( Fiscal Cliff debate , Debt Ceiling debate , Sequestration debate - as performed by two cats , one bowl of kibbles..... understand the constitution and tax payer money - those are the kibbles ! )
These two ( fat cat parties ) cats really don't want to share one bowl of tasty kibble
http://now.msn.com/cats-share-bowl-of-kibble-in-video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfNk0LIAz9E
GUIDE
http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2013/01/11/obama-setting-stage-seize-power-purse/
Is Obama Setting the Stage to Seize the Power of the Purse?
The White House may craftily be laying the groundwork for a massive and thoroughly unconstitutional seizure of power from Congress.
Republicans are threatening not to raise the debt ceiling limit unless President Obama agrees to significant cuts in spending. And so, a move is increasingly afoot to have Obama raise it himself. It’s hard to imagine that the growing clamor doesn’t have the approval of the White House. And it’s hard to imagine a more egregious abuse of power.
There are few Constitutional principles more clear than that Congress is in charge of allotting the nation’s cash.
Wikipedia puts the significance of this quite well:
The power of the purse plays a critical role in the relationship of the United States Congress and the President of the United States, and has been the main historic tool by which Congress can limit executive power.
It would be unseemly for the president to snatch this power from Congress, so we are being treated to what is possibly some carefully choreographed performance art in which Obama is portrayed as being dragged kicking and screaming into usurping Congress.
First, on Sunday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi demanded that Obama raise the debt limit unilaterally: “I would just go do it,” she said.
And now Friday afternoon, in a letter conveniently leaked to Politico, the entire Senate Democratic leadership, led by Harry Reid, told Obama that if Republicans don’t raise the spending limit, he should just go do it:
In the event that Republicans make good on their threat by failing to act, or by moving unilaterally to pass a debt limit extension only as part of an unbalanced or unreasonable legislation, we believe you must be willing to take any lawful steps to ensure that America does not break its promises and trigger a global economic crisis — without congressional approval, if necessary.Consider just how frightening this sounds: Mr President, do what you must, Congress be damned.The rationale for this seizure of power is supposed to be the Fourteenth Amendment, which 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.But as David Rivkin Jr. and Lee Casey note in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, failure to raise the debt ceiling doesn’t mean America’s creditors wont get their money. Those obligations remain and must be paid.Rather, the result would be spending cuts needed to ensure that the Fourteenth Amendment isn’t violated. That’s what Democrats are really concerned about.The White House is playing its part in this seeming masquerade, opining that the Fourteenth Amendment does not grant the president the power to raise the debt ceiling.But this White House, with its well established penchant for executive action when confronted with the inconvenience of the Constitution’s balance of powers, will no doubt soon be noting the urgency of avoiding “default” and “financial collapse.”And with Congressional Democrats offering cover, Obama may well raise the debt limit himself. If he does, he will unleash a Constitutional crisis – and a very grave one indeed that could be an awful augur of power grabs to come.
and......
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/12/treasury-we-wont-mint-a-platinum-coin-to-sidestep-the-debt-ceiling/
Treasury: We won’t mint a platinum coin to sidestep the debt ceiling
The Treasury Department will not mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin to get around the debt ceiling. If they did, the Federal Reserve would not accept it.
That’s the bottom line of the statement that Anthony Coley, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, gave me today. “Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit,” he said.
The inclusion of the Federal Reserve is significant. For the platinum coin idea to work, the Federal Reserve would have to treat it as a legal way for the Treasury Department to create currency. If they don’t believe it’s legal and would not credit the Treasury Department’s deposit, the platinum coin would be worthless.
The idea of minting a platinum coin to invalidate the debt ceiling comes from a few key sentences tacked onto the 1997 Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act. “Notwithstanding any other provision of law,” it reads, “the Secretary of the Treasury may mint and issue platinum coins in such quantity and of such variety as the Secretary determines to be appropriate.”
