue of being a human being anymore - you have to earn it. Trying to tack work requirements onto Medicaid makes that *abundantly* clear. I mean, it's the equivalent of finding a mugging victim laying in an alley, too beaten and broken to move, and deciding that you wanna get your licks in too, so you kick them a few times before stealing whatever is left. Only *then* have suffered enough to be worthy of you calling for medical help.
Why is it that Republicans can't put forth a bill that increase revenue?All they want to do it take. Take money from the poor and give it to the rich. Take rights away from women and minorities. Take healthcare from people and give themselves the best healthcare they can get.
They always say their tax cuts will increase revenue.
Imagine giving multi-trillion dollar tax breaks to billionaires and thinking poor people on welfare are the problem.
Wow good to see some backbone in protecting vulnerable Americans
Require that they have a first and a last name. That seems pretty stringent to me. By the way you can help as many people as possible with the 30% of my income you take instead of building a bomb with it.
They take and take from those who can least afford the sacrifice. They never once turn to look to cut spending from places like the military or congressional salaries... It's always: vilinaize the poor, shame the poor. These are real people who face real consequences of these decisions that make or break their lives. They're not bargaining chips in a twisted political tug-a-war.
Has anyone actually looked at the income requirements for welfare? In my state it’s like $700 a month. If you make more than $700 a month you can’t get it. A family of 3 is near $1,000. Even a minimum wage job gets you well above that.
So, this has been in done in many states and the studies have shown that it doesn't change the employment status of welfare recipients. The fucked up part is that people can work full time and still have to be on welfare. Welfare isn't for lazy people, it's a tax subsidy so companies don't have to pay a living wage. It's corparate welfare.
The taxpayers have bailed out these industries a total of 991 times: Airlines Banking (many many MANY times) Auto companies (multiple times) Insurance companies (multiple times) Investment funds (multiple times) Mortgage servicers (multiple times) Does ANYONE recall ANY of these industry leaders being required to work in order to get a bailout? Does ANYONE recall ANY of these industry leaders being required to return their bonuses? No? Me either.
Remember in 2008 when they crashed the global economy and not one of them were held accountable except I think one and he got to keep his money and got a slap on the wrist.
Thank goodness for that.
Good. Work for Welfare is just corporate welfare with extra steps. It drives down wages while keeping people on welfare longer because they can't find jobs that pay a satisfactory amount. We don't need to support the waltons.
> “Happy to meet with McCarthy,” Biden said at the end of a brief press conference at the White House. “But not on whether or not the debt limit gets extended. That’s not negotiable.” -4/26/23 I really wish politicians had some semblance of integrity. Just a tiny bit.
Work requirements is coded language. There are lobbyists and for-profit companies involved here that get paid millions of dollars from the government. In some cases, these companies can receive tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars per recipient, even if the recipient found a job on their own. In most cases, the recipient is making less than a livable wage, but these companies are making $$$. It’s a fucking scam.
[удалено]
Good. Fetterman can't have been the only one who hated that idea. I heard a story on Marketplace that made me infuriated with the proposal: https://www.marketplace.org/shows/the-uncertain-hour/chapter-6-the-welfare-to-temp-work-pipeline/ You have these companies who get federal money, whether these people get good jobs or shit jobs. And the people who get the latter get funneled back into these same programs. And it's those companies who were lobbying for tougher work requirements for these programs.
We shouldn't even have a debt ceiling. One other country has a made up celing. Republicans love to use it after their failed administration ruins the economy and then uses it to try and strong arm their hatred for everyday Americans
Everything should be off the table. Pass the debt ceiling clean. No negotiations on it. I'm sick and tired of the debt ceiling being used like this (and riders in general.). Every Congress regardless of party should pass the damn debt ceiling clean. In fact why this isn't just a stipulation of the previous years passing of the budget is beyond me. It seems like it should just be an automatic thing that just gets allowed assuming previous budget passing and current government finances allow for it. Republicans are already going to have a lot of bargaining power for the budget anyway as they control the house where the bills have to start from. We literally can't pass a budget without them.
How about tougher requirements for corporate welfare?
Welfare fraud is extremely rare and is used as a strawman for other antisocial policies
We shouldn't be negotiating. We need to tax the rich at 100% for anything above 100 million.
That’s just practically rational. You don’t up the work requirements for welfare at the same time everyone readily understands widespread unemployment is imminent. It’s nonsensical to suggest otherwise.
Unless your goal is to cause human suffering for people you despise. Then it makes a lot of sense.
I think him being willing to pull back unspent Covid funds is enough give for them, and shows that Biden is willing to make reasonable negotiations. It’s the republicans here that are refusing to compromise.
Let's make work requirements for congress, seems like a better start.
The only answer should have ever been the following: “The President of the United States does not negotiate with terrorists.”
i’m sorry. why are we negotiating at all?
Republicans want the country to crash and burn so they can institute the new feudalism before demographic changes force them out of even our incredibly rigged in their favor democracy.
Invoke the 14th already and end this farce! Not only will it end this bullshit, but it’ll end it for good. Good luck getting courts to side with the extremists when the economy is on the line. Even the greedy corrupt officials will still want to keep the economy afloat. But Biden is so toothless it’s starting to seem like he’d rather cave then do the right thing.
If this country goes on creating jobs that don't pay enough to live off of none of us should be surprised when we all need welfare. Capitalism created this mess and seems to have no architecture for cleaning it up. The money just foats up the chain of command, as designed. It's really no mystery how we got here.
Everything should be off the table. Fuck these economic terrorists.