Are They Illiterate or Just Plain Hypocritical?

A little while back, I published a post, “The Ryan Budget“.  That budget bill passed on a purely partisan vote with absolutely NO Democrats voting for the bill, and 4 brave Republicans voting against the bill.  Did you pay attention to the detail in the last section (did you scroll all the way down through to the end of the table)?  If not, here it is again:

	Ryan Budget		Current Budget
	Total Debt	Public Debt	Total Debt	Public Debt
2012	$16,204,000,000,000	$11,418,000,000,000	$16,654,260,000,000	$11,881,136,000,000
2013	$17,177,000,000,000	$12,217,000,000,000	$17,750,484,000,000	$12,783,968,000,000
2014	$17,955,000,000,000	$12,801,000,000,000	$18,761,182,000,000	$13,562,171,000,000
2015	$18,704,000,000,000	$13,326,000,000,000	$19,775,536,000,000	$14,301,081,000,000
2016	$19,513,000,000,000	$13,886,000,000,000	$20,824,996,000,000	$15,063,908,000,000
2017	$20,257,000,000,000	$14,363,000,000,000	N/A	N/A
2018	$20,981,000,000,000	$14,800,000,000,000	N/A	N/A
2019	$21,711,000,000,000	$15,254,000,000,000	N/A	N/A
2020	$22,416,000,000,000	$15,681,000,000,000	N/A	N/A
2021	$23,105,000,000,000	$16,071,000,000,000	N/A	N/A

That’s the section in Ryan’s budget that delinates just exactly how much debt will be allowed, in other words, the allowable ceiling on our National Debt.  Please note that the allowable debt under the Plan for Poverty is NOT dropping and in fact, it’s rising!

I guess members of the GOP are hoping that nobody bothered to read H.Con.Res. 34, as passed by the House Republicans, to learn their dirty little secret.  Because — “One day after being named to a presidential task force to negotiate deficit reduction, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor fired off a stark warning to Democrats that the GOP ‘will not grant their request for a debt limit increase’ without major spending cuts or budget process reforms.”  Excuse me?  H.Con.Res.34, if it were to be passed in the Senate (and it shouldn’t), would automatically increase the allowable debt by roughly $2T.  The current debt ceiling stands at $14.3T, but if it were to be passed by both houses and signed by the president, well, it would instantaneously elevate the debt ceiling to $16.204T.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering what that “public debt” is that’s listed in the above table — the bulk of those monies are your contributions you made from each and every paycheck you ever earned for Social Security and Medicare.  Those are monies that are held in trust funds in the form of treasury bonds (obligations with respect to the US Govt).  Please note that those numbers are RISING, and thus Social Security and Medicare are definitely NOT broke!

So, here’s my point, either 235 Republicans who voted on H.Con.Res34 cannot read, or they failed to read the bill before casting their vote on a bill that eliminates Medicare as we know it and simultaneously elevates the allowable debt limit.  If the did read it, voted for it anyway and now want to claim they won’t vote for ANY increase in the debt limit — well — they’re nothing more that king-size hypocrites!

Related Posts:

• Do House Republicans realize they just endorsed a higher debt limit?
  The federal debt ceiling currently stands at $14.3 trillion. Under the House Republican budget, the amount of public debt subject to the limit would be $23.1 trillion in Fiscal Year 2021, meaning the GOP plan forces an $8.8 trillion in additional debt – an increase of more than 60% – over ten years.  [H. Con. Res. 34 (Page 5); Los Angeles Times, 4/15/11]
• New rules in the House of Representatives
  “Under House Rule XXVII (commonly referred to as the Gephardt rule after its author, former Representative Richard Gephardt), a joint resolution specifying the amount of the debt limit contained in the budget resolution automatically is engrossed and deemed to have passed the House by the same vote as the conference report on the budget resolution, thereby avoiding a separate vote on the debt-limit legislation.” That means that, under the Gephardt rule, the House Republican budget passed last Friday would have been considered a vote to raise the debt limit. When Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in January 2011, they eliminated the so-called Gephardt rule. [CRS, 6/26/08; Washington Post, 1/5/11]