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News Alert: Poll: Nearly three-quarters of Americans doubt Washington can repair the economy
August 10, 2011 8:03:43 PM
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A new Washington Post poll underscores the damage caused to President Obama and both political parties by the long standoff over the debt ceiling and the weakened economy, with a large majority agreeing that the policymaking process is unstable and ineffective. The results could have significant implications for both Republicans and Democrats, as record numbers of Americans now say they are interested in new congressional representation when they vote in November 2012.
Half the country agrees with the assessment of the nation's financial situation rendered by Standard & Poor's, which downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time in history.
http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/IKR2QE/OJTNTG/AM0IRL/UD27PV/SIIVS/AZ/h
For more information, visit washingtonpost.com
2 comments:
Also from Post:
What we saw last week is the markets unfortunately agreed with me. Because the markets saw what happened in Washington when Obama got a $2.4 trillion check. And one thing you learned is you can't fool the markets. …We just raised the debt ceiling and added $2.4 trillion more to the debt.…The reason why they [Standard & Poor’s] lowered the rating is because we dumped another $2.4 trillion in debt on the backs of Americans of the next generation.”
— Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), August 8, 2011
Rep. Michele Bachmann’s rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, earlier this week (full video clip below) is a good demonstration of the passion the GOP presidential aspirant brings to her speeches and the enthusiasm she generates from her supporters.
But does her story about the debt limit — and her opposition to raising it — match the facts? Did markets decline because the federal debt ceiling was increased by $2.4 trillion? And did Standard & Poor’s lower the government’s credit rating because the debt ceiling was increased?
The Facts
Bachmann starts out by perpetuating a myth by saying that President Obama received “a $2.4 trillion check.” Congress has already committed to spend much of this money, under budgets passed in previous years. Lifting the debt ceiling merely means that the Treasury now has the authority to make good on bills that are coming due.
The debt ceiling is actually a rather arbitrary limit that was placed on the ability of the Treasury. (We have previously recounted some of this history.) Republicans used the debt limit to force the White House to agree to cuts in future spending, but it is a misnomer to call this a “check” for Obama. Nor did the debt-limit increase immediately add that amount to the national debt.
But Bachmann’s larger point is that the market turmoil is a direct result of raising the debt limit — and that Standard & Poor’s lowered its AAA rating on U.S. Treasury bonds because the debt ceiling was increased. This is incorrect.
In a previous life, The Fact Checker covered the stock and bond markets and thus knows that it is always difficult to attribute any single factor to market fluctuations. The American economy has clearly been slowing, however, and that — combined with troubles in Europe — has led to market uncertainty. The slide on Wall Street, in fact, began around July 22, more than 10 days before the debt ceiling was increased.
Certainly, the political tussle between the Democrats and Republicans over the debt ceiling did not inspire much confidence that the two sides could make much progress in addressing economic and budget issues.
In fact, that was a critical reason, S&P said, behind its lowering of the bond rating.
In its report on the downgrade, the firm’s analysts said the deal between the White House and Congress did not go far enough to address “medium-term debt dynamics,” and the debt fight indicated “the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges.”
Indeed, S&P analysts voiced concern that “the statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.” The company expressed relief that the debt ceiling had been lifted, saying the action “removed any perceived immediate threat of payment default posed by delays to raising the government's debt ceiling.”
It may take another year or two to play out, but mark my words...nothing happens on god's earth by accident. The situation in this country will be driven to deteriorate until the type of social unrest seen in Greece and Great Britain is provoked in the United States...then they come after the guns in the name of public safety and the restoration of law and order.
This is all being carefully orchestrated to put the US in a condition to be robbed of its national sovereignty and subsumed into the one world government progressive elites have been aiming for since at least as far back as Woodrow Wilson's presidency.
Those who appear to be in charge are but actors playing their parts...some wittingly (and willingly)...some not.
The words of one of our founding fathers may be instructive to this time:
"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
- Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, 2nd paragraph.
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