US Hits Debt Limit "Sooner Than Expected" -- Secretary Of The Treasury -- October 1, 2015

I think the US official debt has been frozen for several months now using "extraordinary measures" -- the euphemism used by the Secretary of the Treasury.

But today we learn that US debt will go over "debt limit sooner than we thought." Sooner than we thought? I think most folks thought we would have gone over our debt limit some months ago. It was fancy accounting that kept the debt limit "frozen" all these months, but finally the Secretary of the Treasury has run out of accounting tricks.

So, now we go through this political theater again for the next month or so while talking heads debate this non-issue. It's a non-issue because if things get really, really bad, the EU, led by Germany's Angela Merkel, will bail us out.

The debt limit will be raised slightly in late October/ early November to get us over the hump, and then a much greater debt limit to get us through another six months, perhaps through next June, getting us to the April 15th tax receipts. The holidays are always a problem for the government, so it's possible we get a smaller increase in the debt limit to get us into January, 2016, and then a bigger package then.

From Roll Call:

“Based on this new information, we now estimate that Treasury is likely to exhaust its extraordinary measures on or about Thursday, November 5,” Lew wrote in a letter to Boehner.

“At that point, we could be left to fund the government with only the cash we have on hand, which we currently forecast to be below $30 billion. This amount would be far short of net expenditures on certain days, which can be as high as $60 billion.”

Lew said the date could still fluctuate somewhat from Nov. 5, but the letter makes clear that the situation is more urgent than anticipated by lawmakers and staffers who expected to be able to bundle a debt limit increase with an early-December spending package.

“Without sufficient cash, it would be impossible for the United States of America to meet all of its obligations for the first time in our history,” Lew wrote.

Under this administration, I assume military retirees are at the top of the list not to get paid.

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Gun-Free Zone

Updates

October 4, 2015: after being led to believe that law enforcement neutralized the shooter/killer, the sheriff now tells us that the shooter/killer took his own life when law enforcement "arrived." That's all it took to end this -- the arrival of some armed law enforcement personnel?

October 3, 2015: this is unprecedented -- any military striking "Doctors Without Borders" and killing almost two dozen staff members. Some are saying this is a war crime. 

October 3, 2015: some pundits took President Obama to task for his strong remarks condemning America for the mass execution and for his "lecturing" America again. It should be remembered, that this mass killing was carried out by a single individual (as far as we know) who probably had significant mental health issues (he was drummed out of the US Army in the first month of basic training).

I am wondering whether President Obama will use the same "pulpit" and the same language to condemn America for the mass execution of staff at an Afghanistan "Doctors Without Borders" clinic by one of his drones, a drone that he authorized to be used to attack sites in Afghanistan.

I'm not holding my breath.

Original Post

 

It's beyond me how we could have a mass shooting in a gun-free zone. After all, from the Los Angeles Times:

The campus employs at least one security officer, and several faculty members at Umpqua are retired law enforcement personnel, according to campus. But none of them are allowed to be armed, she said.

“We have a no-guns-on-campus policy,” Calvin said.

School policy bans guns on campus, including BB guns, water guns (squirt guns) and paint guns. 

The number of times this is being reported -- that this was a gun-free zone -- apparently is confusing to reporters and editors, also -- how could this happen in a gun-free zone?

Early reports suggest that many more were shot than were killed. Early reports suggest that Christians were targeted to die; non-Christians, shot in the knees.