from Judy Miriga

Folks,

When faced with Nationational Debt deficit crisis, urgency to fix the problem to safeguard Public Option Interests, would be an immediate think one would do. Any good leader has a responsibility to show stewardship to overcome the crisis urgently and by all means, will avoid political side-shows. It is such a time fate would take supreme conditionality effort to join forces in a shared sacrifice for common good of all to avoid a disaster or unite against a common enemy or destruction.

It is absolutely ridiculous to note that some would instead take such opportunities to engage in blackmailing stints those of self interest in defeating unity of purpose, for which is the backbone of America’s power and stability…………….Wisdom is calling people………..! It is in such engagement that maturity in Responsibility and Integrity is demonstrated by those put in position of Responsibility, elected to serve Public Interests. It is also in such maneuvres that the world, as well as the enemies position themselves to take advantage in competition and challenges to out-do each other………..and it is here, we are able to sieve and separate “The Wheat from the Chaff” for the security and good of this owesome Great Nation…….!

Love is the greatest and perfect commandment for survival in unity of purpose, and without LOVE, it is hard to please God and achieve Blessings for sustainability………for it is, in Giving that we Receive ………. People……! …and, It is in sharing that we are able to grow in strength.

Americans, friends and sympathizers will not let America to fail because of vested special Interests……..United we are strong, divided we fall……….An Intelligent wise man or woman will know when to end politiking and begin serious deliberations to avoid looming danger…….

Cheers !

Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com

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From: The White House
Subject: BREAKING: President Obama’s Statement on Debt Negotiations
Date: Friday, July 29, 2011, 2:41 PM

Friday, July 29, 2011

This morning President Obama delivered a statement once again calling on Congress to compromise to avoid defaulting on the Nation’s debt and calling on the American people to make their voices heard in this debate.

Read the President’s statement:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/07/29/president-obama-calls-american-people-make-their-voices-heard?utm_source=email124&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=deficit

Good morning, everybody. I want to speak about the ongoing and increasingly urgent efforts to avoid default and reduce our deficit.
Right now, the House of Representatives is still trying to pass a bill that a majority of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have already said they won’t vote for. It’s a plan that would force us to re-live this crisis in just a few short months, holding our economy captive to Washington politics once again. In other words, it does not solve the problem, and it has no chance of becoming law.

What’s clear now is that any solution to avoid default must be bipartisan. It must have the support of both parties that were sent here to represent the American people -– not just one faction. It will have to have the support of both the House and the Senate. And there are multiple ways to resolve this problem. Senator Reid, a Democrat, has introduced a plan in the Senate that contains cuts agreed upon by both parties. Senator McConnell, a Republican, offered a solution that could get us through this. There are plenty of modifications we can make to either of these plans in order to get them passed through both the House and the Senate and would allow me to sign them into law. And today I urge Democrats and Republicans in the Senate to find common ground on a plan that can get support — that can get support from both parties in the House –- a plan that I can sign by Tuesday.

Now, keep in mind, this is not a situation where the two parties are miles apart. We’re in rough agreement about how much spending can be cut responsibly as a first step toward reducing our deficit. We agree on a process where the next step is a debate in the coming months on tax reform and entitlement reform –- and I’m ready and willing to have that debate. And if we need to put in place some kind of enforcement mechanism to hold us all accountable for making these reforms, I’ll support that too if it’s done in a smart and balanced way.
So there are plenty of ways out of this mess. But we are almost out of time. We need to reach a compromise by Tuesday so that our country will have the ability to pay its bills on time, as we always have — bills that include monthly Social Security checks, veterans’ benefits and the government contracts we’ve signed with thousands of businesses. Keep in mind, if we don’t do that, if we don’t come to an agreement, we could lose our country’s AAA credit rating, not because we didn’t have the capacity to pay our bills — we do — but because we didn’t have a AAA political system to match our AAA credit rating.

And make no mistake -– for those who say they oppose tax increases on anyone, a lower credit rating would result potentially in a tax increase on everyone in the form of higher interest rates on their mortgages, their car loans, their credit cards. And that’s inexcusable.

