I hope my cousin's grandson gets his pay in all this....

Oh, no worries: there's a linchpin involved! Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader and a linchpin in efforts to reach a deal

See? It's all good.

It's weird to live in a world where our politics is more dysfunctional than Italy's.

An unspeakable insult to the people of this country.

The Commander in Chief could come out right now and categorically state that the Armed forces would be paid on their regular day out of the 200 billion+ coming into the treasury this month.

He could also tell all the bond holders and senior citizens that their payments will be in their local bank on the regular day as well.

The problem in my view is that these 3 entities are not prime voters for him and therefore; he's using them as a wedge against the Republicans.

If this is the hope and change he promised then the hell with him.

Essentially, all the Congress is doing here is raising the debt limit, which they could've done weeks ago. They've kicked all the other issues into the future after bringing the country perilously close to a default that would have disrupted the global economy. What a bunch of narcissistic wimps.

My credit union is for military and DOD employees and has stated they would advance pay to all it's members in the event of a default. Lets hope they don't need to.

It's times like this I hate the politics game. There's enough revenue to service the debt, PAY the military, pay social security (though I thought that came from a separate pool specifically paid into, correct me?) pay medicare/medicaid, and have enough left to pay SOME of the other programs departments. As previously stated, the President could calm fears by stating military, Social security and the medical payments would be covered, but he won't. It's leverage for him. If the payments don't go out, I understand it's got to be by a direct order from HIM to do that. I don't see why he thinks this will be a positive. Our own household has had to go under a "Balanced budget requirement" during a couple job loses, so this whole "We've got to be able to borrow MORE before we can agree to cut" is a little foreign. Heck, I've been surprised as to what you still can do even when "iron fisting" that requirement. We had to cut FIRST to balance. Forget about asking for more credit. Why? To continue to spend at a level we can no longer afford? Prioritize the social spending/entitlements (Note: I didn't say cut them all, just figure out the most important ones) and put the rest on hold. If you want, bring them back when the economy can support them (Possibly after a balanced budget requirement) and we can actually PAY for them. What the heck is in the water in DC that ELIMINATES common sense when EITHER party sends someone? Just an opinion from someone having to make sure that the budget is actually balanced.

We can always give them script they can convert later or trade to China for US Dollars.

Why isn't the headline ever

"Bureaucrats worry if paychecks will bounce"?

Or better yer

"Planners worry if paychecks will bounce"

Here's a quick way to balance the budget.

1) Bring all the troops home. NOW. Fire all the military contractors (Cheney looking at you) Now.

2) Raise taxes on rich folks and corporations back to the rates they were pre Ronald Raygun.

Likely not one person who reads this blog would be impacted negatively by either of these actions.

Yes, we are in a bad way.

http://jonathanturley.org/2011/07/30/five-fullerton-cops-beat-homeless-man-to-death/

LucsAdvo, where you been? In 2008, we had this election where the guy who was gonna raise taxes only on the rich and bring home the troops in one year won handily. In fact, his party won the House and Senate also. Surely he has done both those things already, right?

The whole debt-ceiling fiasco is nothing but politics. The President resists coming out with a statement that the military will be paid, because that is exactly what the idiot teabaggers want him to say. In effect, such a statement means that we have enough money to pay for the parts of the government that the right-wing Republicans want and we can just shut down the rest. Which again is an idiotic thing to suggest seeing as not paying millions of government employees (federal and state, as payments to the states would cease) would send us back into a deep recession. Of course we can never cut the defense budget - like we really need 11 carrier groups (eleven!!??), hundreds of overseas military bases and thousands of nuclear weapons. If you really want to do away with big government, then we also need to do away with big business. Yes, go back to the business model the founding fathers were familar with - proprietorships and small partnerships. And I have a clue for you, Bill - bully for you for running your household on a balanced budget. However, the US government does not operate like a household. BTW, the typical American household (including, I would guess, teabaggers and their supporters) owes a home mortgage that is several multiples of it's annual income.

The federal government is running a monthly average deficit of over $100 billion. Keep it up much longer, and everyone's paychecks are going to start bouncing.

And just to get people out of fantasyland, you could confiscate 100 percent of the income of "the evil rich" and you wouldn't solve the problem. And then you'd be out of "evil rich."