From Bloomie:
The U.S. House voted to temporarily suspend the nation’s borrowing limit, removing the debt ceiling for now as a tool for seeking deeper spending cuts.
The measure, passed 285-144, lifts the government’s $16.4 trillion borrowing limit until May 19. It goes to the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid said lawmakers will pass the measure unchanged and send it to President Barack Obama.
…Republicans plan to use two other approaching deadlines — the March 1 start of automatic spending cuts and the need to pass a bill by the end of March to fund the government — to extract spending reductions from Obama and congressional Democrats.
The measure passed today, H.R. 325, would allow the nation’s borrowing authority to automatically rise May 19 to accommodate the amount the U.S. Treasury borrowed during the three months that the limit is suspended.
Did Congress ever NOT raise the debt ceiling ?
Yes, I did always find the fiscal cliff etc and overblown risk. Post-election, Obama had the whip hand for heaven’s sake.
Maybe Obama should borrow enough treasuries between now and May to fund the deficit until the end of his 2nd term
Bullion this has been my thought since this response was first leaked a few days ago.
I could not believe they were going to do this – Obama should immediately announce a full tranche of green economic infrastructure policies, infrastructure rebuilding policies and fund the entire thing immediately via executive order and completely ram the Neo-cons.
lol, think you may have missed the sarcasm in my post here (or I am missing the sarcasm in yours
).
You couldn’t make this stuff up!
Can I also conterfeit cash and spend without restraint. This is going to end badly.
The US will go bankrupt or they are going to have to go into a major war (to steal more of the worlds resources) to get out of this – thanks to bankers of course.
I also fear for Australia – we are a resource rich defenseless country, without the protection of our bankrupt big brother. A nice target for our resource hungry China. You don’t get called a Lamb out of respect.
The sequestration deal and its timing are what matters now. Opposing the debt ceiling was much agreed not to be a winner for the Republicans. The tax outcome was only half of the fiscal cliff, the other half is the spending cuts and that is due by end March from memory.