Boehner's Debt Ceiling Speech

I thought it was pretty solid. Maybe the usual suspects will disagree. :mellow:

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Here's the full text of Speaker of the House John Boehner's response to President Obama's debt ceiling address, as prepared for delivery:


Good evening. I'm John Boehner. I serve as Speaker of the whole House -- of the members of both parties that you elect. These are difficult times in the life of our nation. Millions are looking for work, have been for some time, and the spending binge going on in Washington is a big part of the reason why.

Before I served in Congress, I ran a small business in Ohio. I was amazed at how different Washington DC operated than every business in America. Where most American business make the hard choices to pay their bills and live within their means, in Washington more spending and more debt is business as usual.

I've got news for Washington - those days are over.

President Obama came to Congress in January and requested business as usual -- yet another routine increase in the national debt limit -- we in the House said 'not so fast.' Here was the president, asking for the largest debt increase in American history, on the heels of the largest spending binge in American history.

Here's what we got for that spending binge: a massive health care bill that most Americans never asked for. A 'stimulus' bill that was more effective in producing material for late-night comedians than it was in producing jobs. And a national debt that has gotten so out of hand it has sparked a crisis without precedent in my lifetime or yours.

The United States cannot default on its debt obligations. The jobs and savings of too many Americans are at stake.

What we told the president in January was this: the American people will not accept an increase in the debt limit without significant spending cuts and reforms.

And over the last six months, we've done our best to convince the president to partner with us to do something dramatic to change the fiscal trajectory of our country. . .something that will boost confidence in our economy, renew a measure of faith in our government, and help small businesses get back on track.

Last week, the House passed such a plan, and with bipartisan support. It's called the 'Cut, Cap, and Balance' Act. It CUTS and CAPS government spending and paves the way for a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution, which we believe is the best way to stop Washington from spending money it doesn't have. Before we even passed the bill in the House, the President said he would veto it.

I want you to know I made a sincere effort to work with the president to identify a path forward that would implement the principles of Cut, Cap, & Balance in a manner that could secure bipartisan support and be signed into law. I gave it my all.

Unfortunately, the president would not take yes for an answer. Even when we thought we might be close on an agreement, the president's demands changed.

The president has often said we need a 'balanced' approach -- which in Washington means: we spend more. . .you pay more. Having run a small business, I know those tax increases will destroy jobs.

The president is adamant that we cannot make fundamental changes to our entitlement programs. As the father of two daughters, I know these programs won't be there for them and their kids unless significant action is taken now.

The sad truth is that the president wanted a blank check six months ago, and he wants a blank check today. That is just not going to happen.

You see, there is no stalemate in Congress. The House has passed a bill to raise the debt limit with bipartisan support. And this week, while the Senate is struggling to pass a bill filled with phony accounting and Washington gimmicks, we will pass another bill - one that was developed with the support of the bipartisan leadership of the U.S. Senate.

Obviously, I expect that bill can and will pass the Senate, and be sent to the President for his signature. If the President signs it, the 'crisis' atmosphere he has created will simply disappear. The debt limit will be raised. Spending will be cut by more than one trillion dollars, and a serious, bipartisan committee of the Congress will begin the hard but necessary work of dealing with the tough challenges our nation faces.

The individuals doing this work will not be outsiders, but elected representatives of the people, doing the job they were elected to do as outlined in the Constitution. Those decisions should be made based on how they will affect people who are struggling to get a job, not how they affect some politician's chances of getting reelected.

This debate isn't about President Obama and House Republicans ... it isn't about Congress and the White House ... it's about what's standing between the American people and the future we seek for ourselves and our families.

You know, I've always believed, the bigger government, the smaller the people. And right now, we have a government so big and so expensive it's sapping the drive of our people and keeping our economy from running at full capacity.

The solution to this crisis is not complicated: if you're spending more money than you're taking in, you need to spend less of it.

There is no symptom of big government more menacing than our debt. Break its grip, and we begin to liberate our economy and our future.

We are up to the task, and I hope President Obama will join us in this work.

God bless you and your families, and God bless America.

How can any Government expect people to restrict their spending when the financial institutions, who caused this mess, are still dishing out large bonuses to their staff. In the final analysis the man in the street has to pay. Taxation is the only way to extract that payment. Dropping subsidies to private firms would help too.

No mention of cutting on defence spending. Trillions of dollars spent on trumped up wars.

As for creating unemployment, any cut backs by the Government creates unemployment. The bosses use this for an excuse to get rid of staff. It has been the case in all my working lifetime.

Cutting off all the offshore tax havens would be another way of reducing the debt. We could not do that though. Look at all the yacht makers etc that would be put on the dole.

I am also speaking about my own country too(UK), a blurred mirror image of the U.S.

