House of Representatives
Transcript: Boehner's Speech on Debt Talks
Published July 25, 2011| FoxNews.com
Good evening. I'm John Boehner. I serve as Speaker of the whole House -- of the members of both parties that you elect. These are difficult times in the life of our nation. Millions are looking for work, have been for some time, and the spending binge going on in Washington is a big part of the reason why.
Before I served in Congress, I ran a small business in Ohio. I was amazed at how different Washington DC operated than every business in America. Where most American business make the hard choices to pay their bills and live within their means, in Washington more spending and more debt is business as usual.
I've got news for Washington - those days are over.
President Obama came to Congress in January and requested business as usual -- yet another routine increase in the national debt limit -- we in the House said 'not so fast.' Here was the president, asking for the largest debt increase in American history, on the heels of the largest spending binge in American history.
Here's what we got for that spending binge: a massive health care bill that most Americans never asked for. A 'stimulus' bill that was more effective in producing material for late-night comedians than it was in producing jobs. And a national debt that has gotten so out of hand it has sparked a crisis without precedent in my lifetime or yours.
The United States cannot default on its debt obligations. The jobs and savings of too many Americans are at stake.
What we told the president in January was this: the American people will not accept an increase in the debt limit without significant spending cuts and reforms.
And over the last six months, we've done our best to convince the president to partner with us to do something dramatic to change the fiscal trajectory of our country. . .something that will boost confidence in our economy, renew a measure of faith in our government, and help small businesses get back on track.
Last week, the House passed such a plan, and with bipartisan support. It's called the 'Cut, Cap, and Balance' Act. It CUTS and CAPS government spending and paves the way for a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution, which we believe is the best way to stop Washington from spending money it doesn't have. Before we even passed the bill in the House, the President said he would veto it.
I want you to know I made a sincere effort to work with the president to identify a path forward that would implement the principles of Cut, Cap, & Balance in a manner that could secure bipartisan support and be signed into law. I gave it my all.
Unfortunately, the president would not take yes for an answer. Even when we thought we might be close on an agreement, the president's demands changed.
The president has often said we need a 'balanced' approach -- which in Washington means: we spend more. . .you pay more. Having run a small business, I know those tax increases will destroy jobs.
The president is adamant that we cannot make fundamental changes to our entitlement programs. As the father of two daughters, I know these programs won't be there for them and their kids unless significant action is taken now.
The sad truth is that the president wanted a blank check six months ago, and he wants a blank check today. That is just not going to happen.
You see, there is no stalemate in Congress. The House has passed a bill to raise the debt limit with bipartisan support. And this week, while the Senate is struggling to pass a bill filled with phony accounting and Washington gimmicks, we will pass another bill - one that was developed with the support of the bipartisan leadership of the U.S. Senate.
Obviously, I expect that bill can and will pass the Senate, and be sent to the President for his signature. If the President signs it, the 'crisis' atmosphere he has created will simply disappear. The debt limit will be raised. Spending will be cut by more than one trillion dollars, and a serious, bipartisan committee of the Congress will begin the hard but necessary work of dealing with the tough challenges our nation faces.
The individuals doing this work will not be outsiders, but elected representatives of the people, doing the job they were elected to do as outlined in the Constitution. Those decisions should be made based on how they will affect people who are struggling to get a job, not how they affect some politician's chances of getting reelected.
This debate isn't about President Obama and House Republicans … it isn't about Congress and the White House … it's about what's standing between the American people and the future we seek for ourselves and our families.
You know, I've always believed, the bigger government, the smaller the people. And right now, we have a government so big and so expensive it's sapping the drive of our people and keeping our economy from running at full capacity.
The solution to this crisis is not complicated: if you're spending more money than you're taking in, you need to spend less of it,
There is no symptom of big government more menacing than our debt. Break its grip, and we begin to liberate our economy and our future.
We are up to the task, and I hope President Obama will join us in this work.
