{"id":2791,"date":"2012-01-12T17:04:21","date_gmt":"2012-01-13T01:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/?p=2791"},"modified":"2012-01-12T17:04:21","modified_gmt":"2012-01-13T01:04:21","slug":"u-s-debt-nears-15-194-trillion-ceiling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/u-s-debt-nears-15-194-trillion-ceiling\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Debt Nears $15.194 Trillion Ceiling"},"content":{"rendered":"

I get it, you get it, but the dolts in DC clearly do not. We are broke, there isn’t enough money in the entire world to cover our debt not to mention everyone else! DC is all talk about fiscal responsibility but keep in mind many of them are career politicians for more than 10 years. These same politicians who are preaching what we should and shouldn’t do are the same ones who got us into this mess. Granted this sinking ship has been off course for longer period of time, those talking heads are still responsible because they continue the out of control spending policies. Some of them… some<\/em> have been in office for 30 yrs, who did absolutely NOTHING to stop this and think they can run for POTUS!<\/p>\n

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n

Wall St Journal<\/a><\/p>\n

By Damian Paletta<\/p>\n

The Treasury Department has begun maneuvers to avoid hitting the debt ceiling, as the Obama administration waits for Congress to return from the holiday break before it can raise the federal borrowing limit.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The U.S. government was just a hair below the $15.194 trillion debt ceiling on Tuesday, $25 million shy of the limit Congress set last summer. President Barack Obama sent a letter to congressional leaders Thursday, saying the U.S. debt was within $100 million of the ceiling \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and that further borrowing is required to meet existing commitments.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Raising the debt ceiling another $1.2 trillion is procedurally simple but politically it is much more complex.<\/p>\n

Last year, as part of the White House\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s deal with Republicans to avert a potential default on the U.S. debt, both sides agreed to raise the debt ceiling $2.1 trillion, but to do it in two steps. So in August, they immediately raised the debt ceiling $900 billion.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To raise the ceiling another $1.2 trillion, which is what the Treasury Department now wants to do, Congress must first have the opportunity to formally disapprove or block the increase.<\/p>\n

The vote of disapproval is expected to fail, but they need the opportunity to vote, which is something they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do while they are out of town. Congress has 15 days to vote to disapprove the increase once it is formally requested by the White House.<\/p>\n

To be sure, Treasury Department officials, led by Mary Miller<\/strong> and others, have learned multiple ways to buy extra time while Congress deliberates during the near-scare last year. Suspending investments in the exchange-stabilization fund, a reserve account for foreign exchange purposes, is one of several things the agency can do to buy more time. If they need to buy even more time, they can suspend contributions to certain federal pension funds, among other things.<\/p>\n

The practical implications of failing to raise the debt ceiling are pretty severe, according to government officials and market analysts. The government can only borrow money up to the limit, and because the government spends more money than it brings in through taxes and other receipts it is constantly running up the debt.<\/p>\n

Failing to raise the ceiling would mean the government would have to make severe cuts in spending to avoid defaulting on debt obligations.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers are set to return later this month, though it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unclear how soon a vote of disapproval could be held.<\/p>\n

If the debt ceiling is raised $1.2 trillion, it would mean the government wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to raise the debt ceiling again until late 2012 or early 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I get it, you get it, but the dolts in DC clearly do not. We are broke, there isn’t enough money in the entire world to cover our debt not to mention everyone else! DC…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[9,248],"tags":[46,2896,20,226,107,4,5488,1717,159,5489,5487,5490,42276],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2791"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2791\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}