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Circular Firing Squad: Boehner Bill Is Showdown Between House Republican Purists And Realists

The run-up to the vote expected Thursday on House Speaker John A. Boehner’s proposal to provide a short-term increase in the national debt limit is quickly turning into a time of clarity for the chamber’s Republicans.

If GOP leaders are unable to muster enough support to get the plan out of the House, the only measure left would be a Democratic proposal by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), and voting with Reid is not a concession many House Republicans are willing to make.

“There’s only three choices,” said Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio), a close Boehner ally. “One is to vote for Senator Reid’s plan. One is to default. And one choice is the Boehner bill. It should be pretty self-evident what the best choice is to someone who’s a Republican.”

Increasingly, the vote on Boehner’s proposal is shaping up not as a test of wills between moderates and conservatives, but as a face-off between political purists who scorn the bill and realists who prefer it to the alternative.

“We came here to reduce the size of government and reduce spending, and this bill, I think, begins to accomplish that goal,” said Rep. Sean P. Duffy (R-Wis.), who decided Wednesday that he will vote for the measure. “It’s by no means perfect. But it’s the best bill we have.”

At a closed-door meeting for House Republicans on Wednesday, where leaders tried to rally support for the measure, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.) read from a blog post by conservative commentator Bill Kristol. “To vote against Boehner is to choose to support Barack Obama,” Kristol wrote.

But it is not an easy sale for a party that won back control of the House last year on promises to vote without regard to political consequences.

Boehner’s bill would postpone major entitlement reform and other deep cuts by passing such decisions to a new committee that would report its recommendations by year’s end. The proposal also would not require Congress to pass a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, but only that it vote on one.

Some Republicans have vowed that they will not raise the debt ceiling under any circumstances.

Others preferred a conservative bill dubbed “cut, cap and balance” that passed the House this month but was killed in the Senate. It would have required Congress to vote to send the amendment to the states for ratification.

“The credit rating agencies have been clear that no matter what happens with the debt limit, the U.S. will lose its AAA credit rating unless we produce a credible plan to reduce the debt by trillions of dollars,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), chairman of the Republican Study Committee. The group comprises more than 170 House conservatives. “Cut, cap and balance is the only plan on the table that meets this standard,” he said.

House leaders expressed cautious optimism Wednesday that they were convincing members that the plan advanced by Boehner (R-Ohio) is the best that Republicans can hope to get.

It would avert a government default, take a bite out of the deficit and require Congress to adopt $1.8 trillion in additional cuts before the debt ceiling could be raised again next year.

Freshman Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.), whose district in Staten Island and Brooklyn is home to many Wall Street professionals, said he decided Wednesday that he will vote for the bill after he was convinced that its failure would hand Democrats control of the debate.

“I don’t think it’s perfect. I don’t think it’s close to perfect. I don’t think it’s in the realm of what I expected to get,” he said.

But, Grimm said, it would require deep spending reductions over the coming years. “That’s historic. And that’s a step in the right direction.”

The public infighting has served to rally some Republicans. Behind closed doors, members erupted Wednesday over an e-mail that a staff member of Jordan’s Republican Study Committee sent to outside conservative groups. It listed undecided members who could be pressured to vote against the Boehner plan.

“I think it’s offensive when a group that you’re a part of uses your bullets to shoot you,” said Rep. Bill Flores (Tex.). “So I have a problem with it.”

Those entreaties did not quiet conservatives who are urging that the plan be abandoned: On Wednesday, the head of the group Tea Party Nation accused Boehner of surrendering to Washington’s status quo and called for him to be replaced.

The House proposal was panned at a small rally held at the Capitol by the Tea Party Express and the American Grassroots Coalition. The GOP that rode tea party energy and activism is hoping that some of it members can look past that relationship.

“Some people are new here and this is part of the learning curve,” LaTourette said. “At times you have to say ‘no’ to people you represent who are yelling at you, if you’ve reached the conclusion that it’s in the best interests of the country.”