God bless you and your families, and God bless America.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/25/transcript-boehners-speech-on-debt-talks/#ixzz1TDIxst7h
Showing posts with label Debt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Debt. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Friday, October 08, 2010
Trampling The Constitution
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Our Future In Chains: The For-Profit Debtors' Prison System
Michael Edwards
Activist Post
Debtors' prisons have a sordid history that was thought to be best left behind in Medieval Europe and in Charles Dickens' fictionalized accounts of the 19th-century hellholes of Victorian England. America was not to be outdone, debtors’ prisons were widespread in the United States as well, and stories of the conditions in New York's debtors’ prisons could make one question if repayment of debts was really the purpose; violent criminals were much better clothed and fed. In fact, history shows that terror and slavery have always had a close relationship with debt, and it follows a path from the Romans right through to 17th century England, and into America from English common law. However, America chose to abolish her debtors’ prisons a full 36 years before England; first in New York in 1831, and by 1833 the rest of the America had followed.
Now, debtors' prisons seem to be making a comeback in America. A recent article in the Star Tribune in Minnesota titled, "In jail for being in debt," exposes the growing number of citizens going to jail at the behest of banks and a welcoming judicial system.
In our modern era of debt servitude, a PR Push has been designed to reintroduce a serious discussion of debtors' prisons as a sound solution. What goes beyond alarming is that the full-fledged return of debtors’ prisons might be seen as both appropriately terrifying, as well as a profitable investment opportunity and politically sound decision to be made by state governments struggling with their own looming bankruptcies, and a Federal government struggling politically with the concept of a jobless recovery that is not materializing.
A de facto debtors' prison has already been largely accepted in the case of "deadbeat" parents when a failure to pay child support puts them in civil contempt of court. It is this civil contempt charge that is now beginning to take on an expanded definition to include those who owe for much smaller infractions. When a court order to pay a debt is issued and ignored, it then qualifies as a civil contempt of court. At that point, the judge becomes a literal dictator with the ability to imprison a person indefinitely for the violation. The Constitution explicitly prohibits incarceration for failure to pay debts, but it is the violation of a court order that gives judges free rein to impose draconian punishments. In this way, an end-run around the Constitution can become frighteningly commonplace.
America already has a record-high ratio of people in prison, with no signs of the trend reversing as private corporations like Wackenhut Corporation, referred to as a "Free Market in Human Misery," have long been enlisted to turn government directives into shareholder profit. One might even deign to call it blatant fascism in its purest form, as government legislation leads offenders directly into private company coffers. The prison-industrial complex has already capitalized on government actions like The War on Drugs. A prime example is how The California Correctional Peace Officers Association helped fuel the prison-building boom as a cozy relationship was established on Capitol Hill through influence peddling.
Profiting from the suffering of the poor while bailouts and bonuses await the over-leveraged banksters, car companies, and state governments, sets up a prison-industrial complex with a class warfare component that is the domestic mirror of the military-industrial complex sent abroad. This domestic prison system seems to be the only industry left to build upon, and it is here that things become truly frightening. For the federally-owned prison system complex, Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR), more incarceration means a growing supply of cheap labor and a skewing of unemployment numbers, as these inmates are often doing jobs they couldn't even find if they were job hunting on the outside. But it is the private prison system, with its web fully woven throughout the U.S. government, that stands to profit the most from the return of debtors' admission.
The largest private prison conglomerate in the U.S. is Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which controls more than 47% of all private prison and jail beds nationwide and is able to produce a 13-15% return annually on new real estate investments. Wackenhut (now subsumed into G4S, the largest security company in the world) was of course started by an FBI agent, George Wackenhut, who is famous for developing millions of dossiers on America's "potential subversives" in the sixties, and was exposed as being an integral player within the shadow CIA.
