Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgaryborn
The Reid plan is just a blank check for Obama through the next election. It doesn't do anything productive.
The Boehner plan of course creates a huge problem for Obama by forcing a look at the books around Christmas which would play against his election bid. It also forces the Senate to vote on a balanced budget amendment before Christmas. If the Senate votes down the amendment it might hurt some of their election bids. That's why they have avoided voting on the measure.
On the productive side it does provide some time for the government to look into the tax code and also make some decisions regarding entitlements. Even if there was a will to address those things now there is no time left.
The Tea party believes they were elected to balance the budget and they aren't too interested in even Boehner's plan of delaying the hard decisions by allowing the Government to borrow a little until Christmas. I suppose if Aug 2 comes and Obama has to shut down most government operations it will be a powerful incentive to get something done. Also, even if the government's rating is downgraded on the second it isn't unreasonable to think that rating might be restored whenever a plan is finally adopted. Surely whatever they came up with under that pressure would be deeper and more meaningful then anyone has come up with so far.
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There is no particular reason to think the US will get its triple A rating back anytime soon once it has been downgraded, it is much like a personal bankruptcy, it will concievably take years of deficit reduction before the markets will trust them, in fact it is highly likely the downgrade will happen no matter what, as the genie is now out of the bottle, so to speak and it is obvious that the US is no longer as credit worthy.