There are a lot of crises in the world that we can’t always predict or avoid -– hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist attacks. This isn’t one of those crises. The power to solve this is in our hands. And on a day when we’ve been reminded how fragile the economy already is, this is one burden we can lift ourselves. We can end it with a simple vote –- a vote that Democrats and Republicans have been taking for decades, a vote that the leaders in Congress have taken for decades.

It’s not a vote that allows Congress to spend more money. Raising the debt ceiling simply gives our country the ability to pay the bills that Congress has already racked up. I want to emphasize that. The debt ceiling does not determine how much more money we can spend, it simply authorizes us to pay the bills we already have racked up. It gives the United States of America the ability to keep its word.

Now, on Monday night, I asked the American people to make their voice heard in this debate, and the response was overwhelming. So please, to all the American people, keep it up. If you want to see a bipartisan compromise -– a bill that can pass both houses of Congress and that I can sign — let your members of Congress know. Make a phone call. Send an email. Tweet. Keep the pressure on Washington, and we can get past this.

And for my part, our administration will be continuing to work with Democrats and Republicans all weekend long until we find a solution. The time for putting party first is over. The time for compromise on behalf of the American people is now. And I am confident that we can solve this problem. I’m confident that we will solve this problem. For all the intrigue and all the drama that’s taking place on Capitol Hill right now, I’m confident that common sense and cooler heads will prevail.

But as I said earlier, we are now running out of time. It’s important for everybody to step up and show the leadership that the American people expect.
Thank you.

disarmed the nation’s top Republican
By JAY NEWTON-SMALL | Time.com –

House Speaker John Boehner failed to muster enough GOP votes to pass his plan to raise the debt limit on Thursday night, throwing into question the fate of Boehner’s proposal as well as that of his speakership. Republican leaders must now rewrite the legislation in order to attract more conservatives as they try to pass a revised version on Friday. But considerable damage has been done. Boehner’s negotiating stance in the ongoing effort to trim deficits and raise the debt ceiling by next Tuesday’s deadline is hobbled; any credibility he had in claiming that his restive members could get behind a consensus debt deal has vanished. The Speaker has gone lame.

The House was expected to vote Thursday evening on Boehner’s legislation, which would raise the debt ceiling through the end of 2011 in exchange for $917 billion in spending cuts and the creation of a special committee to find more savings that would accompany a second debt-ceiling vote in January. It looked as if Boehner would have the votes early Thursday, but by 5 p.m., Republican leaders announced that the vote would be postponed. As hours slipped by, dozens of reporters congregated outside the Speaker’s offices on the second floor of the Capitol. The sun set. Pizzas and sodas were brought in. (See “Unable to Rally Support, House GOP Postpones Key Debt Vote.”)
House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy met with Republicans who were leaning against voting for the legislation. Freshmen Reps. Mick Mulvaney, Tim Scott, Jeff Duncan and Trey Gowdy were among those pressured to change their votes. “I’m going to go pray for the leadership because I’m still a no,” Mulvaney said, emerging from McCarthy’s office. Rumors swirled: They were down two votes, then four, then 10. At 10:20 p.m., McCarthy left the Speaker’s office and tersely informed reporters that there would be “no vote tonight.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had already declared the House Republican plan dead on arrival in the Senate. But House leaders worked to push the measure through because, as they told their members, it would give them greater leverage in negotiations with the Senate and, perhaps more importantly, their own credibility as dealmakers was on the line. Boehner hoped to force the Senate – and President Obama – to take his version of the debt bill. The Speaker was crafting legislation with Reid until last weekend, but the two split over whether to raise the debt ceiling through 2012 in one vote, as Democrats wanted, or to try for a second debt limit hike in six months. Reid and Obama argued that holding another tortured debt ceiling debate in January, on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, would be politically unwise and economically dangerous.

But after he split with Reid, Boehner was left with a bill that was too far to the left for the ideological purists in his conference. Conservatives balked at $18 billion in Pell Grants for low-income students that Boehner had included to lure Democratic votes. They were also disappointed that the bill only called for $917 billion in cuts. Their preferred legislation – a conservative dream bill known as Cut, Cap and Balance that passed the House earlier in July on a near party-line vote – would’ve halved the projected $7.1 trillion federal 10-year deficit by next year. That bill died in the Senate.

