Lawrence O'Donnell: 'Most Bipartisan Vote to Increase the Debt Ceiling We Have Seen in a Very, Very Long Time'
Obama advisers, Democrat senators, and terminally stupid ideologues that have been for almost two days blaming Standard and Poor's downgrade of America's debt on the Tea Party have all been ignoring a very inconvenient truth.
According to MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell, "Last week's vote for a debt ceiling increase was the most bipartisan vote to increase the debt ceiling we have seen in a very, very long time" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Almost half of the Congress almost always votes against increasing the debt ceiling. The Party out of power leaves raising the debt ceiling to the Party in power. That’s why Sen. Barack Obama voted against raising the debt ceiling when the Republicans had a majority in the United States Senate. It’s not that Sen. Obama was really opposed to raising the debt ceiling. He was just playing a political game with it trying to highlight Republican responsibility for the debt.
This year we saw something we hadn’t seen before: some Tea Party members of Congress claiming that they would do anything to prevent an increase in the debt ceiling no matter what. It turned out – big surprise – a lot of them were lying, and they did in fact vote for an increase in the debt ceiling. In fact, last week's vote for a debt ceiling increase was the most bipartisan vote to increase the debt ceiling we have seen in a very, very long time.
For the record, the House vote last Monday was 269-161 with 174 Republicans and 95 Democrats for, 66 Republicans and 95 Democrats opposed.
In the Senate, last Tuesday's vote was 74-26 with 45 Democrats and 28 Republicans for, 6 Democrats and 19 Republicans opposed.
Beside being "the most bipartisan vote to increase the debt ceiling we have seen in a very, very long time," this could have been one of the most bipartisan votes on something of consequence in years.
Yet all the blame for the downgrade according to White House officials, leading Democrats, and their media minions goes to the Tea Party.
I guess the Left only likes bipartisanship when they exclusively get their way.
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Comments
They're nothing but cry
Submitted by rbosque on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 12:56am.
They're nothing but cry babies when things don't go their way, but honestly these mutants have nothing to cry about since they still get to spend $12 trillion in the next 10 years. Just in the past 4 days, Obama has spent the equivalent of the U.S. budget equal to the whole decade of the 50's. These fools are crying over a 'dead cat bounce', meaningless.
Oh gee, they found a way to
Submitted by gvii on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 1:04am.
Oh gee, they found a way to excuse his hypocrisy of voting against an increase when he was in the senate, but went into complete tantrum mode when they wouldn't just hand it to him upon request and without any strings attached.
Didn't see that coming. Nope, not at all...
Oh, and Bush did it, the Tea Parties/Republicans are evil/terrorist/racist, and the rich have too much money. Or something like that. The basic foundation of every Lefty talking point.
From a prominent Republican economist:
Submitted by hayate1 on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 4:29am.
"Barack Obama is not a skillful strategist like Bill Clinton. He is not a gifted rhetorician like Ronald Reagan. Nor is he a bold and inspiring leader like Abraham Lincoln. And he can’t seem to shake himself loose from the strings that attach him to the trial lawyers, to big labor, and, surprisingly, to the standard banker-economists who got us into the mess we are in now. But he is an honest man. He is intelligent, analytical, and knowledgeable. And he tries hard to think through the dilemmas which confront us and to tell us clearly and straightforwardly what he wants to do and why he wants to do it.
But it doesn’t seem to work.
Contrast this to the politicians he is up against. When John Boehner at the height of the debt ceiling crisis answered him on the national media he simply did not tell the truth. He said that the president would not compromise, would not take yes for an answer, and wanted it all his own way. But he cannot have forgotten that he had negotiated Obama into far more cuts than Obama and his caucus had wanted, thought wise or even palatable in return for a modest increase in revenue to be achieved by closing egregious and unfair loopholes in personal and corporate taxes. This is the same compromise recommended by the “Gang of Six,” which included the extremely conservative and admirably patriotic Senator Tom Coburn, by the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson group, and by Republican economists like Martin Feldstein. It was the Speaker who, Arafat-like, walked away from that deal because he concluded he lacked the skill or the muscle or the spine to sell it to his own caucus. Let it be said that this compromise included recalculating the cost of living formula for social security—a change every responsible economist recommends—but the equally rigid Nancy Pelosi rejected."