These major security conglomerates are at the top of a growing pyramid of for-profit, international detention center operators that has Wall Street giants like Goldman Sachs simply fawning over the solid, long-term investment potential. Similar to war, when there is a profit to be made off of incarceration, only more incarceration can be expected to follow. The U.S. government certainly seems to be working hard to ensure that the numbers of poor continue to increase, as they are well aware that that programs designed to help the downtrodden are an abject failure every time. Furthermore, the massive government debts that must be repaid directly into the hands of the Federal Reserve-led banking cabal must lead us to an inescapable conclusion: More money is to be made from slavery in the United States, than from freedom.
Our Future In Chains: The For-Profit Debtors' Prison System
Michael Edwards
Activist Post
Debtors' prisons have a sordid history that was thought to be best left behind in Medieval Europe and in Charles Dickens' fictionalized accounts of the 19th-century hellholes of Victorian England. America was not to be outdone, debtors’ prisons were widespread in the United States as well, and stories of the conditions in New York's debtors’ prisons could make one question if repayment of debts was really the purpose; violent criminals were much better clothed and fed. In fact, history shows that terror and slavery have always had a close relationship with debt, and it follows a path from the Romans right through to 17th century England, and into America from English common law. However, America chose to abolish her debtors’ prisons a full 36 years before England; first in New York in 1831, and by 1833 the rest of the America had followed.
Now, debtors' prisons seem to be making a comeback in America. A recent article in the Star Tribune in Minnesota titled, "In jail for being in debt," exposes the growing number of citizens going to jail at the behest of banks and a welcoming judicial system.
They write:
It's not a crime to owe money, and debtors' prisons were abolished in the United States in the 19th century. But people are routinely being thrown in jail for failing to pay debts. In Minnesota, which has some of the most creditor-friendly laws in the country, the use of arrest warrants against debtors has jumped 60 percent over the past four years, with 845 cases in 2009, a Star Tribune analysis of state court data has found.
In our modern era of debt servitude, a PR Push has been designed to reintroduce a serious discussion of debtors' prisons as a sound solution. What goes beyond alarming is that the full-fledged return of debtors’ prisons might be seen as both appropriately terrifying, as well as a profitable investment opportunity and politically sound decision to be made by state governments struggling with their own looming bankruptcies, and a Federal government struggling politically with the concept of a jobless recovery that is not materializing.
A de facto debtors' prison has already been largely accepted in the case of "deadbeat" parents when a failure to pay child support puts them in civil contempt of court. It is this civil contempt charge that is now beginning to take on an expanded definition to include those who owe for much smaller infractions. When a court order to pay a debt is issued and ignored, it then qualifies as a civil contempt of court. At that point, the judge becomes a literal dictator with the ability to imprison a person indefinitely for the violation. The Constitution explicitly prohibits incarceration for failure to pay debts, but it is the violation of a court order that gives judges free rein to impose draconian punishments. In this way, an end-run around the Constitution can become frighteningly commonplace.
America already has a record-high ratio of people in prison, with no signs of the trend reversing as private corporations like Wackenhut Corporation, referred to as a "Free Market in Human Misery," have long been enlisted to turn government directives into shareholder profit. One might even deign to call it blatant fascism in its purest form, as government legislation leads offenders directly into private company coffers. The prison-industrial complex has already capitalized on government actions like The War on Drugs. A prime example is how The California Correctional Peace Officers Association helped fuel the prison-building boom as a cozy relationship was established on Capitol Hill through influence peddling.
Profiting from the suffering of the poor while bailouts and bonuses await the over-leveraged banksters, car companies, and state governments, sets up a prison-industrial complex with a class warfare component that is the domestic mirror of the military-industrial complex sent abroad. This domestic prison system seems to be the only industry left to build upon, and it is here that things become truly frightening. For the federally-owned prison system complex, Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR), more incarceration means a growing supply of cheap labor and a skewing of unemployment numbers, as these inmates are often doing jobs they couldn't even find if they were job hunting on the outside. But it is the private prison system, with its web fully woven throughout the U.S. government, that stands to profit the most from the return of debtors' admission.
