Clearing the Browser Tabs – Debt Ceiling Stuff You Need to Know Sunday Edition

The debt ceiling talks will likely continue well into the evening tonight after the talks pretty much imploded late last night. Here are a couple or three points to remember.

1) Do not trust anything the MSM says about John Boehner and a deal. They’re getting their information directly from the White House and you can not expect them to be honest brokers of information here.

2) The Republicans have already made one huge compromise in these talks when they agreed to raise the debt ceiling in the first place. The administration, on the other hand, has offered nothing useful in the way of compromise that the situation itself has not demanded of them. We will have to cut spending. There is no other way to get under even an increased ceiling number. That the President has agreed to some spending cuts does not earn him a cookie, no matters how much he natters on about cynicism.

3) At this point in the negotiations, Barack Obama is well to the left of where Bill Clinton ended up at the end of the 1997 budget compromise, which actually did eventually balance the budget even though it also cut taxes and still increased spending. If balancing the budget is the goal, and it ought to be, the President must move considerably to the right.

Tomorrow should be an interesting day. It’s hard to say if we’ll have a deal by the time the sun goes down. I doubt it. The administration believes it’s playing with a far stronger hand than it has. On the other hand, we’ve seen Boehner fold with pocket Aces in the past. He shouldn’t have to back down an inch on this deal. It would be best for all of us if he didn’t. But he might. He’s a politician and I’m very sure he sees this negotiation as political and not economic. We’ll see.

And now, links!

• Ever wonder how you can buy devices that cost millions of dollars to develop so inexpensively? Thank free-market capitalism and rich people.
• Apparently, a few nutters on the left are debating amongst themselves whether Barack Obama is the worst President in history or only tied for worst. I guess it makes some sense. If you build someone up in your mind as the Second Coming and he turns out to be a garden-variety mortal, I can see how your disappointment might overflow the reason centers of your brain.
• Who better to give American mothers advice on raising a child than a supermodel like Giselle Bundshen?
• I have mixed emotions about the story of the successful implant of the first lab-grown trachea. I’m amazed that our science has reached the point where such a thing is possible and glad to see another triumph for those researching adult stem cells. I’m less glad to see that American scientists were apparently not part of the story at all. We should be at the forefront of these innovations, not lagging some distance behind.
• The latest episode of Stephen Green’s This Week in Blogs is extra-good. There is bacon involved.
• Hey, at least Dan Collins didn’t get the Champagne Room-level grope from TSA in his journey to Chicago, so that’s good, right?
• It finally happened. Energy Secretary Steven Chu crossed the totalitarianism line and caused Moe Lane to utter a few NSFW words. Every one of them was warranted, though. Note, by the way, that no reporter apparently pushed back at all on Chu’s statement.
• Well thank goodness Raul Castro reformed the Cuban government so that it’s okay for Cubans to be Communists.
• Funeral strippers, huh? Well, I guess you could have worse at your memorial service, right?
• And finally, Happy Anniversary to Stacy McCain’s lovely daughter Kennedy and her husband Martin. Stacy also has some brief thoughts on marriage and our expectations thereof that are worth a quick read. Be sure to leave him and the happy couple a nice comment.

Other Posts of Interest:

• Clearing the Browser Tabs – Democratic Debt Mutiny Wednesday Edition
• Clearing the Browser Tabs – The Playoffs are Set Sunday Edition
• Clearing the Browser Tabs – The Keithless Sunday Edition

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Category: Links