April 1, 2007 - "If you have ever wondered why the cost of prescription drugs in the United States are the highest in the world or why it's illegal to import cheaper drugs from Canada or Mexico, you need look no further than the pharmaceutical lobby and its influence in Washington, D.C.
According to a report by the Center for Public Integrity, congressmen are outnumbered two to one by lobbyists for an industry that spends roughly $100 million a year in campaign contributions and lobbying expenses to protect its profits.
One reason those profits have exceeded Wall Street expectations is the Medicare prescription drug bill. It was passed more than three-and-a-half years ago, but as 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft reports, its effects are still reverberating through the halls of Congress, providing a window into how the lobby works."
November 18, 2004 - "Faced with the prospect of a government unable to pay its bills, the Senate voted on Wednesday to raise the federal debt limit by $800 billion.
Though an increase in the debt ceiling was never in doubt, Republican leaders in both houses of Congress postponed action on it last month, until after the elections, to deprive Democrats of a chance to accuse them of fiscal irresponsibility.
The bill, if approved by the House in a vote expected on Thursday, would authorize the third big increase in the federal borrowing since President Bush took office in 2001. Federal debt has ballooned by $1.4 trillion over the past four years, to $7.4 trillion, and the new ceiling would allow borrowing to reach $8.2 trillion.
Administration officials contend that the annual deficits are undesirable but necessary to help stimulate an economic recovery and fight a global war on terrorism.
Mr. Bush has promised to reduce the deficit by half over five years, though the administration is fighting to make its tax cuts permanent and may need more than $70 billion in extra money next year to support military operations in Iraq."
September 11, 2013 - "With the federal government set to hit the limit of its borrowing authority as early as mid-October, Republicans are once again threatening to hold the debt ceiling hostage. As the National Review described the latest ransom demand from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, "To increase the debt ceiling, Cantor said, Republicans will demand a one-year delay to Obamacare."
Sadly for the GOP obstructionists promising to trigger a U.S. default and a global economic catastrophe, the Republicans' debt limit blackmail is more than a little ironic. After all, with $2.5 trillion in reductions already in place for the next decade, the U.S national debt has stabilized, with the CBO lowering its 2013 deficit forecast to half the level Barack Obama faced when he first took the oath of office in 2009. And as the nonpartisan agency has repeatedly concluded, the Affordable Care Act will reduce the U.S. national debt by $24 billion next year and $109 billion over the next decade. More hypocritical still, in the fall of 2004 the current GOP leadership team of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and Eric Cantor all voted to give President Bush a "clean" debt ceiling increase of $800 billion to cover the initial costs of the unfunded Medicare prescription drug program.
As you may recall, Republican Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt during his eight years in office, with George W. Bush nearly doubling it again during his tenure. That hemorrhaging of red ink from the U.S. Treasury was due not just to the costs of the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but to the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 that continue to drain Uncle Sam's coffers. McConnell, Boehner and Cantor voted for all of it. But in December 2003, they added another budget-buster to the ledger, the Medicare prescription drug benefit."
Bookmarks