Congress authorized the 2.4 trillion dollar increase. But Obama gets to use it as a slush fund.
It’s an interesting dynamic. Leftists are disappointed in Obama but they’re always willing to accept bribes. So can 2008 Obamania be replicated with 2012 CHC*?
My Magic 8 Ball currently says “no”.
(*Cold Hard Cash)
World's Only Rational Man 
I think it’s time to start talking about “when” we default rather than “if” we default…I’m not sure a full 2012 electoral sweep with 60 (R) Senators would stop it. It seems like the only thing capable of stopping this train is the bottom of the cliff.
I fear you’re right It’s possible rising interest rates will force the issue without a default. But that would mean Greek-style unrest among the government-dependent.
I figure the game is over when the rate hikes come. I don’t think a promise to cut future spending in 10 years will reassure bond markets and I don’t think our politics will allow for anything significantly more than that. Leaving us with debt service spiraling out of control as both debt and the interest rates rise.
I see it happening quickly because default is unthinkable to pretty much everyone. When people start to realize that we aren’t immune to economics it’ll snowball with the debt service. Whatever we think of Wall Street, they aren’t stupid, when their firmly held (and wrong) beliefs start shifting it’ll happen in what seems like the blink of an eye. Much like how the big investment firms when from invincible to insolvent.
And we will all go down together!
WE might…I think the leftists will be cannibalizing us long before then…
Big government will continue to take more and more, sending their goons out to collect.
These goons run agencies that can print money, raise taxes, and avoid congress (if congress were to act on our behalf occasionally). Goldman Sachs/Morgan Stanley types got their way, and Lehman was thrown under the bus, it would seem. These are gangsters (banksters) and our government lies to us while underwriting them for trillions, and helping to crush their competition.
They can even take the money under your mattress by devaluing it by half. The only way to get ahead is to buy performing assets, but performing gets taxed, and regulations and hiring quotas eat at you every step of the way. Obama appears to be working hard to wipe out private enterprise. Move a business to a non-union state and you get sued.
So we get bills written by the scam artists, passed at the last minute, with no one understanding them. Create a crisis, run out the clock with hyperbole about terrorist Tea partiers, then jam through a bill in the final minutes … and go on vacation. And the media plays along with the charade of chastising anyone that wants limited government. Obama grins.
Liberal media is a version of Orwell’s “Hate Week”, where images of Tea partiers are put up and (I assume) liberals scream in rage at Palin or Bachmann, or Rush or Beck. Personalize your “enemy” …straight from the Alinsky playbook, though maybe he got it from Orwell’s expose.
But indeed they are now throwing trillions around. Beck may have been right … that some sort of collapse or big change is coming … but how will we emerge after that? We have 18 months of Obama using government to spread the wealth around to his friends, and to batter his enemies. They will have power, but even with QE3, how can things get better with this wannabe tyrant in charge? I’m putting some hope in another 2010 style Tea Party revolt in 2012, with TP Republicans taking the senate and Executive office. They MIGHT be able to restore order, remove obstructions, and put America back to work.
But Obama and big media seem to feel America and free enterprise represent the “Great Satan”. They work to slay us with a thousand budgetary/regulatory paper cuts, along with taxes, fees and an army of lawyers taking cuts. The big lie may be that “they mean well”. It seems more likely they are the (grinning) face of evil.
C.S. Lewis had the explanation that resonates best with me. They truly believe they should control our lives and that everything would be better if we weren’t too stupid to submit. For that reason, unlike the merely greedy, they won’t rest from their efforts unless vanquished.