President Obama delivered a statement on the debt ceiling negotiations today not only to update the country, but to encourage the American people, too. In his speech, Obama declared that the current bill proposed by House Republicans “doesn’t solve the problem” and noted that “it won’t go into law.” While he has yet to utter the word “veto,” Obama is quite clear on his stance against the right wing and compromise doesn’t seem to be on the table.
While seemingly hard-headed against the Republicans, Obama did state that the debt ceiling bill “needs to be bi-partisan.” He added, “there are plenty of ways out of this mess but we are almost out of time.” Almost is right – the current debt ceiling deadline is only four days away, August 2nd. While Fox News noted last night that the debt ceiling could be raised in a matter of 5 minutes or less, it’s not going to happen unless everyone is happy… or at least “somewhat” happy. While there doesn’t appear to be an end to this “mess” in our near future, Obama reassured the American people that “the power to solve this is in our hands” and that it’s “one burden we can lift ourselves … we can end it with a simple vote.” But will that vote ever come? Is there such thing as a “compromise” in this clearly divided government?
While the negotiations will continue to take place through the weekend, Obama reassured the American people that raising the debt ceiling doesn’t mean the government can spend more money, it “simply authorizes us the ability to pay the bills we’ve already racked up.” Of course this sounds comforting but why are we here in the first place? In a perfect world (which is never the case, of course), we wouldn’t be anywhere near a debt ceiling of any kind. While the Democrats blame President Bush for his $7 Trillion increase in debt, Republicans have retorted with the fact that Obama is well on his way, plus some, with the numerous programs he has put in place. It won’t be long until the public debt has doubled under President Obama at the increase per day he is at.
So what can we do?
In his final statements, President Obama urged the American people to “keep the pressure on Washington.” He noted that by calling, e-mailing or even tweeting your congressmen, “we can get past this.” I encourage you to, as well! You can write to your local House Representative by clicking here: https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml. Let them know what you think should happen and that something needs to happen now! Time is running out.
“The time for compromise on behalf of the American people is now.” – President Obama
Tagged with: atatement, compromise, debt ceiling, House Republicans, negotiations, Obama, President Obama, Senate, speech
Funny how everyone who lays on one part or the other of the political spectrum blames the other side for this. I just got told last night that the Tea Party are the ones being inflexible and not wanting to compromise. So which is it? Frankly, I think that the Democrats should agree to cut some programs and the Republicans should let them raised some taxes. Yeah, I’m not exactly excited about taxes being raised, but we need to get out of this mess and taxes do take away some of that debt, so…
I tend to agree with that. Get rid of some of the huge tax breaks for the giant corporations and cut some of these ridiculous charity programs. That was you’re saving money AND making money. Versus losing revenue and spending money you don’t have…
I also heard that about the Tea Party last night. Folks are saying they are inadvertently siding with the President due to their not wanting to raise the debt ceiling, thus going against the bill (and Boehner) altogether.
It’s a mess!!!