The author of those sentences was Mike Castle, a Republican congressman from Delaware. The intent was to help coin collectors who wanted the Treasury Department to mint cheaper platinum coins. “People couldn’t afford the $600 investment, so they wanted the flexibility to put in smaller coinage so that people could collect them,” Castle told Wonkblog this month. But in giving the Treasury Department the flexibility to mint platinum coins of little value, Castle accidentally gave them the flexibility to mint platinum coins of unlimited value. “That was never the intent of anything that I drafted or that anyone who worked with me drafted,” Castle continued.
The idea of minting a trillion-dollar platinum coin was first floated in May 2010, in the comment section of “The Center of the Universe,” a blog devoted to Modern Monetary Theory. The author was a lawyer writing under the pseudonym Beowulf. “Curiously enough Congress has already delegated to [Treasury] all the seignorage power authority it needs to mint a $1 trillion coin (even numismatic coins are legal tender at their face value and must be accepted by the Federal Reserve) — the catch is, it’s gotta be made of platinum.”
The platinum coin idea gained some powerful adherents during the debt-ceiling crisis of 2011, but it really developed traction following the 2012 fiscal cliff deal, as politicians and economics writers realized that the country would, indeed, be facing another debt-ceiling crisis in a matter of months. A Twitter campaign by Joe Weisenthal, of Business Insider, and Josh Barro, of Bloomberg View, forced it into the conversation, and subsequent endorsements by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman and former U.S. Mint director Philip Diehl gave it further legitimacy.
But others, including myself, worried that the coin would be seen as an unprecedented power grab by the president, leading to a far more bitter standoff over the debt ceiling, a possible panic in the financial markets and a showdown in the courts. There was also the simple fact that it would, indeed, represent an admission that the government’s executive and legislative branches could no longer be trusted to come together and effectively manage the country’s finances.
Nevertheless, many top Democrats believed that the White House needed some kind of fallback option. Former president Bill Clinton said that if he were in office, he would invoke the 14th Amendment to call the debt ceiling unconstitutional “without hesitation, and force the courts to stop me.”
On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his leadership team sent President Obama a letter urging him to “to take any lawful steps to ensure that America does not break its promises and trigger a global crisis — without congressional approval, if necessary.”
In response, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell released a statement saying that to avoid the debt ceiling, “Democrats are looking at everything from the ridiculous (printing a trillion-dollar coin) to outright abdication of Congressional responsibility. But avoiding this problem will only make it worse.”
The White House seems to agree. This is, in fact, the second time that the Obama administration has ruled out a possible end run on the debt ceiling. In December, Press Secretary Jay Carney said, “This administration does not believe the 14th Amendment gives the president the power to ignore the debt ceiling — period.”
The administration’s position is that raising the debt limit is Congress’s responsibility until the day that Congress votes to make it the White House’s responsibility, which is a resolution the Obama administration would happily accept. Until then, White House officials say, they will not negotiate over the debt ceiling, and if congressional Republicans attempt to use it as leverage, then the consequences will be theirs to bear.
http://images.politico.com/global/2013/01/11/letter-to-potus.html - link to Reid's letter to President Obama
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/reid-to-obama-ok-to-skip-congress-on-debt-ceiling-86071.html?hp=f2
Reid to Obama: OK to skip Congress on debt ceiling
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other top Democrats are putting new pressure on the White House to circumvent Congress to boost the nation’s debt ceiling if no bipartisan agreement can be reached.
In a strongly worded letter to President Barack Obama obtained by POLITICO, Reid and his leadership team argue that failing to raise the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling would threaten the full faith and credit of the United States. Reid and Sens. Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer and Patty Murray asserted that Obama “must make clear that you will never allow our nation’s economy and reputation to be held hostage.”