The largest private prison conglomerate in the U.S. is Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which controls more than 47% of all private prison and jail beds nationwide and is able to produce a 13-15% return annually on new real estate investments. Wackenhut (now subsumed into G4S, the largest security company in the world) was of course started by an FBI agent, George Wackenhut, who is famous for developing millions of dossiers on America's "potential subversives" in the sixties, and was exposed as being an integral player within the shadow CIA.
These major security conglomerates are at the top of a growing pyramid of for-profit, international detention center operators that has Wall Street giants like Goldman Sachs simply fawning over the solid, long-term investment potential. Similar to war, when there is a profit to be made off of incarceration, only more incarceration can be expected to follow. The U.S. government certainly seems to be working hard to ensure that the numbers of poor continue to increase, as they are well aware that that programs designed to help the downtrodden are an abject failure every time. Furthermore, the massive government debts that must be repaid directly into the hands of the Federal Reserve-led banking cabal must lead us to an inescapable conclusion: More money is to be made from slavery in the United States, than from freedom.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
No Good Deed Shall Go Unpunished
or, Damned If You Do and Damned If You Dont
by Josh
I would suppose you are rather like me, you have a certain amount of debt which you pay on time, month after month, and almost always pay well above the minimum. Your credit score is adequate or better.
I have built my credit by following that simple formula and in 6 years raised my score from a miserable 378 to a respectable 750. But that was a year or so ago, before the bubble was burst by our lending institutions with not so good borrowing or lending practices. In short, they were greedy.
I am on social security, the place I live in is rented, but my car is paid off. I had almost $40,000 in credit lines which I respectfully did not abuse. I kept my debt level to a place where it was barely 50% of what was available. I could and did afford a reasonably comfortable life style.
Then, because the banks were greedy and nearly failing, we taxpayers found ourselves in the odd position of lending the banks enough money to cover their losses and maintain thier lavish life styles. To show their appreciation they began to lower all our credit lines which caused my debt to available credit ratio to move out of the good range I had maintained to a place that allowed the Equifax cartel to lower my credit rating.
As you have already guessed, that move caused my lenders to further lower my credit lines, which increased the debt ratio, and further lower my credit score. This is no accident or anything to do with any algorhythm set up to keep national credit on an even keel. This is a deliberate plot by the money industry to screw us all to the wall.
My credit score has recently plunged to 615 even though I still have not missed a payment or paid less than 20% over the minimum due. My interest rates have risen to double or more the original deal I signed up for. That is, all except one loan through a credit union, who is not so greedy.
I fail to see how all this benefits the credit industry. They are literally cutting off the people who are keeping them afloat. If bankruptcies continue at the alarming current rate they are bound to go bust yet again. But next time I dare say they will be left flopping on the beach. At least that is what I hope for. It would be poetic justice at last.
I can read the writing on the wall and for me it says that I will pay as long as I can, but eventually find I am unable to pay as I should. My interest rates and payments are rising due to the lender's greed and I will eventually find there is not enough money to go around. If I fail to pay, my credit rating will tank and I will be unable to rent a half way decent place to live. Once again, I fail to see how this benefits the lenders. It smacks of evil and spite to me.
I am composing a letter to send out to members of congress, the comptroller of the currency, and any other entity I feel might just try to get us back where we were and make ordinary life affordable again. I hope you will do the same. It's all we have left.
by Josh
I would suppose you are rather like me, you have a certain amount of debt which you pay on time, month after month, and almost always pay well above the minimum. Your credit score is adequate or better.
I have built my credit by following that simple formula and in 6 years raised my score from a miserable 378 to a respectable 750. But that was a year or so ago, before the bubble was burst by our lending institutions with not so good borrowing or lending practices. In short, they were greedy.
I am on social security, the place I live in is rented, but my car is paid off. I had almost $40,000 in credit lines which I respectfully did not abuse. I kept my debt level to a place where it was barely 50% of what was available. I could and did afford a reasonably comfortable life style.
