Thursday morning Bloomberg reported House Majority
Leader Cantor Predicts House
Republicans Will Pass Debt Plan Today
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor
predicted Republicans would pass a debt-limit increase plan today as some
freshman lawmakers pledged support for the measure in the face of unified
Democratic opposition in the Senate.
Vote Cancelled
Kiss that prediction of Cantor goodbye. Thursday evening Republicans put off vote on
debt limit because
Boehner clearly lacks the votes.
An intensive endgame at hand,
Republican leaders abruptly postponed a vote Thursday night on legislation to
avert a threatened government default and slice federal spending by nearly $1
trillion.
"The votes obviously were not there," conceded Rep. David Dreier,
R-Calif., after Speaker John Boehner and the leadership had spent hours
trying to corral the support of rebellious conservatives.
The decision created fresh turmoil as divided government struggled to head
off an unprecedented default that would leave the Treasury without the funds
needed to pay all its bills. Administration officials say Tuesday is the
deadline for Congress to act.
Senate Democrats stood by to scuttle the bill -- if it ever got them -- as a
way of forcing Republicans to accept changes sought by Obama.
Based on public statements by lawmakers themselves, it appeared that five of
some two dozen holdouts were from South Carolina. The state is also
represented by Sen. Jim DeMint, who has solid ties to tea party groups and is
a strong critic of compromising on the debt issue.
Others said conservatives wanted additional steps taken to try to ensure that
a constitutional balanced-budget amendment would be sent to the states for
ratification. As drafted, the legislation merely requires both houses of
Congress to vote on the issue.
Even before the House voted, Reid served notice he would stage a vote to kill
the legislation almost instantly.
"No Democrat will vote for a short-term Band-Aid that would put our economy
at risk and put the nation back in this untenable situation a few short
months from now," he said.
Boehner Humiliated
Boehner was humiliated and justifiably so. He had nothing to gain and
everything to lose by attempting to ram-rod a gaseous bill through the House
that was guaranteed dead-on-arrival in the Senate.
Majority leader Cantor made matters worse by predicting passage.
Stock Futures Tank in Unusual Correlation with Treasuries
Please consider U.S. S&P 500 Futures
Retreat as McCarthy Says No Vote on Debt Plan Tonight
Futures on the Standard &
Poor’s 500 Index fell after the U.S. House of Representatives postponed
a vote to increase the nation’s debt limit, boosting concern that the
lawmakers are far from an agreement to avoid default.
S&P 500 futures expiring in September lost 0.8 percent to 1,286.9 at
12:28 p.m. in Tokyo. The decline suggests the U.S. equity benchmark may
extend its 3.3 percent slump from the past four days when markets open in New
York.
Stocks and Treasuries are moving in tandem twice as often as they normally
do, a sign investors are growing convinced the U.S. will lose its AAA credit
rating and that an impasse among lawmakers may spur losses in both markets.
The S&P 500 has risen or fallen together with 10-year Treasury notes 80
percent of the time in the last 10 days, compared with the average since 2000
of 41 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Not Raising the Debt Ceiling Would be Blessing
I am sticking to what I said in Not Raising the Debt Ceiling
Would be Blessing; Debt Limit Analysis; Interactive Map, You Decide What Not
To Pay
All things considered, especially
since Boehner's credibility is gone in his latest gaseous proposal, the best
thing for Congress to do would be to NOT hike the debt ceiling and work out a
credible plan over the next month.
Is Mish a "closet Liberal-humanist?"
In response to that post I received a humorous email from "BC" who
wrote...
Mish, your choices reveal your
empathy! Are you a closet Liberal-humanist?!
Your choices favor the elder working class, the working-class and poor ill,
unemployed, poor and "food challenged", and imperial legionaries
and auxiliaries against the corporate-statists!!!
Are you one of those maladjusted working-class types who just doesn't "get it"?!
Wink ,
wink ;-) ;-).
To see my choices as to what I would cut and to make
your own choices about what to do if the debt ceiling is not raised, click on the above link for an interactive map.
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