By: Rosalind Helderman and Felicia Sonmez with Contribution by David Fahrenthold, The Washington Post Politics, July 27, 2011

July 28, 2011 Posted by | Budget, Congress, Conservatives, Debt Ceiling, Deficits, Democrats, Economic Recovery, Economy, Elections, GOP, Government Shut Down, Ideology, Lawmakers, Politics, Republicans, Revolution, Right Wing, Teaparty, Voters | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Personal Parachutes: How Elites Could Profit From A U.S. Debt Crisis

Have you developed a hedging strategy to protect against America’s rapid decline? Or repositioned your portfolio to take advantage of orphaned Treasury securities? Or stashed some cash so you can buy distressed assets from the newly bankrupt?

If you’re like most Americans, the answer is, of course not. But if you work on Wall Street, the man-made debt crisis that’s brewing in Washington might represent a surprising opportunity to make money. As the whole world knows by now, the U.S. government will no longer be able to borrow money as of early August, unless Republicans and Democrats swallow their vitriol and come up with a compromise deal that will begin dealing with America’s oversized debt and allow the government to function normally. The nation’s mushrooming debt load is a big problem, but abruptly halting all federal borrowing would transform it into a disaster, since it would require vast government spending cuts that would promptly trigger another recession.

The ongoing assumption is that legislators will puff and posture until the last second, then congratulate themselves for making a deal that should have been in place months ago. But even if politicians avert the worst-case scenario, the size of the debt and the deep dysfunction in the nation’s capital are likely to cause other trouble. It’s increasingly likely, for instance, that rating agencies like Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s will cut America’s credit rating from AAA—the top rating, which the United States has held for decades—to a notch or two lower. That would force thousands of institutional investors to determine whether they can keep holding Treasury securities or whether they need to dump them. Even small spending cuts that come as part of a deal to raise the federal borrowing limit could cut into weak economic growth, especially if they go into effect immediately.

The knock-on effects of a U.S. debt downgrade, sharp spending cuts or a “policy mistake” in Washington could rattle financial markets, depress hiring and drive confidence back down to recessionary levels. But smart investors know that one man’s crisis is another’s opportunity, and the monied class is planning how to profit if America goes bust. As the New York Times reported recently, some hedge funds are stockpiling cash, to buy U.S. government securities at fire-sale prices if there’s a credit downgrade and conservative investing vehicles like pension or money-market funds are forced to dump Treasuries. Others are trying to identify institutions that might be damaged by a U.S. debt crisis and forced to sell assets that vulture investors could buy on the cheap. Another way to gamble on America’s collapse is to invest in credit-default swaps that would pay out if the United States defaults on its debt. The price of such insurance has doubled recently, indicating a lively market for bets against America.

The modern financial markets are sophisticated casinos that allow steely investors to gamble on almost anything, including gloom-and-doom scenarios that could potentially harm millions. Though it might sound unctuous, betting on the likelihood of adverse events is a healthy part of a free market, because it creates an even stronger incentive for those who would suffer from bad outcomes to prevent them—and punishes those who destroy value, such as CEOs who mismanage their companies. But it doesn’t always work that way, and besides, this kind of gambling is generally open only to professional investors or those wealthy enough to have experts handling their money.

In his 2010 financial disclosure forms, for instance, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor listed a small investment in a fund that bets against U.S. Treasury securities and would benefit if the U.S. government defaulted or something else happened that devalued Treasuries. That became controversial, since Cantor is one of the key Republicans involved in the debt negotiations and a conservative stalwart who insists there should be no new taxes as part of a deal. Cantor’s office says the fund is in his wife’s and his mother-in-law’s name and amounts to less than $4,000, while the vast majority of Cantor’s retirement savings are invested in conventional securities that would lose value if there were a true U.S. debt crisis. But Cantor’s portfolio is probably similar to those of other affluent Americans, with traditional investments offset by a hedging strategy meant to minimize losses if something profoundly bad happens.

