THE RESET: One fiscal crisis gives way to another

March 1, 2013 @ 10:29 am


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(AP) - If you've missed the latest fiscal melodrama gripping our nation's capital, don't worry. Stay tuned. More nail-biting episodes are on the way.

Automatic government-wide spending cuts _ called a "sequester" in bureaucratic jargon _ of roughly $85 billion will start kicking in now that President Barack Obama and Congress have failed to meet a Friday deadline for striking a deal to avert or soften the reductions.

"The pain will be real," Obama told reporters, saying the impasse saddles Americans with "a series of dumb, arbitrary cuts."

The current budget crisis comes just two months after tense year-end negotiations yielded a New Year's Day deal keeping the government from plunging over a "fiscal cliff" of huge spending cuts and tax increases.

The next self-inflicted panic deadline is the March 27 expiration of stopgap legislation to fund the entire government.

"I'm hopeful that we won't have to deal with the threat of a government shutdown while we're dealing with the sequester at the same time," House Speaker John Boehner said Friday after a White House meeting between Obama and congressional leaders failed to produce a breakthrough.

Another deadline comes May 18, when legislation permitting the Treasury to borrow above the current $16.4 trillion debt limit runs out. Failing to raise it further threatens a first-ever default on the government's debt.

It took over 200 years for government borrowing, begun to help finance the Revolutionary War, to climb above $1 trillion, which it did in President Ronald Reagan's first term.

By Friday, the national debt stood at a whopping $16.61 trillion.

After the debt limit, another big deadline comes Oct. 1 when the government's new fiscal year begins. If new spending bills aren't passed by then for every department and agency, Congress must yet again pass emergency stopgap legislation.

It's no apocalypse, Obama said of the government sequester now taking hold. "It's just dumb."

___

Follow Tom Raum on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tomraum


(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
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Comments (21)


  • Add A Comment

  • Fuego wrote...
    I doubt
    January 4, 2013 2:06 pm
    that anything will change in regards to job growth. If anything I see more companies trying to find ways to shed employees.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • CH wrote...
    If anything I see more companies trying to find ways to shed employees . . . .
    January 4, 2013 9:23 pm
    companies are going offshore with mittens money. Poor guy his taxes went from 9% to 39%. Ann time to get a job. Molly maids are hiring.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Splinge wrote...
    It's a facade...
    January 7, 2013 4:56 pm
    I believe history will show the time we are living in now as one of the biggest scams ever, and the best example of voter fraud to date. I don't believe for an instant Barack Obama is really the people's choice for president in these United States. I believe we have been the butt of a proliferation of voter fraud like no one has ever seen. Our mainstream media will never ever follow up on it and will condemn any talk associated with the idea...
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • CH wrote...
    keep throwing up republican names . . . .
    January 8, 2013 7:08 pm
    so We Americans can watch the gop shoot them down. friendly fire.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • It's me! Ha ha! wrote...
    We have never had problems like this before
    January 15, 2013 8:35 am
    until the Dear Leader showed up!
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Saltchucker wrote...
    Just wait.
    January 16, 2013 9:24 am
    I'm thinking that in 2016 Joe Biden will have no better choice as a running than mate than......Al Franken! If CH is right the GOP will really have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to lose to a Biden/Franken ticket!
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • CldWtrSrf wrote...
    The ONLY reason that Stocks are up
    January 18, 2013 9:44 am
    Is because The Federal Reserve is printing monopoly money at a disgusting rate. All that free money flowing into the Fascist Banks and Corporations on Welfare are lapping it up like crazy. If a heroin addict was able to get all the free heroin they wanted, they would think everything was peachy. Same thing with the Stock Market. The people that pay for all this reckless spending are the middle class and poor. Printing money like that caused runaway inflation. Inflation is a "hidden" tax, transferring wealth from savers to the government. Government says that inflation is flat, that's because they don't figure energy and food costs in. Stupid. Read the book "Creature From Jekyll Island" to see how our fiat currency monetary system really works and how we have been conquered by foreign Banks and Criminals.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • It's me! Ha ha! wrote...
    Delaying?
    January 23, 2013 9:37 am
    Just like the regime presenting a budget. This is all that this regime does delays and hope that we Americans forget. Trouble for them is that we don'f forget!
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • CH wrote...
    It's me! Ha ha He he I'm nuts!
    January 23, 2013 11:36 am
    you have to pay your bills before you can set up a budget. And who is Delaying paying the bills? My O My - House republicans circus clowns! I like the girl that wants to make cuts when she has her lips on the cows udder half way down her throat!
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Rick W7PSK wrote...
    The House Republicans
    February 12, 2013 8:46 am
    have presented a budget every year for the last 4 years

    The Senate has not

    Which party leads the senate.

    Even your simple mind like yours can answer that CH.

    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • HPD 5-0 wrote...
    Hagel knows as much about defense
    January 31, 2013 11:42 am
    as Owebama and Reid do about budgets.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }