Obama, Congress Reach Debt Agreement

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obama3Ending a perilous stalemate, President Barack Obama announced agreement to night with Republican congressional leaders on a compromise to avoid the nation’s first-ever financial default. The deal would cut more than $2 trillion from federal spending over a decade.

Default “would have had a devastating effect on our economy,” Obama said at the White House, relaying the news to the American people and financial markets around the world. He thanked the leaders of both parties.

House Speaker John Boehner telephoned Obama at mid-evening to say the agreement had been struck, officials said.

No votes were expected in either house of Congress until Monday at the earliest, to give rank-and-file lawmakers time to review the package.

But leaders in both parties were already beginning the work of rounding up votes.

In a conference call with his rank and file, Boehner said the agreement “isn’t the greatest deal in the world, but it shows how much we’ve changed the terms of the debate in this town.”

Obama underscored that point. He said that, if enacted, the agreement would mean “the lowest level of domestic spending since Dwight Eisenhower was president” more than a half century ago.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid provided the first word of the agreement.

“Sometimes it seems our two sides disagree on almost everything,” he said. “But in the end, reasonable people were able to agree on this: The United States could not take the chance of defaulting on our debt, risking a United States financial collapse and a world-wide depression.”

{AP/Matzav.com Newscenter}


7 COMMENTS

  1. If only the government ceased funding all thos ridiculous projects especially those overseas, like the building of a mosque in Pakistan. there would be money, OUR OWN MONEY, for us here at home! A baby born today here in the U.S. already is $45,000 in the red from the national debt. It’s reeeediculous! So much more of our money could be spent on American citizens and thus the debt crisis may be obliterated – THAT’S TAKING IT TOO FAR, I KNOW, – but much or ost of it will! Get our troops out of wars that we have no business to be in in the first place and certainly no chance of winning. As soon as weleave they parade all kinds of anti-american chants! Ao why spend our hard earned tax money there!?!? Then we can spend it here on our shores or even reduce the tax burden on our people!
    Does anyone realize how weak the dollar is overseas? It’s nuts!

  2. HEY YOU WANT TO SAVE MONEY BY CUTTING SO IGOT A GREAT IDEA LET US MAKE A BILL THAT WOULD CAUSE US TO SPEND 1 TRILLION DOLLARS IN 10 YAERS THEN THE NEXT DAY LET US REPEAL IT AND WE JUST SAVRD MONEY WE DIDNT SPEND WELL THIS IS WHAT THE PRESIDENT IS DOING.IT IS INTERESTING TO NOTE THAT THEY WERE ALSO ARGUING ABOUT WHICH DAY WE WERE GOING TO DEFAULT CONSIDERING THAT IT IS HARF TO KNOW ESPECIALLY WHEN WE ARE TALKING ABOUT SUCH A LARGE AMOUNT

  3. Learn the truth:

    “Well, you had this kind of debt ceiling come up, I think, maybe 20 times under Bush’s administration. It’s a non-threatening thing. It’s something automatic. It’s technical. It’s sort of like going to the corner and having a certified—somebody certify what you’ve done. It’s a technical thing that has nothing to do with the real economy or policy at all. They’re pretending it’s a crisis because they have a plan. And the plan is what Mr. Boehner has put forth. Just like after 9/11, the Pentagon pulled out a plan for Iraq’s oil fields, Wall Street has a plan to really clean up now, to really put the class war back in business and get rid of Medicare, get rid of the programs for the poor, and say, “There’s no money for you. We’ve given it all away in the bailouts.” “

    – Economist Michael Hudson, on Democracy Now! July 22nd
    Full-transcript and audio at
    http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/22/pushing_crisis_gop_cries_wolf_on

    “And the Republicans are appealing to folks that are very upset by the economic situation, don’t know who to be angry at. In the American way, they get angry at the government. It’s a little bit amazing, if you take a step back. The overwhelming majority of people who’ve lost our jobs in this crisis have been fired by private employers. The overwhelming majority of people who have been thrown out of their homes have been—have had that happen because a private bank has gone to court to get that to happen. And yet, the American people have this tendency, built into our culture, to leap right over the person who’s actually done you the damage and to blame the government. And so, the government, in general, and the particular government of Mr. Obama, is the target, and the Republicans are playing on this. And that’s their ploy.”

    – Richard Wolff, Democracy Now!, July 28th
    http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/28/richard_wolff_debt_showdown_is_political

  4. the liberal media is going to blast bohener because there was no tax hikes

    Yeah, the same “liberal media” that didn’t cover the following and that hardly ever covers the massive grassroots support that exists for single-payer health care.

    Independent Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont on this deficit-reduction deal. Spoken on the floor of the Senate back on July 20th, they are at least as relevant now:

    “They [the Republicans] have stood firm in their desire to represent the wealthy and the powerful and multinational corporations. They have threatened. They have been very smart in a number of ways. They have been determined. And at the end of the day, they will get 80 or 90 percent of what they want. That is their victory, and I congratulate them on their victory. Unfortunately, their victory will be a disaster for working families in this country, for the elderly, for the sick, for the children, and for low-income people.”

    I heard that sound byte on the daily program Democracy Now!, whose web site I copied the transcript from
    http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/21/headlines/sanders_blasts_entitlement_cuts_tax_cuts_in_deficit_talks

    From the news as well as web searches I did on Google, it did not appear as if these words of truth-to-power were covered by any of the mainstream (corporate) media outlets. Not even NPR or PBS (both corporate- lite).

    Here is a piece by Senator Sanders in which he elaborates on his position:
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/congratulations-sen-cobur_b_905230.html?view=print

    And here is a YouTube video, posted to Sen. Sanders’ web site yesterday (Aug. 1):
    “Immoral, Grotesque, Unfair”: Senator Sanders Announces That he Will Vote ‘No’ on the Deficit-Reduction Plan:
    http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=b228667f-24ad-463b-a216-b027ab01cdeb

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