In a highly embarrassing development, Boehner must now move his bill to the right in order to secure enough votes from his own party. The Speaker’s failure exposes an uncomfortable reality for the GOP: A final debt ceiling compromise will likely require a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans to pass the House, and the outspoken conservative wing of the party will not be on board. That could embolden Democrats to seek a more favorable deal, and it leaves Senate Republicans like Minority Leader Mitch McConnell with a weaker hand to negotiate. (See the top 10 government showdowns.)

Boehner won the speakership last November when Republicans swept into power on a Tea Party tide of discontent. From the outset, it was unclear whether Boehner would be able to keep his unruly freshmen class in line. He surprised the skeptics when he managed to unite most of them behind a 2011 budget deal, which achieved $38.5 billion in cuts – far less than the $100 billion the newcomers had demanded. But many freshmen felt betrayed when a Congressional Budget Office score later found that many of those cuts were gimmicks that amounted to less than $400 million in net savings.

In the months since, Boehner has wrestled with his freshmen. He tried twice to pass legislation in limited support of President Obama’s action with NATO in Libya. Both bills failed. He was forced to yank a bipartisan patent bill – a version of which passed the Senate 95-5 – before it was voted down in the House. It took a month of heavy whipping to convince enough of his herd to pass the bill.

Thursday’s failure was partly a tactical error on Boehner’s part. When he took office, he said he would be unlike other modern Speakers. He wanted to give the power back to the rank-and-file. Instead of twisting arms, Boehner believed in education. He prided himself on the being the opposite of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican called “the Hammer” for his heavy handed – and at times ethically questionable – whipping tactics. Boehner tried to open the process up, allowing the minority to put forward amendments and re-empowering committees. “When we took the majority we promised to end the practice of forcing substantial bills through the House in the dark of night,” a GOP leadership aide said late Thursday, “and we take that pledge seriously.”
It was Newt Gingrich in the 1990s who began to consolidate power in the Speaker’s office. That trend peaked with Nancy Pelosi, who was one of the most powerful Speakers in a generation. Members could hardly hold a press conference without her blessing, let alone win plum committee assignments or pass legislation. Boehner often mocked Pelosi for not allowing amendments, and for her use of frivolous post office naming votes to lure members to the floor where she could whip them. (See “Does the Debt Ceiling Make Deficits Worse?”)
Though heavy handed, Pelosi’s tactics worked. She pushed through health care reform in the House after Reid lost his 60-vote super majority in the Senate. More than a few reporters who covered health care remarked how similar Thursday night’s drama was to the final health care reform vote, albeit with vastly different outcomes. Both votes could have cost the Speakers their jobs; in Pelosi’s case, for overreach, and in Boehner’s, for failing to grasp far enough. During the final push on Boehner’s debt bill this week, the Speaker did finally crack the whip, telling his conference on Wednesday to “Get your ass in line.” But it was too little too late. Boehner’s “leadership is clearly at stake,” Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican and the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, said on Thursday night.

Boehner may have made strategic miscalculations as well. Democrats pushed hard to include a debt ceiling increase in the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts last December. Republicans resisted, sensing that debt and deficits would be winning issues for them in the Tea Party-infused 112th Congress. But every attempt by Boehner, who has a legacy of reaching across the aisle to produce No Child Left Behind and sweeping pension reform legislation with the late Senator Teddy Kennedy, to craft a grand bargain of more than $4 trillion in deficit reduction with President Obama has been stymied by protests from his own flock.

So, what comes next? “We have faith that the Senate will reach a compromise that a majority of the folks in the House and a majority of folks in the Senate can support,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said on MSNBC late Thursday night. “And that is what the American people want.” Reid has been waiting in the wings to either craft a compromise with Boehner and McConnell, or pass his own version of deficit reduction legislation. But it’s clear now that Speaker Boehner will need Democratic votes to get any compromise through the House. And that leaves the Republican leader with two options: abandon Tea Party freshmen and form a coalition between his most moderate members and 150+ Dems, or potentially allow the last best hope for a debt ceiling deal to fail in his chamber, with nothing but market panic left to make his members reconsider. Either would be a bruising choice for the embattled Speaker