President Obama reiterated that there would be no negotiations with Republicans on an extension of the debt ceiling. Zero, none, nada. Villager George Stephanopoulos three times asked the question, implying that the President was being obstinate in refusing to negotiate. George has come a long way from the Clinton WH to become a syncophant for the give-into-the-Rupublicans-always caucus.
"That's never happened before. And when it comes to budgets, we've never had the situation in which a party said that-- you know, 'Unless we get our way 100%, then we're gonna let the United States default.' That's never happened, George. That didn't happen when you were workin' here in the White House. [...]
"George, I think it's fair to say that never in history have we used just making sure that the U.S. government is paying its bills as a lever to radically cut government at the kind of scale that they're talking about. It's never happened before. There've been negotiations around the corners, because nobody had ever presumed that you'd actually threaten the United States to default. [...]
"George, here's the problem. If we continue to set a precedent in which a president, any president, a Republican president, a Democratic president, where the opposing party controls the House of Representatives, if that president is in a situation in which each time the United States is called upon to pay its bills, the other party can simply sit there and say, 'Well, we're not gonna pay the bills unless you give us what we want,' that changes the constitutional structure of this government entirely."
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Interview of the President by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, quoted by Maddow Blog
The important point to me is the constitutional point. We cannot cede government control to one house of one branch. The President properly recognizes that the global depression caused by a default is not worse than undermining our form of government. If we default, it will be hard on many, but it will be worse if we institutionalize Republican extortion.
Boehner and Cantor can crash the world's economy, and the Republicans will pay the price for generations.
Please proceed.
Update I: From the President's speech today:
Having said that, I cannot remember a time when one faction of one party promises economic chaos if it can’t get 100 percent of what it wants. That’s never happened before. But that’s what’s happening right now.
You have some Republicans in the House of Representatives who are promising to shut down the government at the end of this month if they can’t shut down the Affordable Care Act. And if that scheme doesn’t work, some have suggested they won’t pay the very bills that Congress has already run up, which would cause America to default on its debt for the first time in our history and would create massive economic turmoil. Interest rates on ordinary people would shoot up. Those kinds of actions are the kinds of actions that we don’t need.
snip
But the larger point is, after all that we've been through these past five years, after all the work Americans like those standing behind me have done to come back from the depths of a crisis, are some of these folks really so beholden to one extreme wing of their party that they're willing to tank the entire economy just because they can't get their way on this issue? Are they really willing to hurt people just to score political points? I hope not.
But in case there's any confusion, I will not negotiate over whether or not America keeps its word and meets its obligations. I will not negotiate over the full faith and credit of the United States. This country has worked too hard for too long to dig out of a crisis just to see their elected representatives here in Washington purposely cause another crisis.
President Obama's remarks on five-year anniversary of the financial crisis