"Facts are not decided by how many people believe them. Truth is not determined by how loudly it is shouted."
Who?
Submitted by GeneralAl on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 5:29am.
Please name the "Prominent Republican Economist"!
"Old Soldiers never die, they just fade away"!
Another Constitutional Lawyer not an Economist
Submitted by stunned on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 11:26am.
Charles Fried teaches constitutional law at Harvard Law School. He was Solicitor General during the second Reagan Administration, and the author of Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy, and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror.
Another Bush hating Obama loving Rino Constitutional Lawyer surprise surprise. He also believes Obamacare is Constitutional:
In February 2011, Fried testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of President Obama's health care reform law. When asked by Illinois Senator Richard Durbin to respond to critics of the law's individual mandate who ask: "[I]f the government can require me to buy health insurance, can it require me to have a membership in a gym, or eat vegetables?,” Fried replied:
"Yes. We hear that quite a lot. It was put by Judge Vinson, and I think it was put by Professor Barnett in terms of eating your vegetables, and for reasons I set out in my testimony, that would be a violation of the 5th and the 14th Amendment, to force you to eat something. But to force you to pay for something? I don’t see why not. It may not be a good idea, but I don’t see why it’s unconstitutional.
tired of liberal lies
From a prominent Republican economist....
Submitted by Denny Crane on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 6:11am.
HAHAHAHAHA
Barack Obama is only skilled at blaming others.
We Are The 53%
Economist or Harvard Law Professor?
Submitted by okiehawk44 on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 6:18am.
EOM
From a prominent plagiarist that steals quotes won't attribute -
Submitted by The Vet on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 7:01am.
Who is it boys and girls? A coward. A sissy. A pure troll. Guess who boys and girls? His every post is nothing but unattributed quotes from others. His every single post, you have to search and find where the unattributed quote ends and his own starts. A milquetoast. A mollycoddle. A coward. A verified liar. Telling one lie after another.
Awwwww. You guys guessed it. It is the milksop hayate1.
"A prominent Republican economist" who:
Submitted by SickofLibs on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 7:58am.
1) is a lawyer, not an economist.
2) thinks Obama is decent and honest... and voted for him.
3) hates Bachmann and Palin.
Yeah, we're convinced.
Flaws in the assumptions
Submitted by Galvanic on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 8:17am.
"But he is an honest man."
Factcheck.com has found over 40 instances of Obama lying to the public.
"He is intelligent, analytical, and knowledgeable"
So are a lot of people. But Obama has yet to demonstrate that he puts these traits to good use and comes up with positive solutions. His oratory is so empty that even his supporters complain about him -- he is rhetoric on two legs.
"And he tries hard to think through the dilemmas which confront us and to tell us clearly and straightforwardly what he wants to do and why he wants to do it."
There's a light year of distance between telling people that we have to score points and actually leading people to the end zone. Leadership comes naturally to some individuals; others have to work hard to develop it. But you can't learn it from a book and perform -- leadership is shaped from experience. Our President has neither the natural talent nor the skill honed by trial and error.
Obama is not executive but a facilitator. He's comfortable getting conflicted groups around the same table and trying to get them to work out their differences. In the case of dealing with the Congress, that method fails miserably. Even when his party controlled the Congress, he couldn't get what he wanted the way he wanted it.
Obama certainly has a vision, but beyond the hot air of his tiresome TV speeches, there's no substance.
You should attribute your quote
Submitted by RESTLESS 1 on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 8:24am.
Here.
I really don't like doing a troll's work. Link or slink next time.
This "economist," if he exists, is a RINO
Submitted by Dave. on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 9:17am.
Not a conservative.
Funny how so many still can't make that most basic distinction.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
The media and Democraps were
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 1:06am.
The media and Democraps were going to blame us anyways for anything going wrong, we should have held out for huge ass cuts and no increase in spending. Funny they downgraded the US anyways, so could it have been much worse? I feel we are going to lose this one.
Come up for air Larry...
Submitted by bigdaddy on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 1:39am.
...you've had your head stuck in Oblamer's nether region way too long...
