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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.'"
...it's too late for the pebbles to vote. Regardless of your fiscal outlook, the fact is the debt ceiling must be raised, simply because of economic inertia. Fiscal conservatives may be correct that less government spending is good - but that perspective doesn't matter today, as our economic difficulties are the result of decisions years, maybe decades past. If you want to avoid raising debt ceilings in the future (a goal I actually support), that's fine - we can have a discussion on the best fiscal policy to pursue over the next ten years in order to achieve that. But *today* is not the time to debate *this* particular ceiling. That discussion should've happened ten years ago. Playing with the cap today is irresponsible at best, and cynical exploitation of economic trouble created, in part, by an ex-president from your own party, to secure a victory in 2012 ... well, not even at "worst", as that's pretty much exactly what the Republicans are doing.
The point is, you don't change economic trends overnight. The necessity of raising the debt ceiling cannot be altered today, even with the best intentions. I want to stay balanced and not single a particular side for blame, but it seems that the politicking is all about discrediting the sitting president to hurt his incumbent standing in 2012, rather than any form of principled economic disagreement.
Btw: captcha: "defraud"
The Tea-Party Republicans ran on platforms of cutting spending and lowering the debt. Can you blame them for not turning on their constituents and breaking promises to pass legislation their home districts are against? I thought we were tired of politicians making campaign promises, then breaking them in office.
Funtime Candy Wow! - my plan for eventually conquering Japan.
Did you really watch the Address to the Nation? The approach proposed by the President seems quite fair. On one hand he wants to cut expenditure while making sure that the rich few pay the fair share of taxes. Heck, he even said that he, as President, would be prepared to pay higher taxes and so should the other Congresspersons and Senators. He didn't put blame solely on Republicans, he also blamed the Democrates for this impass. But what do I know righ? I'm just a Canadian interested by the crisis and the repercussions it might have on our economy or the economy or other nations!