Debt ceiling, again.

I've posted recently about the debt ceiling--this week Greta Van Susteren interviewed Sarah Palin regarding the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling.  Both reacted to Timothy Geithner's request that the task of reviewing and raising the debt ceiling be given to the president.  Palin and Van Susteren agreed that that would be tantamount to giving president Obama a credit card with no limit.  Now Boehner and Fox News are showing their indignation over Giethner's suggestion.  "Congress is never going to give up this power," the House Speaker told Fox News Sunday.  Boehner doesn't understand the debt ceiling any more than Van Susteren or Palin.  First, it is not a power, it's a responsibility--the US gains nothing by raising the debt ceiling (except that we guard our credit rating); we do not get more money out of the situation.  Second, congress already shirked this responsibility (which resulted in a downgrade of the credit rating of the US).  

How do you measure a politician's intelligence?

Not, one would hope, by whether or no he or she can count.  As I've recently posted, certain politicos are arguing that Paul Ryan should replace John Boehner as Speaker of the House.  I agree with both Redstate.com and Rachel Maddow that Boehner is bad at his job.  Boehner is far too weak a leader to be effective as Speaker (say what you want about Pelosi's positions, she was certainly not weak).  However, Paul Ryan would not be a suitable Speaker in the least.  He is certainly not weak--the man simply cannot count.

(Full article)
I continue to reject the notion of a 'mandate', but it remains the case that Romney/Ryan got walloped no matter how you look at it.

(NB, Romney and Ryan lost the EC by 333-206, not 232-206).

Boehner vs. Ryan for Speaker

Both RedState.com and Twitchy.com are pushing the "replace Boehner with Ryan as Speaker of the House" narrative today.  The Red State article is absolutely brilliant.

I'm not a huge fan of Boehner, but that is beside the point.  Notice that his offenses include compromise and recognizing the Supreme Court's decision on the Affordable Care Act.  But the suggestion that Ryan would make a good replacement is laughable.  Here's a list of his qualifications:

Watch out for that CLIFF!

Tuesday night brought with it several changes--no, there was no change in the White House; the House is still Republican and the Senate still Democrat.  But the congressional elections were a huge win for women and for doctors.  So now it's time for the legislature to get to work.  First on the agenda is avoiding a natural disaster--not Sandy, not the Nor'easter, but the Fiscal Cliff.  If you're like me, you've seen this phrase in the news often lately and wondered what this proposed precipice problem is all about.  As it turns out, the phrase is only half accurate: the problem is fiscal, but it is not a cliff at all (as Matthew Yglesias explains here).  Indeed, the so-called cliff is simply the expiration of certain fiscal policies including the Bush tax cuts, and which will affect the economic recovery of and slow growth in the US.  How do we avoid such a burden at a time when the US is already suffering a slow recovery in a terrible recession?  Well, congress and the White House need to work together to replace the existing-but-getting-ready-to-expire policies with new ones--or as I like to put it: Speaker Boehner and President Obama need to do their jobs.  In other words, all this fiscal cliff talk is simply the professional politician's version of waiting to write your essay until the night before it is due when you've known about the deadline since the beginning of the semester.