Listening to the President speak this morning, it suddenly dawned on me!

He explained that raising the debt ceiling was not increasing spending. The bill has already been racked up by Congress, now it is just a question of paying the bill.

I think he had heard about what happened when that Congressman confused what this vote was about when he was interviewed on Andrea Mitchell's show Wednesday and she had to straighten him out. Lawrence O. was laughing about it on Morning Joe yesterday.

So I figure that Obama said "Wow, if a Congressman is confused, maybe LOTS of people are similarly confused."

Not that it will make that much of a difference with the hard right, but maybe it's getting thru to the muddled middle who haven't been paying too much attention.

It shows that you can't take too much for granted with the public's grasp of the political arena...

Oh boy, now you can spend more. The media has failed to explain this to the American People.
I am glad that Obama did. It is frightening that the congressman did not understand it. But then......

Of course, the benefit of this misunderstanding accrues to the Republicans. Is that why the
media has failed to explain it?

That is why the debt ceiling is an outdated idea.

Once Congress passes a budget, and the President signs it, that should have authorized the spending.

The media and the GOP are misinforming the public, as usual.

This is to pay bills that George Bush and the right-wing Congress ran up over the last 10 years

Obama's explanation of this catastrophe has been abysmal. Way too much conciliatory rhetoric and not enough facts and leadership

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And while the media hasn't covered it as well as they should, they HAVE reported this quite a bit.

when they have $2000 and they have bills for $4000. When they set it up either they guessed the amounts wrong or they screwed up!

Sounds from all I read like they knew the debt ceiling would be affected earlier so why didn't they change the budget?

I think part of it was they were counting on more revenue, but if you don't put people back to work how are they suppose to pay into
the system?

the Senate voted it down.

he was educating the Teabaggers and proving they are fit to hold any position if they don't understand the concept of the Debt Ceiling.

last week and a few other times. Maybe the stupid crowd should start paying attention or go away if they can't comprehend the basic principals of legislating.

But despite that, there are still people around here, for example, who are blaming HIM for conflating the two issues.

As was said just above, that's what the address earlier this week was about: educating the public who doesn't follow this stuff day in and day out.

As for Congress being confused? They really have no excuse, and it's very disturbing that they don't even know what they're voting for or against.

everybody because of higher interest rates.