Tick, tick. August 2nd is the Debt Limit Armageddon. Or Not.

Despite how the politicians try to posture, the public seems regard it as "showmanship."
A little polling music, please. RCP has a summary of polls out recently:
President Obama's approval ratings-
Gallup (Adults; 7/24*); Approve 45% Disapprove 48% = -3 {vs -1 on 7/6}
Rasmussen (Likely Voters; 7/24); Approve 44% Disapprove 55% = -11 {vs -1 on 7/2}
CNN (Adults; 7/20); Approve 45% Disapprove 54% = -9 {vs no data}
Fox (Registered Voters; 7/20); Approve 45% Disapprove 46% = -1 {vs tie on 6/28)
RCP Average (mid-July); -5% {vs -5% o/a 7/3}

Rasmussen has Obama losing 5 points on the Approval-meter while his Disapproval rose by 5 points.
The public has an Approval rating of Congress of 19% vs a Disapproval of 73% = -54 as of late June. I doubt that that has gotten any better this month.

*Dates shown are the end of a 3 day rolling poll.

It unanimous, Americans are in agreement that Obama is an unqualified assclown.

Cut spending & save this republic: Eliminate the Department of Education.

Congress doesn't look at polls or worry about them. They go their merry way thinking they are doing the "work of the people" by creating a world-wide crisis on a simple and routine increase in the debt ceiling.

Congress loves the show; it's too bad it's not a comedy.

Obama doesn't look at polls or worry about them. Obama goes his merry way thinking he is doing the "work of the people" by creating a world-wide crisis on a simple and routine increase in the debt ceiling.

Obama loves the show; Obama is an assclown.

I made no such claims. You exhibit an odd tendency to change the subject or distract the train of discussion whenever a point you allege is shown to be defective.

That Obama has reneged on prior agreements reached in the current discussions appears to be true, though none of us has all the facts on what was or wasn't said.

You wrote,

I said that the GOP-tea party did the same thing. Time frames do not matter, because we're still discussing the debt ceiling - and how both sides have changed their demands.

The GOP still wants to hold Obama hostage to the debt ceiling.



I hope most of those congress members disappear from our government next year in November.

I just sent an email to my freshman Republican rep who campaigned as a moderate Republican that I wouldn't support him in '12 (which I did in '10) if he voted for this bill. He's going to be running for reelection then too. I'm just one vote, but to go through this again in 2012 is lunacy.

Obama is expected to make an address to the country on the debt limit at 9 pm tonight ET.

Obama is holding all of America hostage over the debt bill because he refuses to accept responsibility/blame for
his inaction and dithering since taking office... he thinks it would hurt his chances of getting re-elected in 2012.

Pop some corn, sit back and enjoy yet another teleprompter ready by Obama, it should
be a riveting address as he points his skinny finger and deflects all blame & responsibility.

The Tea Party folks are not part of the current Debt ceiling negotiations. Neither are the Labor Union paymasters of the Democrats who sometimes disagree with the Democrat Officials who are involved in the Debt ceiling negotiations.

What the hell is your point ?

All those trillions the politicians are throwing around refer to a CBO baseline assuming far more growth we're likely to see on the current economic path >

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/108xx/doc10871/Chapter1.shtml
> ie the actual numbers are a lot worse than politicians admit. Tonight Obama is giving yet another speech - he's good at that - and while the text isn't yet ready, I can tell you one thing he'll leave out: how the world didn't come to an end on the original May 16th "federal default" date Geithner came up with and won't come to an end on August 2nd either. If a technical default is the only way to stop the fiscal follies from continuing then it is the duty of the House - constitutionally in charge of the power of the purse - to refuse any compromise that raises taxes in the middle of the worst recession since the 1930s. The only alternative to a technical default is the one you don't want your politician to vote for - at least you should be clear on what the alternatives really are.

But, the tea party are voters in the House where they can make or break any legislation brought forward by Boehner.

P.S. The revenues on that table have since been revised - downwards - by the CBO and the outlays have also been revised - upwards.. I'm not even mentioning the walking dead known as Fannie and Freddie or other confabulations prudently kept by the CBO off-budget. If we were a company instead of a country we would already have had to file for chapter 11 based on the Medicaid unfunded liabilities alone.

I don't want to see a default, but lying helps nobody; these are the true numbers.

I think he's a closet tea party activist

I agree re smoke and mirrors and if you look at my contributions on the future of the US economy thread you'll see that phrase come up many times in my posts. That said, however, there is no way in hell that I want any of us going through this debt limit ceiling debacle again any time soon.

I'm a fiscal conservative by heart and nature and I don't like this situation one little bit. What I detest, however, is the political posturing that strives to gain an advantage for one party by trying to make the other one look bad. I'm not partisan in any way. This situation, to me, is beyond politics. Raise the debt ceiling to a point that it doesn't become a campaign issue or get rid of it altogether and push to bring our economic house into order.

I'll give the tea party folks props for holding firm until they got the attention of the rest of mainstream pols. I actually related well to them early on until they became fanatical. Now that they've got said attention they need to figure out how to keep us out of the deepest muck we've been in in a generation. There have been a number of deals that have come out in recent days that were worth pursuing. It's past time for holding firm for the sake of holding firm.

I agree the current impasse is disheartening. However the underlying issue is both timely and critical. The progressive Democrats who elected Obama weren't entirely responsible for the economic collapse that preceded Obama's accession to office - both parties had in their own ways worked hard over the preceeding 20 years to create the housing bubble and high debt levels that precipitated it. However, the agenda they pursued after their assumption of power, while defective (in my view) at any time, was positively harmful in the period after the collapse. Added regulatory burdens, shutting down oil production along our coasts and in Alaska; new threats of regulation to energy supplies and financial transactions; wasteful subsidies to state bureaucracies, themselves in need of reform; and added taxes in the midst of the resulting slowest recovery from a recession in recent memory are all positively harmful now and reveal a truly scary committment to abstract goals in the face of a reality that contradicts them every day.

It is this stubborn insistence on a harmful and unrealistic agenda, pursued in the face of facts (and European examples) that contradict it every day, that has created the Republican intransigence. We will be far better off with a delayed (or smaller than desired by Democrats) increase in the budget ceiling than we would with the Obama tax and spend agenda. The very fact that neither the President nor the Democrat Senate has yet presented a specific plan or budget for the current year (Obama repudiated his November budget submission soon after offering it) rather completely undermines their empty claim that the Republicans are delaying progress on any front.

We'll have to agree to disagree, George. It wasn't the progressive Dems who elected Obama other than through the primary process. It was the centrist swing voter who gave him the Office.