Yeah, that's how to fix it.
Submitted by Order270 on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 1:54am.
Blame S & P and the Tea Party. Doesn't matter the catastrophe, if they can divert the blame, then the is problem solved.
Remember when all the talk
Submitted by amyshulk on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 2:56am.
Remember when all the talk was how the TP got props for *finally* bringing this convo to congress in a real way, using the debt ceiling? Well, surprise surprise - NOT - guess who's to blame!!!
Ronald Reagan
It's "Democratic" senators Noel
Submitted by melvin on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 4:12am.
There is no such thing as the Democrat party. You would think that someone working at a blog to combat liberal bias, would try to avoid intentional conservative bias. Please be more careful in the future.
Melvin? What are you complaining about?
Submitted by Denny Crane on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 9:12am.
Noel, in his infinite awesomeness, made no such mistake.
He never referred to the "Democrat party" He said Democrats when referring to people. Would you prefer he call them "Democratics"?
But I guess if it's here then it must be true!
When complaining about the author's mistakes, please make sure that it's actually a mistake.
But I guess the BBC is full of conservative bias?
We all know how conservative Change.org is too!
We Are The 53%
Denny, Lefties don't like the term "Democrat Party"
Submitted by Dave. on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 9:32am.
They consider it to be derrogatory.
-Which is why I, and many others who are aware of this, make a point to use it as often as we can.
Besides, it saves two keystrokes. :-)
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
Oops. Looks like someone has an egg stuck in their ovipositor.
Submitted by SickofLibs on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 9:46am.
.
Hey Melveen or Melvinger is back.
Submitted by The Vet on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 11:04am.
Who has the Stupid to English translator this week? Can't make Heads or Tails of this splattering of Stupid.
True, this.
Submitted by hayate1 on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 4:25am.
From a good Republican and former Reagan economic advisor.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/06/obama-is-too-good-for-u...
"Facts are not decided by how many people believe them. Truth is not determined by how loudly it is shouted."
Look boys and girls. But be quiet. Shhhhhh.
Submitted by The Vet on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 7:05am.
The Troll in it's natural habitat. Rustling through the underbrush searching for food. As always, its mumzietroll pins a map to the way home so it will not get lost. Shhhh. If we get out the binoculars, we can almost read what mumzietroll wrote. Hmmmmm. It appears to be someplace called the "the donkey beast" I think. It is hard to read mumzietroll's script.
Truth is not determined by
Submitted by motherbelt on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 7:27am.
Truth is not determined by how loudly it is shouted."
No, apparently it's determined by coming from the pen of a person criticizing his own party.
The fact that Fried worked for Reagan doesn't make his assessment of the GOP field worth any more than yours or mine.
Listened to...
Submitted by okiehawk44 on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 6:32am.
Found myself listening to Keith Olbermann on CURRENT tv recently talking to Craig Crawford about the specific courses (w/grades) Texas Gov. Perry took in college and asked myself if these two or anyone has ever seen the same regarding Barack Obama? Why not? Don't tell me it's due to some privacy issue when this country's secret emails are published by the NYTs.
I'd settle (for now) just seeing verified copies (can't be too careful) of Obama's college admission applications.
Something is not right with this guy -- too many secrets and gaps almost as if he has slipped/slided his way through life. Maybe he has. Maybe he has.
Maybe?
Submitted by HockeyKid on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 8:07am.
"Barack Obama" is a fictional character invented by left-wing poli sci professors and radicals in an attempt to see if the American public could be convinced to elect a man with no verifiable record. The part is currently being played by Leroy Evans, a small-time hood from the Chicago projects who was taken out of his coke-dealing, dollar-a-trick pimping "enterprise" and given a new life as "Barack Obama, community organizer". Initially paid in food stamps and Swisher Peach spliffs, Leroy was trained in the finer points of leftist rabble rousing by Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, then introduced to "Michelle Robinson" (aka Esther Sanford, former "personal assistant" to George Soros) for the next phase of the experiment. The Chicago Democrat political machine arranged for "Obama" to rise to the position of Illinois state Senator, then U.S. Senator from Illinois, virtually unopposed.
