Santa - you have no idea what you say from one moment to the next, because you are just spinning one lie after the other to cover for your morally bankrupt party.

What is even happening?

Please post my offending comment about the debt ceiling and explain why you think it is wrong underneath.

"Playing chicken with the debt ceiling and the government would be an incredibly dangerous precedent if it is successful"

How are they playing chicken if they aren't negotiating about it. If they aren't negotiating, you can be playing chicken with it. I mean, can you not be driving the car and yet still be playing chicken with it? No. therefore you implied they were negotiating the debt ceiling through this single statement.

Santa - you are frothing and drooling now. I'm sorry you have been forced to confront your own mental perversions and admit you are wrong...but it will be better for you in the long run.

He wanted someone to point out where he said they were negotiating the debt ceiling. So I did.

Where in that quote is there anything remotely resembling a statement that they are in negotiations.

You can easily play chicken through statements in the press setting terms and goals for successful negotiations. Is this so hard to understand? Are you both really that fucking stupid. Yes you are although I think you are purposefully dumbing yourselves down here (and impressive feat).

So what I'm curious about is what would happen if the democrats passed the limited resolutions the republicans have offered. What are the consequences?

Obamacare still goes into effect, but unfunded? The government shut down ends?

What happens if Reid were to hypothetically just say, 'OK?'

Politicians don't use that word.

Well fine but I'm just trying to flesh out krellin's point here.

Why won't the left take what they can get? I feel I have a good understanding of why the republicans won't pass the house funding. I do not feel like I have a good understanding of why the democrats won't pass the senate funding. Can anybody explain to me what they lose in doing so?

Is it, perhaps, OBAMA'S FAULT?!?

In the UK we would say the 'Butler did it', not the 'Black Guy'.
For nor Obama seems to have averted conflict in Syria, I would say that is the best diplomatic stance I have seen from a US stance in years, no wonder the right-wingers are up in arms, they can't stand to see him popular.
Now he is not falling out with Iran, now there is dialogue, that has upset the ultra right Israeli govt who are threatening a lone attack on Iran.
If only Bush and Bliar had been this smart ..... but they weren't.
When I see crass politics from the far-right I just assume that Obama is getting something right.
We stood up to the German Fascists in 1939, now we have to stand up to the ultra right wingers in both the USA and Israel as they are the biggest threats to world peace. They only know the politics of fighting, peace is not an option for them.
The Right is wrong

@Santa - let me repeat it slowly and in simple words. You said "playing chicken". Playing chicken requires one to figuratively drive the car they are playing chicken with. So "driving the car" is inferred to mean "discussing the topic at hand" and as "playing chicken" is normally done against another driver in another car, that means both sides were discussing the topic at hand. Finally as "playing chicken" means the drivers are doing so and seeing who will turn first, that means they must be at odds on the topic, therefore, they are negotiating the topic and both are playing hardball/not turning aside. It really isn't that hard.

Perhaps you used the wrong analogy, but you used it nonetheless and so it is, by implication, a smoking gun to what you said.

And statements in the press are not playing chicken. They are brinkmanship or one-upmanship. Chicken is head to head, hence negotiation.

The US has an obligation to pay its debts, per the Constitution. Therefore the President has the authority to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling and bypass Congress.

No, he doesn't That is why it is called a Constitutional crisis. You may argue he has the obligation to, but the authority is *not* granted to him.

In Pakistan and Somalia the US use drone strikes to kill the extremists and their families and associates, maybe they have some more dangerous and deserving targets a little closer to home, why worry about Al Qaeda when the biggest threat to the American way of life is coming from the Ultra Right in the States, get your own house in order and the rest of the world might have to get on and sort their own problems out.

The President is ordered to carry out the appropriations statutes, which do not authorize the cutting of expenditure, he is thus forced to borrow money to pay for them. If two statutes are conflicting, the most recent statute is implemented. Amendment XIV also states that the validity of the public debt must not be questioned.

Article II says the President shall " The President shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed".

All Constitutional signs point to bypassing Congress.

@Yellowjacket-

What happens? The Republicans lose any incentive to ever negotiate in good faith again. They achieve the goals that were pretty roundly rejected by the electorate as a whole but are favored by their base without paying any sort of political cost, and repeat this tactic every single time they don't get exactly what the craziest old white dude in the country thinks is right and proper. America stops functioning, the wealth gap increases to the point where we can start politicizing the military, and eventually, about a century down the line, when we're a third world backwater, we have a really bloody revolution.

I don't see the Tea Party as Republicans, the GOP has been invaded by the Ultra Right, religious extremists, they seem to be hell bent on bringing down the US economy to get the moderate politician out of power, I'm sure Hitler would be proud of them, maybe Stalin and Mussolini too..

No, the Democrats are Republicans. But the far right that used to be dismissed as the John Birch Society got their hands on the reins of the Republican Party.

That's really insulting to those leaders. They don't deserve comparison to these nitwits.

"No, the Democrats are Republicans"

Speaker Pelosi is a Republican? Give me a break.

Hi Bob, thanks for answering. I guess I don't understand still.

Can you be a bit more specific as to what the more immediate consequences are, and how they lead into the rather grim picture you've painted?

So in this hypothetical scenario, some things get funded, other things do not get funded. What does that actually mean?

Do the things that don't get funded just get cancelled, or do we borrow money to pay for them, or is there some discretion in the matter? I really just don't know how this stuff works.

And what "goals that were rejected" do they meet by doing this?

"The US has an obligation to pay its debts, per the Constitution. Therefore the President has the authority to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling and bypass Congress. "

Moron Putin strikes again. The US collect more than 10 x the tax revenue necessary to service the debt. IN other words, the US is more than capable of not defaulting on it's loans without ever raising the debt ceiling. As for the rest of the spending...Congress holds the purse strings, not the President. Despite ass clown Putin's wishes, we do not live in a dictator ship, and the President only has the authority to approve or veto spending bills that pass through Congress

ONce again, our fine educator (who hates children and blames them for all the ills in schools while he gives them passing grades they don't deserve) apparently doesn't have even the slightest clue as to how our government works.

Ass clown.

"he US collect more than 10 x the tax revenue necessary to service the debt."

The appropriations bills are law and have to be carried out.

"we do not live in a dictator ship"

Right, which is why the President cannot simply not implement appropriations bills willy nilly in order to pay down the debt. The only solution is a unilateral raising of the debt ceiling.

Laws can be changed, moron. Currently, we don't have spending bills passed....so I guess Putin is on the side of the Republicans, seeking fiscal responsibility and a balanced budget.

Glad to see you have finally joined the conservative Republican fight, Putin.

It's funny when irrational liberal walk themselves in to a trap.