Republican, Federal Debt | featured news

Here is what Romney, so far in this campaign, has said. No changes to any entitlement programs for any seniors for the next 10 years. No specifics on how quickly his Medicare vouchers will grow for future seniors. No specifics on which tax breaks he’ll eliminate in order to offset the multi-trillion dollar cost of his tax cuts. No specific plan naming the cuts he’ll make to reach his $7 trillion target. No specifics on how he’ll equalize tax treatment of employer and individual health care. It is a campaign based on the principle of “not us, not now.”

According to Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi, Mitt Romney made his fortune exploiting two strategies that the Republican presidential candidate now decries: creating massive amounts of debt and milking federal government handouts... "The entire purpose of the business model that Romney helped pioneer is to move money into the archipelago from the places outside it, using massive amounts of taxpayer-subsidized debt to enrich a handful of billionaires. It's a vision of society that's crazy, vicious and almost unbelievably selfish, yet it's running for president, and it has a chance of winning."

Tapping a popular idea to restore confidence in the dollar, the Republican Party is expected to call for a commission to look at the idea of returning the U.S. to the gold standard. To make that happen, they're going to have to find a lot more gold.

The Tampa Bay Times Forum has a new kind of scoreboard -- a "national debt clock" that is ticking up to $16 trillion. The ever-ticking clock, hanging above the delegates to the Republican convention, is designed to be "a compelling visual reinforcing the desperate need for new fiscal leadership in the White House," says the Republican National Committee.

Before the presidential campaign hurtles off to the next skirmish, take a moment to notice what happened this week: Mitt Romney vowed to increase the national debt by $716 billion, and no one so much as blinked.

The Republican Party has a Web ad spotlighting the fact that the debt has grown more under President Obama in less than one term than it did under President George W. Bush in two terms. Since taking office on Jan. 20, 2009, the debt under Obama has increased by $4.93 trillion, according to Treasury Department figures.

A key Republican leader assured Sunday that a congressional supercommittee will reach agreement on $1.5 trillion in cuts in government spending by next month's deadline and avert deep automatic measures.

Republican lawmakers are stepping up pressure on the Obama administration to craft a Plan B just in case budget talks fall through and the debt ceiling remains frozen past the Aug. 2 deadline Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has set.

Top congressional Republicans on Sunday suggested they could compromise on the two biggest issues -- healthcare and taxes -- that stand in the way of a deal to get the United States' debt under control.

Well, no one can doubt anymore that Republicans are petrified that the Medicare cuts in Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget might cost them the 26th congressional district in New York, long a safe Republican seat, in the May 24 special election. It’s a classic technique in politics that if your opponent has found an issue that’s working against you, you turn the tables and declare your opponent’s position to be as bad as yours, or worse.