Cantor and Boehner said this:
"Regardless of the progress that has been made, the tax issue must be resolved before discussions can continue," Cantor said in a statement.
House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Washington, said Democrats must take tax hikes off the table.
"These conversations could continue if they take the tax hikes out of the conversation," Boehner said.
Republicans are demanding that any steps to reduce the deficit must involve ONLY drastic spending cuts and the systematic destruction of entitlement programs and NOT TAX INCREASES or there will be NO deal. Like spoiled children, they are refusing to increase debt ceiling unless they get everything they want.
Read more about the Republican walk out here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/23/us-usa-debt-cantor-idUSTRE75M3SA20110623
So, what might happen if Republicans don't go back to the negotiating table and we reach August 2nd, the deadline, without an agreement to raise the debt ceiling?
Read this from a previous post:
Robert Reich, former U.S. secretary of labor and professor of public policy at UC Berkeley, spells out the probable scenario in an article today appearing on SFGate, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Reich notes that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will have to do everything he can to continue paying interest on U.S. debt and avoid a default that would be truly disastrous for the country and the economy. Reich writes:
The government will have to cut spending by about 35 percent, about $3.8 billion a day. Seniors expecting Social Security and Medicare checks will be in for a rude surprise, as will military personnel and other government workers expecting to be fully paid.
Meanwhile, America’s creditors are likely to become spooked about the risk of not being repaid in the future. As a result, credit markets could go into free fall. Interest rates would skyrocket. The dollar would plummet.
Republicans are prepared to let this disaster happen unless they get everything they want.
Contact John Boehner and tell him its time for Republicans to stop behaving like spoiled brats and get back to the negotiating table. You can contact him here: https://boehner.house.gov/Contact/default.aspx
1 comment:
I think I agree. Despite denials on both sides, it appears to me to be a class struggle. With rising prices and lower wages, the working class or peasants are the ones suffering the brunt of the struggle and bearing the burden.
Yet the peasants (working America) love their country. They understand and are willing to sacrifice more (if needed). Certainly the wealthy and powerful (aristocrats) agree with this. It is only proper that the peasants bear the burdens of society.
To be sure, the adamant pledge of “No new taxes” is not meant for the benefit of Working America, but for the rich and powerful who feel certain that it is the “entitlement” of their class to not bear any of the burdens of society.
Whether the burden be labor, or the yoke of taxation, burdens belong to the peasantry, while privilege and power belong to the aristocracy.
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