Ordinary Americans who lack investment funds or live paycheck-to-paycheck don’t have much of a hedging strategy, however, which makes them directly vulnerable if Washington wrecks the economy and jobs gets even scarcer. Some economists think the drawn-out debt drama—and the near-total absence of action on other big problems, like the foreclosure epidemic or sky-high unemployment—is already causing harm. Businesses, for instance, have virtually stopped hiring while they await the outcome of the Washington Follies. A sliding stock market reflects jittery investors who can’t figure out if they should invest in a global recovery or gird for Armageddon. “Washington is locked in a budget war that will determine the U.S. economy’s fate, not only for this year and next but for generations,” writes economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics. “Lawmakers may well misstep on this path to fiscal sustainability.” If they do, many of them will no doubt have their own personal parachutes. If possible, get your own.

By: Rick Newman, Columnist, U. S. News and World Report, July 22, 2011

July 24, 2011 Posted by | Capitalism, Class Warfare, Congress, Conservatives, Consumers, Debt Ceiling, Debt Crisis, Deficits, Democrats, Economic Recovery, Economy, Federal Budget, GOP, Government, Government Shut Down, Ideologues, Ideology, Income Gap, Jobs, Lawmakers, Middle Class, Politics, Public, Republicans, Unemployment, Wall Street | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How Default Would Harm Homeowners, Cities, Businesses And Everyone Else

It’s easy to understand why the government will have more trouble borrowing if it fails to pay its debts, or even has a difficult time paying its debts. It’s a bit harder to see why ordinary Americans, the city of Pittsburgh, hospitals in Iowa, and medium-sized corporations will have more trouble borrowing. But they will. And their trouble borrowing is the main channels through which a default, or even something too close to it for the market’s comfort, could deal a body blow to the economy.

On Wednesday, Moody’s warned that it was putting the U.S. government credit rating on review for a downgrade. But they didn’t stop there. Another 7,000 debt products that are “directly linked to the U.S. government or are otherwise vulnerable to sovereign risk” were also put on review for a possible downgrade. That’s about $130 billion worth of debt. If America tumbles, so do they. But Moody’s still wasn’t done. An unknown amount of “indirectly linked” debt is also getting reviewed.

If America’s credit rating falls, it’s taking a lot more than just Treasury securities with it. It’s going to take the whole credit market with it. Which, as you’ll remember, is exactly how the subprime housing sector took the economy down in 2008.

The first to fall will be “directly linked” debt. These are bonds that rely on payments from the federal government. Naomi Richman, a managing director in Moody’s Public Finance division, puts it bluntly: “There are certain kinds of municipal bonds that are directly reliant on Treasury paying or some other direct payment,” she says. “If those bonds don’t receive their payment, they have no other source of revenue.” So down they go.

Then there’s the “indirectly linked” debt. That’s debt from state government, local governments, hospitals, universities and other institutions that rely, in some way or another, on payments from the federal government. If Medicaid stops paying its bills, all the hospitals that rely on Medicaid’s payments become less creditworthy. If we stop funding Pell grants, then all the universities that enroll students who pay using financial aid become less creditworthy. And since the federal government passes one-fifth of its revenues through to the states, and the states pass those revenues through to cities, if the federal government stops paying its bills, all states and all cities are suddenly in worse financial shape, which will make it harder for them to get loans.

And then there’s everything else. Mortgages. Credit cards. Loans that businesses take out to expand. Much of the debt in the American economy, and in fact globally, is “benchmarked” to Treasury debt. When your bank quotes you a mortgage rate, the calculation begins with the rate on 10-year treasuries and then adds premiums for various types of risk specific to you and your area on top of that. “There’s a whole credit structure,” says Pete Davis, president of Davis Capital Investment Ideas. “Think of it as roads and bridges, but it’s finance, it’s all connected, and it’s all on top of treasuries. Your CD at a bank, your credit card interest rates, your car loans, your mortgages — that’s all built on Treasury rates. So when you shake the basis of it, everything on top of it shakes, too.”

