1/2/2011
White House warns of Congress failure to raise US debt limit
WASHINGTON, A senior White House official warned on Sunday that the Congress failure to raise the debt ceiling would have a catastrophic impact on US economy.
"If we get to the point where you have damaged the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity," said chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Austan Goolsbee in an interview with ABC News.
The US government is about to hit in few months the legal USD 14.3 trillion limit on borrowing and Goolsbee affirmed that the issue of raising the debt ceiling is "not a game" that "should not even" be discussed.
"People will get the wrong idea. The United States is not in danger of default. We do not have problems such as that. This would be lumping us in with a series of countries through history that I do not think we would want to be lumped in with," he added.
Meanwhile, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told NBC News that failing to raise the debt ceiling "would be very bad for the position of the United States in the world at large" but maintained that he would not vote for raising it unless there is a long term plan to deal with the debt problem.
Two Republican members of the House of Representatives, Michelle Bachmann and Mike Kelly, told CBS News they are against raising the federal debt ceiling.
Incoming House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa told Fox News that President Barack Obamas administration should employ more accountants not lawyers to be ready for Republicans to take control of the House of Representatives in few days.
"It is more of an accounting function than a legal function. It is more about the inspector generals than it is about lawyers in the White House and the sooner the administration figures out that the enemy is the bureaucracy and the wasteful spending and not the other party, the better off we will be," he added.
Issa further noted that investigating the USD 125 billion misspending in Medicare would be a major step to cut back the federal deficit.
House Representative Elijah Cummings, the new ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, vowed to hold the Obama administration to a "very high standard," while noting that he might go along with some of the investigations being considered by Issa.
"We are going to do it in a bipartisan way here, if Mr. Issa cooperates," he concluded.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2135115&Language=en
White House warns of Congress failure to raise US debt limit
WASHINGTON, A senior White House official warned on Sunday that the Congress failure to raise the debt ceiling would have a catastrophic impact on US economy.
"If we get to the point where you have damaged the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity," said chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Austan Goolsbee in an interview with ABC News.
The US government is about to hit in few months the legal USD 14.3 trillion limit on borrowing and Goolsbee affirmed that the issue of raising the debt ceiling is "not a game" that "should not even" be discussed.
"People will get the wrong idea. The United States is not in danger of default. We do not have problems such as that. This would be lumping us in with a series of countries through history that I do not think we would want to be lumped in with," he added.
Meanwhile, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told NBC News that failing to raise the debt ceiling "would be very bad for the position of the United States in the world at large" but maintained that he would not vote for raising it unless there is a long term plan to deal with the debt problem.
Two Republican members of the House of Representatives, Michelle Bachmann and Mike Kelly, told CBS News they are against raising the federal debt ceiling.
Incoming House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa told Fox News that President Barack Obamas administration should employ more accountants not lawyers to be ready for Republicans to take control of the House of Representatives in few days.
"It is more of an accounting function than a legal function. It is more about the inspector generals than it is about lawyers in the White House and the sooner the administration figures out that the enemy is the bureaucracy and the wasteful spending and not the other party, the better off we will be," he added.
Issa further noted that investigating the USD 125 billion misspending in Medicare would be a major step to cut back the federal deficit.
House Representative Elijah Cummings, the new ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, vowed to hold the Obama administration to a "very high standard," while noting that he might go along with some of the investigations being considered by Issa.
"We are going to do it in a bipartisan way here, if Mr. Issa cooperates," he concluded.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2135115&Language=en
