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House Websites Jammed After Obama Debt Speech
Hugh Pickens writes "CNN reports that House switchboards have been flooded by phone calls — nearly twice the normal average — and hit with an unusual volume of constituent e-mails as voters voice their concern over the worsening debt-ceiling crisis. At least 104 of 279 congressional websites surveyed by CNN were down or had experienced slow connections on Tuesday, after President Obama's speech Monday night. In his address to the nation, Obama called on the American people to 'make your voice heard.' House Speaker John Boehner's website responded with a 'Server Too Busy' or 'Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)' message during parts of the day. His switchboard reported as many as 150-300 callers on hold, wanting to leave their thoughts for the speaker. House Chief Administrative Officer spokesman Dan Weiser said that lawmakers' websites and phone lines began to sag with the traffic on Monday night. 'Last night we had some website problems. ... There was some websites that were hosted by outside vendors that had slowness, sluggishness, people had trouble getting in. And that was rectified early this morning.'"
Typical Tea Party idiocy.
The Treasury Department can prioritize payments in order to avoid a default
Which means that seniors, people on medicare assistance due to crippling injuries or congenital disorders, and the military would then NOT GET their checks.
In addition, the Treasury could sell some of its assets in order to pay the bills.
Which assets, pray tell? And what do we do when the question of use of those assets comes up later? You sound like one of those "privatize the public parks and turn them all into Six Flags or Casino properties" fucktards.
There are approximately $2.6 trillion dollars in the Social Security Trust Fund; those assets can be used to pay benefits.
And once we do that, the Social Security trust fund ceases to generate revenue returns, because most of the "trust fund" is actually backing a number of other investments and GENERATING INTEREST.
Furthermore, there is already trillions of dollars of interagency debt that counts toward the $14.29 trillion debt limit. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner could convert that inter-agency debt into publicly-held debt, preventing not only a technical default but also preventing any delay in government payments. While the Treasury cannot use money from the Social Security Trust Fund, it can “disinvest” from other trust funds to pay for benefits. The Treasury Department could also make cash available from the trust fund by “disinvesting” some of the money used to buy government bonds. The disinvesting approach is a temporary accounting device that would help maintain the Treasury’s cash flow.
In other words, you think playing shell games, the equivalent of paying this month's Mastercard bill with a cash advance from Discover Card, is a good idea?
FUCKTARD.
In other words, the debt ceiling being reached will have little affect on seniors, poor people, veterans, military + their families. Also, if I'm not mistaken, Republicans also offered to raise the debt limit as long as the Cut, Cap, and Balance bill was passed, and it is the president who is failing to compromise with them and is waging a mostly emotional political fight that has little to no basis on facts at the expense of not coming to an agreement in time.
You're a fucking fool. The "Cut, Cap, and Balance" bill is one step shy of this level of dishonestycome out of the Tea Party crowd lately.
Also, for god's sake, learn the difference between "effect" and "affect" please. I swear, you Republicans should learn to get beyond your 2nd-grade-equivalent "high school diplomas" with the school administrator's name scrawled in crayon.
Small problem with this theory:
In the same moment that the Republicans are screaming about how it's time to "cut costs" (e.g. fire employees), they are screaming about how "that damn evil nigger Obama" is "raising unemployment."
How, precisely, does firing a bunch of people lower unemployment? Doesn't it, in fact, RAISE unemployment?
Being a Republican requires a brain that can hold 4 contradictory ideas at once while not being aware of the level of cognitive dissonance at work.