The 2008 economic crisis wasn’t started by a nuclear bomb detonating in New York, or a campaign to sabotage the country’s factories, or a plague that struck our able-bodied young males. Rather, investors bought a lot of debt based on subprime mortgages. They performed some tricky financial wizardry that they thought made the debt low-risk. They found out they were wrong. And then, because the players in the financial system no longer knew how much money anyone had, the credit markets froze and the economy crashed.

Now imagine that happening, not with the housing market, but with the government of the United States of America. The cornerstone of the global financial economy is the idea that Treasuries are risk-free. If they’re not, then like in the financial crisis, no one knows how much money anyone who holds treasuries has. But they also don’t know how much money anyone who depends on the federal government — be they businesses or individuals — holds.

This is how a default gets into the rest of the economy: It takes everything the financial markets thought they could know and rely on and upends it. It then shuts off credit, or makes it prohibitively expensive, for nearly every participant in the economy, from states and cities to hospitals and universities to homebuyers and credit-card applicants. That, in turn, freezes all of their activity, which destabilizes everyone who relies on them, which then destabilizes financial markets further, and so on.

It was one thing to have forgotten that this sort of thing could happen in 2006, when America hadn’t seen it for 70 years. But we just went through it. And if we go through it again, the Federal Reserve, which has pushed interest rates as low as they can go, and Congress, which has vastly expanded the deficit, have a lot less ammunition left for a response.

Are we likely to get to that point? No, of course not. But between here and there are worlds where the economy doesn’t crash, but because the federal government panics the market, interest rates rise and the economy slows. In a recovery this weak, that would be a disaster. And it would be entirely of our own making.

By: Ezra Klein, The Washington Post, July 15, 2011

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July 17, 2011 Posted by | Banks, Budget, Businesses, Congress, Conservatives, Consumer Credit, Consumers, Debt Ceiling, Deficits, Democrats, Economic Recovery, Economy, Financial Institutions, GOP, Government, Government Shut Down, Ideologues, Ideology, Lawmakers, Medicaid, Middle Class, Politics, Public, Republicans, Right Wing, States | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What Actually Happens If The U.S. Hits The Federal Debt Ceiling?

Are you just now recovering from the migraine induced by months of partisan feuding over the 2011 federal budget? Looking forward to a lengthy reprieve before Congress tackles next year’s budget? Sorry, but you’re in for a rude awakening. (And you might want to reach for some aspirin.) Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner warned Congress last week that the United States — currently liable for more than $14 trillion of debt — will collide with the federal debt ceiling around May 16. Once the government hits the current limit of $14.3 trillion it will be legally prohibited from incurring any additional debt; problematic since the U.S. only takes in around 60 cents for each dollar it spends.

Congress has raised the debt ceiling 74 times since 1962. Ten of those increases occurred in the past decade. It’s a routine vote. However, the political calculus has shifted in the newly anointed “age of austerity.” House Speaker John Boehner acknowledged that a failure to raise the ceiling could have calamitous implications. However, congressional Republicans appear unlikely to authorize an increase in the debt limit without significant Democratic concessions, setting up yet another high-noon scenario on Capitol Hill. 

This poses the question: What would happen if the U.S. hit the debt ceiling?

In the immediate aftermath of such an event, the Treasury Department can impose “extraordinary actions” to help pay the bills. Those measures include, “suspending investments in a savings plan for federal workers and pulling Treasury securities out of a trust fund for two federal retirement plans. In such cases, the Treasury must make the funds whole again once the ceiling is raised.” However, such stopgap measures would prove ineffective before long, and the government would have to either authorize an increase in the debt limit or cut $738 billion in federal spending in the span of six months, with severe consequences for the economy. Notwithstanding such a massive curtailing of government spending, the U.S. would default on some of its debt obligations. And the implications are frightening: 

For one, the government would grind to a halt — cutting off military salaries and retirement benefits, along with Social Security and Medicare payments. Worse still, default would also plunge the U.S. back into recession. Interest rates and borrowing costs would surge, while the dollar would plummet. In a worst case scenario, the markets would go into a death spiral as investors distanced themselves from the U.S.