The American "mainstream" media, in its guilt-ridden desire to--finally!--elect a black president, gleefully celebrated the candidacy of "Obama", making themselves catalysts to the experiment and willfully ignoring the glaring absence of any documentation of his past. In reality, Leroy Evans/"Barack Obama" never attended college or grad school, never took a bar exam, and doesn't have the sense to select a running mate who can actually count to 4.
Prove me wrong, libs--with documentation.
"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me
"...66 Republicans and 95 Democrats opposed..."
Submitted by Red Jeep on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 8:18am.
There is the untold story. More Democrats opposed than Republicans.
The MSM Lies?
Submitted by stunned on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 11:33am.
Shock and Horrors
tired of liberal lies
Even Jersey Boyz Lautenberg and Menendez voted against it.
Submitted by SickofLibs on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 8:04am.
And these two leftist moonbats have NEVER EVER EVER gone against the grain. Of course they voted against it for other reasons... but still.
I demand a retraction, Crazy Larry.
O'Donnell basically got it right
Submitted by Galvanic on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 8:26am.
The vote totals are clear; this was a bipartisan bill. Tea Partiers mostly voted against it, as did extreme Left Democrats. Obama even got the ceiling pushed back far enough that it won't come up again before the 2012 election, and that was all he really cared about anyway. It was the kind of compromise -- indeed, a nothing sandwich -- that a smart WH would hail as testament to the President's ability to bring people together and try to build on the momentum.
Instead, the WH blames the Tea Party -- which could not stop its passage -- for S&P's subsequent lowering of the US bond rating. The 2012 campaign message appears to be "Sure, we really suck at this, but the other guys are terrorists, so who're gonna vote for!"
Of course many Democrats voted against it. This was
Submitted by Jer on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 9:56am.
essentially a Republican crafted bill which granted "98% of what [Boehner] wanted", was celebrated by the GOP for forcing Obama to "cave", pushed the administration and the US government to within hours of the August 2 potential default deadline, emphatically rejected even one red cent of revenue , and was exalted by Cantor and McConnell for virtually assuring the President's defeat in 2012. You really expect the Democratic caucus rooms to have been the scene of victory whoops and champagne-fueled conga line dancing?
The party leaders knew beforehand--as is nearly always the case--the eventual outcome of the vote and precisely which legislators were the yeas and which were the nays--and there are any number of electoral dynamics at play in the process. But, make no mistake, passage was assured.
So the GOP in general and the Tea Party faction in particular were able to win the game of chicken and bring Obama and the nation to their knees. Bully for them. Let them glory in their triumph while posturing about the inadequacies of the "compromise". But they must also bear the responsibility for the consequences of this absurd and reckless spectacle which they orchestrated.
Jer
Oh, I get it . Obama is like Xerxes battling the 300.
Submitted by SickofLibs on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 11:15am.
While the 300 is hopelessly outnumbered, the Mighty Xerxes still loses Round 1.
Was probably those bamboo shields.
Not enough for you? Give us a figure Uncle Jer.
Submitted by The Vet on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 12:12pm.
One third of the GDP goes to all levels of government. One third. Kindly stop acting as if we have not City, County, and State governments taking their share of taxes.
One third of GDP goes to government.
Ain't enough for you? What number would you like? I got nearly a third of my paycheck disappearing ever payday. Sure, I get a little back come tax filing. But it is a pittance compared to what is taken. And that does not count the county tax on the house or sales taxes or registering the truck. And I am far from the $250,000 number the President throws around.
It ain't enough? Give us a figure. And stop pretending the federal government is hanging out there all by its lonesome.
And kindly knock it off with the defaultin' and knee bringin' talk. The outcome should there have been no bill come August 2nd would have been a 40% haircut in spending. There was still 100's of billions coming in every single month. Plenty enough to pay the 15 or 20 or 25 billion, whatever it is in interest. And grandma would have been payed. Those intergovernment bonds could be cashed in, and regular treasury bill issued in their place without violating the debt limit. A one for one trade is permissible.
Government is taking in 14% of GDP. That is still 2 trillion a year coming in regardless of whether a deal was reached or not.
I will give you the celebrating all you want. I will not let you get away with the defaultin' and knee bringin' talk.
Okay, Vet...I'll give you a figure.