Here in the US, and likely there as well, many (if not all) of the big CEO's who run philandering corporations, yet receive these large checks are done so by contractual obligations; not b/c they "earned" them.

Defense has been cut and cut and cut over the past couple of decades and we've seen dozens of large military base closures. I do agree however that we can eliminate many of our foreign posts.

His speech doesn't portray an accurate view of what the debt ceiling is, and it also continues to ignore the disparity caused by increasing spending while reducing revenue. The top earners aren't getting rich off each other, they don't just pass money around sitting separately above the rest of society, the money flows upward from the poorest to the richest.

That said, it's ridiculous that the poor of this nation would desire that the rich of this nation to continue to enjoy their tax cuts, and that large businesses can continue to find creative ways to lower their tax burden to churn out higher profits can continue to do so. A wage earner has very limited options in playing with their tax liability, while a business has quite a large variety of options. The IRS is likely to claim up to 99% tax due on wage earners' incomes, while only collecting a dismal % (can't remember if it's 40 or 60) on owner/operator/business/corporations.

The government's role is to handle all the functions we need and benefit from as a society, and feel there should be no profit motive in these functions. It's quite ominous that the government is often being compared to a business, when it's more akin to a charity or nonprofit organization. This is the reason I would want a public option over what is currently available, and at the same time realize its improbability (because it would involve dismantling a long standing majorly profitable network of businesses).

Overall, I can see what "business owners" are able to achieve in government office, and it almost sickens me to admit I'd rather have a politician. The current governor of Florida managed to find a way to fuck Floridians hard in only 6 months, and it only cost him $83 million of his private wealth to buy the governor's mansion and setup a monarchy rule. His wife's business will be doing quite well now.

I know it steps away from the federal environment, but just take a look at how someone who steps into political power for the first time from business decides to do things:
Gov. Rick Scott, Solantic and conflict of interest: What's the deal?
Rick Scott's Medicaid Overhaul to Benefit... Rick Scott?

P.S. Floridian are fucking retarded for electing this twit.

The whole concept that business acumen makes for a good politician is ludicrous, especially when applied to the current crop of Republicans.
You know what a business does when cost of goods/services rises?...they raise prices to maintain the desired profit margin.
If say Godfathers Pizza, Herman Cains baby business, operated the way Herman Cain promises to act as President, their prices would be lower today than they were five years ago.
News flash, they are not.

During the Bush2 era, Republicans raised the debt ceiling SEVEN goddamn times- essentially without comment or debate and assembled budgets that did not include the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (costs which were essentially ignored and set aside).
Today, in an act of stunning duplicity, Republicans have suddenly decided that the debt ceiling is just about the biggest issue facing us and fuck everything else...except their social engineering agenda and reflexively saying NO to everything Obama proposes.

The Republican party exists today merely as the legislative arm of the wealthiest 2% and corporations.
Their job is to codify/legitimize the flow of wealth upward and make sure the money is untouched once it gets to the upper strata.
For example, just wait and see how many Republicans vote for the second (yeah, they already did this once, in 2004) corporate tax holiday...one of the most perfectly Orwellian concepts ever.

Besides, this was not Boehner's speech anyway.
He is merely the meatsack through which Carl Rove and Grover Norquist project their agenda.

that's real interesting stuff, I'd just like to add..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skiz

President Obama came to Congress in January and requested business as usual -- yet another routine increase in the national debt limit -- we in the House said 'not so fast.' Here was the president, asking for the largest debt increase in American history, on the heels of the largest spending binge in American history.

Here's what we got for that spending binge: a massive health care bill that most Americans never asked for. A 'stimulus' bill that was more effective in producing material for late-night comedians than it was in producing jobs. And a national debt that has gotten so out of hand it has sparked a crisis without precedent in my lifetime or yours.

The United States cannot default on its debt obligations. The jobs and savings of too many Americans are at stake.

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that the spending binge he talks of here is Bushjnr's, something that Obama unfortunately has to deal with now, and

Quote:

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Originally Posted by clocker

During the Bush2 era, Republicans raised the debt ceiling SEVEN goddamn times- essentially without comment or debate and assembled budgets that did not include the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (costs which were essentially ignored and set aside).
Today, in an act of stunning duplicity, Republicans have suddenly decided that the debt ceiling is just about the biggest issue facing us and fuck everything else...except their social engineering agenda and reflexively saying NO to everything Obama proposes.

The Republican party exists today merely as the legislative arm of the wealthiest 2% and corporations.
Their job is to codify/legitimize the flow of wealth upward and make sure the money is untouched once it gets to the upper strata.
For example, just wait and see how many Republicans vote for the second (yeah, they already did this once, in 2004) corporate tax holiday...one of the most perfectly Orwellian concepts ever.

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it seems to be echoed here (thanks clocker) and I tend to agree