“In the event that Republicans make good on their threat by failing to act, or by moving unilaterally to pass a debt limit extension only as part of an unbalanced or unreasonable legislation, we believe you must be willing to take any lawful steps to ensure that America does not break its promises and trigger a global economic crisis — without congressional approval, if necessary,” the Friday letter to Obama says.
The letter amounts to the most concerted push yet by Senate Democratic leaders for the White House to take unprecedented action to raise the debt ceiling given the bitter stalemate in Congress. After the messy debt ceiling fight from 2011, and the protracted fiscal cliff battle that extended until New Year’s Day, Obama has said he will not use the debt ceiling increase as a bargaining chip and will refuse to negotiate with GOP leaders on the issue.
But Republicans have demanded that dollar-for-dollar spending cuts must accompany any increase in the debt ceiling. And after agreeing to raise marginal income tax rates on high earners as part of the fiscal cliff deal, Republicans refuse to consider any new revenue as part of a debt-ceiling accord. Democrats say taxes must be part of any deal.
In addition, many conservative Republicans are not convinced that failure to lift the debt ceiling — which will be reached as early as next month — would constitute immediate default by the U.S. government. These Republicans believe that the U.S. government can continue to make interest payments to debt holders without defaulting.
“The fact that we continue hitting the debt ceiling is a symptom of Washington’s spending problem, and hitting the debt ceiling does not immediately trigger a default,” said Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), chairman of the powerful Republican Study Committee, in a statement on Thursday. “The Treasury Secretary has an obligation to preserve the credit rating of the United States and should pledge to continue making necessary interest payments to avoid default.”
Following the prolonged 2011 debt fight, the credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded U.S. debt, and analysts warn more downgrades could be possible, which could have dire consequences for the American and global economies.
Hill Democrats, for their part, are worried that they lack the leverage in the debt ceiling battle and stand to lose big in any deal cut between the White House and congressional Republicans.
Democrats privately grumble that Obama and Vice President Joe Biden “gave away” the issue of tax increases as part of the fiscal cliff deal. Without being able to include taxes - more specifically, tax cuts for some income groups — Democrats fear that Obama will have nothing to counter GOP arguments calling for steep reductions in entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
And if Obama listened to Democratic leaders and circumvented Congress, it would undoubtedly generate furious protests from Republicans and could spawn a constitutional crisis over the scope of presidential authority.
House Democrats, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, have been pushing Obama to invoke his power under the 14th Amendment — to ensure the validity of public debt — and unilaterally act to avoid default, ignoring Congress in the process.
The White House has repeatedly said it does not believe it has the power under Section Four of the 14th Amendment to avoid seeking congressional approval for a debt ceiling increase, although the Obama administration has come under pressure from its allies to find other ways around the legislative battle and reconsider its position.
Most recently, the idea of allowing the Treasury Department to mint a “$1 trillion dollar coin” and deposit it at the Federal Reserve in order to wipe away $1 trillion in liabilities has generated buzz in Washington. But some legal experts question the validity of such a move, and its unclear if Wall Street and other financial markets would punish such maneuvering as mere partisan sophistry and not a real solution to a serious fiscal problem.
The White House has downplayed the idea but did not completely rule it out earlier this week.
“There is no Plan B, there is no backup plan,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney. “There is Congress’s responsibility to pay the bills of the United States.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) accused the Democratic leaders of trying to avoid the problem. “With the president asking Congress to raise the debt ceiling, Democrats in Washington are falling all over themselves in an effort to do anything they can to get around the law — and to avoid taking any responsibility for Washington’s out-of-control spending,” McConnell said in a statement Friday.
and from the GOP.......
McConnell to take lead in entitlement talks, with Boehner in back seat
- 01/09/13 05:00 AM ET
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is poised to play a bigger role in negotiations to reform entitlement programs in the wake of the tax deal he helped forge last week.
Lawmakers see the passage of a bill to extend most of the Bush-era income tax rates and settle the question of estate, capital gains and dividend tax rates as a template for how to move the next installment of deficit reduction.
