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Originally Posted by Kieran Colfer:

and yes I am posting this mostly to get a rise out of you dod :-P

no, i already read this. the problem when the two parties go back and forth between positions (depending on whoever is in power at the time) is that in the end, really none of them can be taken seriously. but then again, this seems to be the reason for the tea party's rise to prominence. to reclaim the republican party as the fiscally conservative party. my personal view is that we can't trim 40% of the budget overnight, and thus we do have to raise the debt limit to keep the financial world from blowing a gasket. however, i also agree with the republicans that we HAVE TO get serious about reigning in the spending that has led us to raise the limit indefinitely thus far. i don't see this as being as much about balancing the budget, as i do shrinking the size and expense of government. and i don't see this being a process that can be fixed in one fell swoop, or one bill signing.

as for the numbers being put out there in that chart, of course they have to base it off of percentages raised, because if you look just at the pure numbers of how much our debt has increased by president, obama has almost equaled in 3 years, what bush added in 8.

"CNSNews.com) - In the first 19 months of the Obama administration, the federal debt held by the public increased by $2.5260 trillion, which is more than the cumulative total of the national debt held by the public that was amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan."

we've ran up $3.5 trillion, just since he's been in office. and this is a trend that goes back to kennedy, whereby each successive president has added more to the debt, save for clinton and the republican congress in the 90s.

so when both sides are doing this, it becomes almost a moot point, except that we all lose, and its been accelerating.

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As White House and congressional leaders race toward the Aug. 2 deadline for default, a new plan is emerging on Capitol Hill that may end the debt crisis this weekend.

A trigger option is being discussed by senior members of Congress as a way to bridge the divides between two controversial plans making their way through the House and the Senate, according to several lawmakers and staffers from both parties.

House Speaker John Boehner's proposal is expected to pass the House today after he and the Republican leadership twisted the arms of Tea Party freshman who had opposed any compromise plan in order to hold out for bigger cuts.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has declared Boehner's plan "dead on arrival" and trying to round up 60 votes to pass his own proposal. Several estimates by members suggest that Reid has either 55 or 56, several shy of a filibuster-proof majority.

Congress also discussed a trigger in 2009 and 2010 during the health care debate. Months before the final bill was signed, Democrats floated a compromise plan that would have that included some reforms with a trigger that if key concerns weren't addressed—including reducing the number of people uninsured and bringing down Medicare costs—the law would automatically create a public health insurance option. But Republicans, along with some Democrats, opposed the idea, not wanting to be boxed in a corner.

Now the idea has been resurrected as a way out of the partisan impasse that has brought the country to the brink of default.

As scored by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, both plans are very similar. Both immediately make about $1 trillion over the next decade with a plan for $1.5 trillion more in cuts identified later by a bipartisan debt committee. Neither includes revenues or any tax increases that the White House and some Democrats had aggressively pushed during much of the debate but surrendered earlier this week.

The main difference between both proposals is how long a debt-ceiling extension would last. Reid and the Democrats, including President Obama, have sought to extend U.S. borrowing authority through 2013. Boehner and the Republicans have said such an arrangement would be giving the president a "blank check" during election season and have pushed instead for an extension until the end of 2011.

The compromise plan with the trigger would likely extend the ceiling until Jaunary 2013 and include the $1 trillion in immediate cuts for the next decade. Congress and the bipartisan committee would be charged with identifying the other $1.5 trillion by the end of this year. The trigger would include draconian cuts and potentially even revenue increases unpalatable to both parties if no second round of cuts was agreed upon by December, thus giving both parties incentive to negotiate the painful details.

Triggers have been somewhat effective in the past. Ronald Reagan signed the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget Act in 1984, which included automatic spending cuts unless specific deficit reduction targets were met. With that hammer hanging over their heads, Congress spent some time making strategic cuts. But by 1990, when it became clear Congress would fall short on a full package, George H.W. Bush started new negotiations and signed a bill that, among other things, broke his no-new-taxes vow.

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Well, the House just passed a bill, so lets watch the Dems vote it down in the Senate.