Why do news "talking heads" keep presenting the false alternative of budget legislation or default. Doesn't that insult your intelligence?

Because that is the term being thrown out by the heads of both parties in Washington right now.

Excellent question. The “debt ceiling”- which is artificial and there mostly for grand speeches when it has been raised in the past – has been further artificially tied to budget considerations.
Truly madness. And, yes, they probably do think we’re stupid.
Same folks that tell us they will strengthen Medicare by turning it into a voucher system. I mean, if you think it’s a good idea to turn Medicare into a voucher system just say so, but telling us that dismantling the system will strengthen it is just “hey, look over there!” politics as usual. And plenty of other bait-and-switch legislation that is described to us as intending to do xyz for us. While the actual effect is making the congress-critter’s cousin richer and cuts funding for some public agency so lines are longer.

The fact is that we – American voters – are pretty stupid as a group. This is why most folks – even when they don’t vote for him – generally think that “their guy” in Washington is great, or at least “pretty fair”, and the rest of Congress sucks. It’s why everyone thinks that their neighborhood schools are “pretty good”, but it’s all of the other schools everywhere else in the country that are failing to educate students. It’s why people say things with total lack of precision, using words that they don’t understand to mean something entirely different from what they actually do mean. It’s what has led people to believe that there is a “Social Security Trust Fund” just filled with cash (since “I’ve been paying into it my whole life, and I get a statement every year, so I know the money is there”). It’s what leads people to believe that Social Security is such a great program, “because you can get out of it a whole lot more than you put in, and where else can you get a deal like that?”

And so on.

We keep voting for Presidents, Senators and Representatives who promise to “create jobs”, when the best that they can hope to do – in a good year – is to fail to destroy more than the economy creates on its own. They promise to “fix” the economy, which wouldn’t have been broken in the first place without their earlier “fixes”. It’s because Republicans promise “less government” and give us more, in ways we hadn’t agreed to, and Democrats promise to “make government work for the people”, and then make it work especially well for the people who are “Civil Servants”, regulators, union leaders and lawyers. And we continue to believe them and vote for them. Some people actually believe that there is a real difference between Democratic and Republican Congressmen.

The fact is that they all play power politics, only some do it better than others. This year’s class of freshmen Republicans – as a group – is out of its depth, though a lot of them seem to have their hearts in the right place.

Since annual US debt service payments (interest) amounts to ‘only’ about $400 Billion (which sounds like a lot to you and me, but is around 3% of total budget outlays), managing our “debt service” is not a huge problem.

No, the problem is that some debt is due to mature in August, and since we don’t have the funds on hand to pay that out (which we never do in any case), the typical plan is to raise the debt ceiling (which only allows us to have more debt; it doesn’t make us more credit-worthy) and roll the outstanding debt into new bonds. Business as usual.

The people who benefit the most when we do that are… the big bankers that everyone in Fluther seems to hate so much and think that the Republicans work for. Arrrgh. Yes, we’re stupid.

So what will happen, barring a last-minute deal (and I can’t wait to see what an abortion that might look like!) is that “discretionary spending” after August 2 will have to be curtailed so that debt can be paid and the US won’t default. Or it may actually go into a temporary default condition – which wouldn’t be the first time, either – until the stupid voters realize that the sky has not fallen, the world has not ended, the sun still comes up in the East every morning. Life will go on.

Or maybe Obama, knowing how stupid the voters really are really will temporarily delay or suspend Social Security payments with a shrug and a, “See what they’ve made me do?”

Oh, hell yes, we’re stupid.

I suspect, you don’t want to know the answer. Since they’ve called the American public stupid more times than I can count, I suspect that’s the answer.

@CWOTUS

Good answer but I think you neglected one thing. Nancy Pelosi has told us, in regards to the debt ceiling, that ‘she’s trying to save all life on this planet as we know it’. I’m sure she wouldn’t be exaggerating.

@josie Why do you think we have enough money to pay our current bills? As of today, apple Computer has more cash on hand than the US Treasury.

There are treasury sales scheduled for the month of August of $500 Billion. A lot of that is rollover of expiring bonds and T bills, but some of it is to raise more cash. Without that we have to figure out how to pay some bills and defer the rest. Failure to pay bondholders is a default. Pay bondholders and you don’t have cash for Social Security and other programs.

If you default on the bonds to keep seniors okay, what do you do when the financial system starts to collapse?

If the ceiling isn’t raised by Tuesday, the stock market will drop about 30% on Wednesday.

I said that the government’s creditors would get paid. The government will not default on debt.

@zenvelo the “Public Debt” can be divided into two parts: Debt Held by the Public, representing all federal securities held by institutions or individuals outside the federal government, including that held by the Federal Reserve System and state and local governments; and Intragovernmental Holdings, representing U.S. Treasury securities held in accounts which are administered by the federal government, such as the Social Security trust fund.

The budget deficit or surplus is the difference between what the government takes in (in the budget) and what it pays out.

This large deficit, increased in recent years by putting the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq into the budget, is in my humble opinion, much more dangerous than raising the debt ceilin,g which would allow the government to sell more bonds.

The spending/revenue issues are brought to an artificial deadline by tying them to the raising of the debt ceiling.

A good resource on the history of the raising of the debt ceiling is The Debt Limit: History and Recent Increases, a report by the Congressional Research Service from 2008.

@Yetanotheruser I am aware of that, and I agree that a long term restructuring to get back to the Clinton Surplus years is necessary. The best way to balance the budget is to get back to near full employment so revenue is raised.

@josie I agree there is a false connection in tying the budget to the debt ceiling. But the debt ceiling does need to be raised or the US will begin to default on its debts.

They have chosen all these fancy words and terms only to confuse the masses and create a situation that nobody can actually figure out, It makes it difficult for the smartest people to figure it out. We are not all stupid. In fact i read more blogs from normal people with normal concerns or questions and learn alot more from them. So many people have great ideas and words.

In my mind there is many many smart people, average citizens who cannot voice there opinions. It is all beyond our control and has been for a long time. They think they are fooling us and will continue regardless. They have an agenda. All the experts are the stupid ones, deceiving and telling theirselves we are stupid and actually think we believe them.

Humanity, reality and moral is not something considered in politics and spreading across the globe. Its all a huge deception.

All we can do is be aware, act in the best interest of humanity, be strong, pray to GOD and live every day doing what is required of us individually as humans. I know all of us GOOD, STUPID people will have our glory one day. Thats something all the true idiots will never take from us or see.

So, when you ask the question, they think we are stupid? The answer is YES, thats because they are so stupid they dont realize how wise we really are. They like to hear themselves speak and they are all heros in their own minds.

All of the Politicians, Political Parties, Presidents and personnel, oh, and MEDIA are all a joke, puppets on a string, like a bunch of hollywood freaks acting out a fictional movie. The real game players pulling the strings look down on our governments like they look down on us, like they are a bunch of stupid idiots doing what they are told and believeing everything they say.

None of it matters and is way, way beyond the control of good citizens who believe in happiness and humanity and a nice world. They created the hate in this world. GREED!!

We will have our day. I will, I know that. I believe in God and Good. So I dont even have to worry about all the garbage they feed us because it all will not matter anyway. Be happy and a good person to others and live each day not trying to figure out lies and deciet presented daily. See the good not the bad and the ugly.

Why ruin your days when we cant do anything to stop it all now and we are too stupid to figure it all out, haha?