That would mean moving bipartisan legislation first in the Senate and put McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky, in the driver’s seat.
“I think he’ll play a major role. I think he and Vice President Biden have a good working relationship, and it appears to be one of the few good working relationships that the administration has with members of Congress on the Republican side of the aisle,” said former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who was one of McConnell’s most trusted advisers and is a columnist for The Hill.
But Gregg said McConnell “is not going to move forward without Boehner participating either directly or indirectly.”
Senior Republican aides say McConnell is not looking to supplant Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in deficit-reduction talks but he will play whatever role is necessary to achieve progress.
“He will try to be as productive as he can all the way through,” said a senior GOP aide. “If his role takes a different tack, given the circumstances, he’s going to do his job. He’s not going to walk away.”
That is a change from the summer of 2011 and the fall of 2012, when Boehner negotiated one on one with Obama to impose reforms to Medicare and Social Security, while McConnell was kept in the loop but took a backseat to the House leader.
McConnell was kept mostly on the sidelines in the run-up to the fiscal cliff on Dec. 31, until talks between Obama and Boehner fizzled. McConnell impressed colleagues on both sides of the aisle when he stepped in to the discussions shortly after Christmas and hammered out a deal with Biden only a few days later.
McConnell will have to play a bigger role earlier in this year’s deficit-reduction talks; Boehner has said he is finished talking one on one with the president.
A House GOP leadership aide said Boehner wants to avoid secretive leadership talks and move spending reforms through the committees instead.
“The goal is through regular order. Which is how the House has always acted — it is inaction from the Democratic leadership in the Senate and the White House that has pushed America up to the deadline again and again,” said Michael Steel, Boehner’s spokesman.
McConnell supports Boehner’s call for the next round of deficit reduction to move through regular order and has pressed Democratic leaders to cooperate.
“I call on the majority leader and the rest of my Democrat colleagues to start working with us right now, not one hour or one day or one week before we hit the debt limit, but ahead of time for once — so we can pass a bipartisan spending-reduction solution that everyone has had an opportunity to weigh in on in early February,” McConnell said on the floor earlier this month.
But given the short amount of time until the next deadline and that the Senate is not scheduled to resume its regular session until Jan. 22, political experts say the next deal will likely be negotiated again at the leadership level.
“My general thought is negotiations at the level of party leaders are still required,” said Steven S. Smith, professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis, who specializes in studying Congress. “This could take place initially in the Senate, taking the recent action as the model, and give House Republicans a take-it-or-leave-it choice.”
Smith says the danger for House Republicans in letting McConnell take much of a lead is they might not like the result and have little ability to mold a compromise package. The tax deal McConnell negotiated last week with Biden drew the support of only 85 House Republicans.
McConnell and Boehner appear to be diverging on the question of their party’s biggest point of leverage to force concessions from Obama on entitlement spending.
Boehner said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that the automatic spending cuts known as the sequester give Republicans their best opportunity to push Obama to accept reforms.
But Senate Republicans think the debt ceiling is a stronger lever.
“The debt ceiling has a fair amount of leverage. It’s the only thing that I can think of for the foreseeable future that the president needs Congress to do,” said a Senate Republican aide.
McConnell has had a cool relationship with Obama and marveled at times that the president has not done more to engage with him.
His relationship with Biden, who served 36 years in the Senate, has been warmer. McConnell conducted secret talks with Biden after the 2010 election to set up a deal to extend almost all of the Bush-era tax cuts for two years and unemployment insurance for 13 months.
McConnell has pushed Obama and Democrats to get involved earlier so he is not forced to hash out another last-minute deal to avoid economic calamity.
“These last-minute deals are no way to run the government. We’ve known all of these deadlines are coming. Why we end up in these last-minute discussions is beyond me,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”
His appearance on three network Sunday talk shows could signal that McConnell is already becoming the Republican face of the debt-limit talks.
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