The Debt Ceiling Emergency approaching this June/July is entirely unnecessary, but nevertheless likely to be unresolved through at least mid-May. It is a game of “Chicken”, and mostly, you as a citizen just lose. The video has been shot; the audio has been processed through noise reduction, the music has been selected, and the dual blue-green spectrographs have been added, the final product has been posted to YouTube. I will probably never think any video is really “ready” to be posted – just like CGP Grey warned people in some of his podcasts.
Below, we will repeat all of the links from the YouTube video, plus we will host additional commentary, and add downloadable files that support our search for truth. Contradictory information is welcome. Critique that is aimed at improving the quality that gets served to the public is always welcome. This is about serving the public with honest truth. We will always post corrections when or where we are proven wrong. That’s what people who are concerned with truth do.
I found a useful article about the history of the Debt & Budget crises that periodically inflict Washington. They all feel similar, but when I read the article, I had to admit I did not remember the one where Trump demanded money for a wall (or something like that…read the article) and the Dems somehow shut that down, but were effectively on the “shutdown” side. I’ll have to go read closer – but as I was moving on, I recall thinking that the singular event was different enough that it didn’t change the overall truth (or ala Colbert, “Truthiness”) of the video.
Something I’m working on is looking at each “Congress” (officially, there is one every two years, starting in the early months of 1789, the first year after the first Constitutional elections, currently the 118th) and reading the major bills listed in Wikipedia. In there one can find the major bills that spent money – but I’m observing that I have to apply historical memory to know what to look for. TARP was not easy to pick out of the list; neither was the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”, which almost no one knows, but is commonly known as Obamacare. But just noting who controlled which branch of Congress & the Presidency – and then looking at the bills that were passed and how those bills contributed to the debt – was in itself both laborious and worthy. I’m not done, but it didn’t change my claim that the spending from 1999 to 2022 was at best, a jump ball between Dems and Republicans.
Which again, leaves the #AngryCaucus playing a bad hand in a scenario that often goes poorly for the people obstructing or shutting down the function of the government.
Links:
•Link to article summarizing past shutdowns & debt ceiling crises – saying the public largely blames Republicans, and usually, they cave without gaining much, and often pay a price – Washington Post Gift Article. Plus that one links to another such article.
•CNN interview with Wall Street CEO Jamie Dimon, hoping crisis doesn’t even come close to happening
•Debt Ceiling Explainer from 2021 – WH
•Financial markets use US Treasury securities as a “Benchmark”
•Timeline of political theatrics from 2011’s debt crisis
•Kevin McCarthy elected Speaker after 15 votes
•April 11 Freedom Caucus offer on debt ceiling hostage
•Jan 19th – Extraordinary Measures by Treasury
•Federal Revenue Data – Info on how much money Uncle Sam takes in, and from where
•Federal Borrowing Data – the data on how much money Uncle Sam has borrowed, & when. Both .gov sources.
•Estimated Costs of the Iraq War. Just one estimate, which speaks to both the expense, and the computational difficulty in a number that is 1.9Trillion large.
•Who are your representatives in government? <- this so that you can call them.
-Jose