At the very least, defaulting would call into question the true value of U.S. Treasury bonds — heretofore the gold standard of the bond market. Additionally, such an event would damage the country’s credit rating, and significantly hamper its ability to generate revenue necessary to keep government running. A default on government debt obligations could conspire to undermine the United States’ preeminent position in the global economy. Needless to say, all of this would swiftly end the recovery, as Federal Reserve head Ben Bernanke pointed out.

As for the political repercussions, Nate Silver at the New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight blog argues that the failure to raise the debt ceiling would equate to nothing less than political ruin for virtually every elected federal official.

This as close as you can get in American politics to mutually assured destruction. No matter how Machiavellian your outlook, it’s very hard to make the case that any politician with a significant amount of power would become more powerful in the event of a debt default.That in mind, it seems unlikely that the ceiling won’t be raised. It’s just a matter of when, and how, we get there.

By: Peter Finocchiaro, Salon, April 11, 2011

April 12, 2011 Posted by | Congress, Conservatives, Debt Ceiling, Democrats, Economic Recovery, Economy, Elections, Federal Budget, GOP, Government, Government Shut Down, Ideology, Lawmakers, Middle Class, Politics, Republicans, Right Wing | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Talk Of Refusing To Raise The Debt Limit Is Just That—Talk”

The debt limit is the maximum amount of debt the federal government can legally issue at a point in time. The current limit will be reached in the next few months, prompting discussion over whether Congress should raise the limit. As with so many deliberations in Washington, though, the popular discussion on this topic is shrouded in confusion and ignorance, and masks the real issues.

 The underlying issue is simple: If you spend your income on things you want, and the charges then show up the following month on your credit card bill, would you pay those charges? Yes, of course you would. You’ve made purchases and the bill has come due.

That’s the whole question about raising the debt limit—whether Congress should allow the government to pay for spending that has already been approved by Congress. (Remember, it is Congress that authorizes all federal spending.) The answer, of course, is yes.

Now, as you’re paying your credit card bill, you may well conclude that you are spending too much or that you need to earn more income to pay for your current standard of living. But that would be a separate issue, and stiffing the people who supplied the goods you just bought not only wouldn’t resolve that problem, it would in fact make solving it harder, because your credit rating might fall if you don’t pay what you already owe.

Likewise, the separate problem for the U.S. government is how to deal with our dismal fiscal future. The nation needs to resolve the looming fiscal imbalance through spending cuts and tax increases. Not paying the bills we already owe—that is, not raising the debt limit—not only won’t solve the real problem, it would actually make a solution more difficult by undercutting the government’s creditworthiness.

In short, raising the debt limit has nothing to do with controlling future spending or with raising the taxes necessary to pay for future spending. It is just a matter of paying bills that we’ve already incurred.

Raising the debt limit is a completely ordinary event. The limit has been raised 74 times in the last 50 years and 10 times in the last 10. Debt limit increases are associated with both Republicans and Democrats. When federal debt approaches the limit, the president typically favors raising the limit and the other political party demagogues the move. That is exactly what is happening right now.

Talk of refusing to raise the debt limit is just that—talk. Not raising the limit would require Congress to annually find about $1.3 trillion in federal tax increases or spending cuts—a set of policy changes larger than the revenues currently raised by the individual income tax. So far, the legislators who say they oppose a debt limit increase have not come forth with anything near such a plan. Nor should you expect them to. They are just blowing smoke. Eventually, they will agree to raise the limit.

While voters and members of Congress may find it cathartic to channel their outrage and frustration at the underlying budget situation onto the current debt limit discussion, the real question is how to adjust future spending and taxes to bring about future fiscal stability and sanity. The sooner we get to that discussion, the better.

Refusing to raise the debt limit not only would not help solve that problem, it would actually make a solution much harder to achieve.

By: William Gale, Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institute, U. S. News and World Report, March 28, 2011

March 29, 2011 Posted by | Congress, Debt Crisis, Deficits, Economy, Federal Budget, Politics, Voters | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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