Submitted by Jer on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 1:09pm.
How about the 800bil in revenue over ten years which Boehner had put on the table and then removed because he was as much of a hostage to the Tea Party faction as was the administration. Of course Boehner blamed the grand bargain collapse on Obama's countering with 1.2T, but that was a cover story by the embarrassed Speaker to conceal his cuckolding by the Norquist crowd. And by the way, the revenue would have been generated by closing loopholes, eliminating specified deductions, lowering rates and broadening the base. Not exactly Draconian measures.
Neither you nor I know what the precise consequences of a failure to raise the debt ceiling would have been. And it is the uncertainty which rattles markets and results in downgrades by ratings agencies. This was a dangerous game played by political amateurs and I'll continue to criticize them whenever I think it appropriate.
Jer
Hear, Hear Jer! Political
Submitted by PaleHorse on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 1:30pm.
Hear, Hear Jer! Political amateurs indeed. The resulting spin is making my head hurt.
I will take the political
Submitted by bassndude on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 2:25pm.
I will take the political amateurs any time over career politicians . So what? They don't play the political game like the career politicians? There was never supposed to be a career in congress anyway. There should be a two term limit on these people. Most of them have never had another job anyway. That is the reason we are in the mess we are today. Those people up there are in competition to see who can give away more of my money than the other! And if they can't give it to Americans, they give it to China, various countries in Africa, Egypt and the Saudi's of all people! You could cut foreign aid and save the 800 billion. Why even bring taxes into it at this point? How about regulations? The obama EPA has destroyed the oil drilling industry in this country and sent billions of dollars to south America, so they can drill in the gulf. So we can buy our oil they drilled with our money!!
He has driven the price of gas up 200% with his energy policy and whined that he has no effect on oil prices.
Get real Jer. The political amateurs are your best chance to get things in order. Obama is a political disaster for this country, but would fit well in the old soviet or communist blocks.
Save a SeAL, club a liberal/troll!!
bass...
Submitted by Jer on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 2:56pm.
I give them credit for forcing the debate on debt, but I disagree with the tactics employed in the recent debt ceiling debacle. As far as energy policy, I probably agree with you more than you would have suspected, although I do believe there were other factors driving the price which were largely beyond anyone's control, e.g., the political instability in the Middle East.
Jer
Yes. Yes. I do.
Submitted by The Vet on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 9:42pm.
Are you seeing what you are doing here? I see it. Did you do it on purpose or was this one of those, gee golly I did not do it on purpose.
1.Not complaining about your criticizing. You are responding to something I did not say.
2. Not complaining about the deal or your criticism of the deal
3. Never made a prediction on the consequences of a failure.
4. I said we would not have defaulted. Paying the debt comes first. Then the rest of the $200 billion would have been divied up.
5. Why are we talking about markets?
6. I said you can criticized and talk about the celebrating all you want. It was Obama Administration PROPAGANDA that we would default.
7. That was my entire point. That we would default is/was propaganda. A complete untruth put out by the Obama Admin.
Barack Obama is the most
Submitted by Barack Must Go on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 8:47am.
Barack Obama is the most racist president since......forever, so really what's your point Larry?
LBJ was a rascist also.
Submitted by MightyMouth on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 11:17am.
LBJ was a rascist also. Maybe BHO outshines LBJ's racism...but that is up for debate! The Democats have always been racists... until they discovered blacks were a 'voting block'. Then they switched sides. Let's face the facts: the first job of a politican is to get re-elected, EVERYTHING else comes second!
Nope
Submitted by HockeyKid on Tue, 08/09/2011 - 3:33pm.
They didn't switch sides--they just switched from iron shackles to the control of federal entitlements. The first one enslaves and makes the slave hate the master; the second enslaves but has the added result of masquerading as largesse, resulting in the slave loving the master and supporting the very idea of living without freedom.
Democrat policies have destroyed the black family in America, increased crime rates and drug use in the black community, and controlled access to power for blacks--ever notice how only buffoons who toe the line are supported by Dems as black candidates, while truly capable, intelligent, independent men like Allen West, Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, and Herman Cain are ridiculed and demonized? That's Democrat racism, new school style.
"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me