Then, because the banks were greedy and nearly failing, we taxpayers found ourselves in the odd position of lending the banks enough money to cover their losses and maintain thier lavish life styles. To show their appreciation they began to lower all our credit lines which caused my debt to available credit ratio to move out of the good range I had maintained to a place that allowed the Equifax cartel to lower my credit rating.
As you have already guessed, that move caused my lenders to further lower my credit lines, which increased the debt ratio, and further lower my credit score. This is no accident or anything to do with any algorhythm set up to keep national credit on an even keel. This is a deliberate plot by the money industry to screw us all to the wall.
My credit score has recently plunged to 615 even though I still have not missed a payment or paid less than 20% over the minimum due. My interest rates have risen to double or more the original deal I signed up for. That is, all except one loan through a credit union, who is not so greedy.
I fail to see how all this benefits the credit industry. They are literally cutting off the people who are keeping them afloat. If bankruptcies continue at the alarming current rate they are bound to go bust yet again. But next time I dare say they will be left flopping on the beach. At least that is what I hope for. It would be poetic justice at last.
I can read the writing on the wall and for me it says that I will pay as long as I can, but eventually find I am unable to pay as I should. My interest rates and payments are rising due to the lender's greed and I will eventually find there is not enough money to go around. If I fail to pay, my credit rating will tank and I will be unable to rent a half way decent place to live. Once again, I fail to see how this benefits the lenders. It smacks of evil and spite to me.
I am composing a letter to send out to members of congress, the comptroller of the currency, and any other entity I feel might just try to get us back where we were and make ordinary life affordable again. I hope you will do the same. It's all we have left.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Obama Grants China Eminent Domain
Impeachment Time: Obama Grants Eminent Domain Rights to China to Secure Debt
February 27, 5:11 PM
by Bill Dupray, DC Republican Examiner
They own us.
The time for partisan bickering just ended. This is as serious as a heart attack. Obama is going to spend so much money, which he intends to get from China via the sale of government backed bonds, that the Chinese apparently don't think he'll be able to make good on them.
So President Obama gave the Chinese eminent domain rights to American land and businesses as collateral - i.e. we don't pay, they now own America.
From Patriot Room.
Live Leak has more details.
This cannot stand. It is traitorous and Obama should be impeached.
February 27, 5:11 PM
by Bill Dupray, DC Republican Examiner
They own us.
The time for partisan bickering just ended. This is as serious as a heart attack. Obama is going to spend so much money, which he intends to get from China via the sale of government backed bonds, that the Chinese apparently don't think he'll be able to make good on them.
So President Obama gave the Chinese eminent domain rights to American land and businesses as collateral - i.e. we don't pay, they now own America.
From Patriot Room.
Because it looks like our wonderful new administration is granting the Chinese eminent domain as collateral for US debts. Yea you read that right. That means when we can no longer pay for all this massive spending the Chinese can call in the loans and take our land.
The thought that American citizens and businesses could lose their land as a means of payment is downright scary. I highly doubt ANY American citizen would have voted for Obama if they knew this was coming down the pike.
Live Leak has more details.
Sources at the United States Embassy in Beijing China have just CONFIRMED to me that the United States of America has tendered to China a written agreement which grants to the People's Republic of China, an option to exercise Eminent Domain within the USA, as collateral for China's continu More..ed purchase of US Treasury Notes and existing US Currency reserves!
The written agreement was brought to Beijing by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and was formalized and agreed-to during her recent trip to China.
This means that in the event the US Government defaults on its financial obligations to China, the Communist Government of China would be permitted to physically take -- inside the USA -- land, buildings, factories, perhaps even entire cities - to satisfy the financial obligations of the US government.
Put simply, the feds have now actually mortgaged the physical land and property of all citizens and businesses in the United States. They have given to a foreign power, their Constitutional power to "take" all of our property, as actual collateral for continued Chinese funding of US deficit spending and the continued carrying of US national debt.
This cannot stand. It is traitorous and Obama should be impeached.
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