By now, unless you're smarter than me and you've given up following politics, you've heard about Congress' latest dismal failure. The fabled "Supercommittee," which was supposed to figure out a way to deal with the nation's budget mess, finished work without getting anything done.
Ohio's Republican U.S. senator, Rob Portman, was part of the Gang of 12 that didn't do anything. But not to worry! Portman has issued yet another press release on the debacle, which says, "Portman continues to work with his colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get Washington’s fiscal house back in order and get our economy moving again."
Thanks to our junior senator, we now know what to say when we face awkward conversations at work:
EDITOR: You haven't written anything in the last two days? Not even a posting for your stupid blog?
TOM: I'm continuing to work with my sources to get the newsroom moving again by writing an a newspaper story.
By the way, the senator and his Republican colleagues have written an op-ed for the Washington Post on what went wrong. Surprise! It's the Democrats' fault!
In fairness, the GOP account makes it sound like Democrats did not want to make a deal. It's not clear from the GOP piece whether Republicans made equally unreasonable demands.
Comments
@ Bess:
All that has essentially been accomplished is that "Too big to fail" has been transformed into "Too bigger to fail."
The can was merely kicked down the road and we are increasingly running out of road.
Here's a new one for you this morning:
"The world's major central banks made it easier Wednesday for banks to get dollars if they need them, a coordinated move to ease the strains on the global financial system. Stock markets rose sharply on the move."
http://www.cnbc.com/id/45490416
Ya gotta stay up on this stuff. Stay away from that MSNBC nonsense and read more biz sites.
MSNBC is gonna go the way of that humorless defunct Air America.
It's funny winnie you diss MSNBC but love CNBC. Such a joke.
@ mikel:
My other favorite liberal was former senator Carol Moseley Braun (IL-D) who forgot $30K that she received from her mother's estate in order to make her mother eligible for Medicaid.
Hey! As soon as I found out about it, I paid the taxes and interest!!!
http://www.realchange.org/moseley.htm
or charlie rangel, d-ny, who didn't "know" that he had to report hundreds of thousands of $dollars$ as income from his rental properties!
seriously though the banks don't want to loan money to people here in the us that might be a credit risk but they are willing to loan $billions$ to other countries which are BIGGER credit risks!! obumbles supports this decision by the way.
To many Repubs to list, so here is a sight:
http://www.republicanoffenders.com/
@ mikel:
Probably more like $1T or more.
"That doesn’t mean that US taxpayers are not risk here, of course. The new dollars have the potential to spark inflation—which could result in higher interest rates and higher taxes as the government combats inflation. But in the current economic environment, the risk of inflation is very slight."
I like his use of the word "current." (Hey! The sun is shining so why bother to fix the hole in the roof?)
http://www.cnbc.com/id/45492184
As Rick Santelli recently said on CNBC: About the only thing that Mr. Bernanke may be worried about is running out of trees in order to print the money.
My stocks are do'n real well today - Thanks Uncle Ben!
------------------------------
@Dog:
Keep lappin' the toilet water.
Seven of the ten richest members of Congress are Dems:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/44501966/The_Richest_Members_of_the_US_Congress_2011
Et Tu Brutus, stay on the porch puppy!!
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f4c_1254342072
You like that never ending list eh goof?
@ Dog:
Did you eat the "large mint" in the toilet tank again?
The Repubs are saying: No more @#$% bailouts!
"Conservatives say they will try to block the International Monetary Fund from bailing out Italy and Spain, which they say could leave U.S. taxpayers with a huge bill."
"Even if it passes Congress, Coburn says President Obama would likely veto the legislation."
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/196779-conservatives-craft-bill-to-prevent-imf-bailout-of-crumbling-eurozone
Pages