Sarah Palin and GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann are outraged over a comment that vice president Joe Biden made during the excruciating long and dragged out debt ceiling negotiations.  According to Polico, Biden suggested that Tea Party-backed lawmakers “acted like terrorists” during the debate over the debt ceiling. This comment caused Bachmann and Palin to begin huffing and puffing.

Of course, you should note the context of the comment. Of course, Palin and Bachmann should too. Rep. Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania, who apparently asserted that “[w]e have negotiated with terrorists” during a closed-door meeting with House Democrats about the deal to raise the debt limit. Biden’s response; “They have acted like terrorists.”

Palin appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” on Tuesday night to showcase the mock outrage. “If we were real domestic terrorists,” Palin explained to host Sean Hannity, “President Obama would be wanting to pal around with us, wouldn’t he? He didn’t have a problem palling around with Bill Ayers back in the day when he kicked off his political career.”

Although Palin has tried to connect Obama to Bill Ayers, a 1960s Weather Underground member, no serious connection exists. Obama did not “pal” around with Ayers, according to the Associated Press.  They worked on community boards and Ayers hosted a political event at the beginning of Obama’s career .

Palin went on to defend the tea party. “I’m not just going to roll over with a sticker plastered on my forehead that says, hit me baby one more time, call me a terrorist again, call me a racist. Those things that Tea Party patriots have been being called over these months. It is unfair, it’s hypocritical of the other side doing that. And enough is enough. And I’m going stand up for those fiscally conservative patriotic independent Americans who wants the best for this country.”

Really, Palin? Being called something is unfair? And while you are complaining about being called something, you are implying that Obama is friends with a terrorist. I am not sure you understand the definition of hypocritical, but look in the mirror and you will get it. Your party brought up the whole calling the other side terrorists. If you want to criticize someone, start with Rep. Doyle.

Bachmann responded to the comments in an e-mail on Monday night, “Only in the bizarro world of Washington is fiscal responsibility sometimes defined as terrorism.” And only in bizarro world is fiscal responsibility linked to a refusal to increase revenue.

Jeffery Stone / Shutterstock.com

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The debt ceiling was raised in the last possible moment in a deal that has no one really satisfied. The debt ceiling was raised along with a creation of a “secret super committee” that will dramatically slash spending.

Democrats in the Senate supported the bill despite the huge spending cuts. Forty-five voted “yes” on the bill and six voted “no.” Meanwhile 28 Republicans voted in favor of the bill and 19 opposed it. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voted “yes” and “no,” respectively.

The compromise allows Obama to increase the borrowing limit by $400 billion immediately but also mandates $917 billion in cuts over the next decade. The bill also sets up a committee of 12 lawmakers that will find another $1.5 trillion cuts over the next decade.  The bill “puts in place a powerful committee that will ensure further much-needed reform,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

“There must be a sharing of sacrifice,” Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said. “It’s very unfair for millionaires and billionaires not to be contributing.”

Very few lawmakers had positive reactions to the deal.

“This compromise that we reached is not perfect,” said Reid. “We settled for less than we wanted, but so did my friend [McConnell].”

He also complained that the country was forced to such an impasse because of the “very, very disconcerting” impact of the Tea Party.

McConnell was more satisfied with the outcome. “It was a debate that Washington very much needed to have,” he said. “The American people agree with us on the nature of the problem … if you’re spending yourself into oblivion, the solution isn’t to spend more, it’s to spend less.”

“The bill doesn’t solve the problem, but it forces us to admit we have one,” McConnell added.

Other tea-party backed Republicans were less optimistic over the outcome. “To me it comes close to violating our oath of office,” said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) about the potential cuts to military spending.

Economists also have mixed reactions about the deal. Raising the debt ceiling provides some stability in an already fragile economy however the huge spending cuts will continue to slow the economy.

“The federal government spends huge amounts of money, and to the extent, in the short-term, that it’s not spending that amount of money, there will be an impact to the economy,” said Ernie Patrikis, a banking partner at White & Case and former vice president of the New York Federal Reserve. He said that while he thought the stability would encourage more investment, “the impact on unemployment is not terribly helpful.”

“It’s definitely a drag — the only question is how much,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “We’re going backward when we desperately need to go forward.”

According to the Huffington Post, the Democrats began the debate stating that the hike in the debt ceiling be “clean” and not tied to spending cuts. They gave ground continually for months, and McConnell happily pointed out that the White House once labeled any linkage to future spending “insane.”

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As the United States is hurling closer to the point of no return on the debt ceiling, President Obama addressed the nation on Monday evening calling the partisan politics a “dangerous game.” Obama criticized the temporary Republicans plan and urged Congress to raise the debt ceiling before the quickly-approaching August 2^nd deadline.

“The American people may have voted for divided government, but they didn’t vote for a dysfunctional government,” the president said in a hastily arranged prime-time speech. He appealed to the public to contact lawmakers and demand “a balanced approach” to reducing federal deficits. “It is a dangerous game we’ve never played before,” Obama said, “and we can’t afford to play it now.”

Obama discussed the importance of raising the debt ceiling and the consequences if the ceiling is not raised in time. “Republican House members have essentially said that the only way they’ll vote to prevent America’s first-ever default is if the rest of us agree to their deep, spending cuts-only approach,” Obama said. “If that happens, and we default, we would not have enough money to pay all of our bills – bills that include monthly Social Security checks, veterans’ benefits, and the government contracts we’ve signed with thousands of businesses.”

The president suggested that Republicans consider raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans. He pointed out that it is not fair to ask for average American families to deal with deep spending cuts while the wealthiest Americans get off scot-free. “Most Americans, regardless of political party, don’t understand how we can ask a senior citizen to pay more for her Medicare before we ask corporate jet owners and oil companies to give up tax breaks that other companies don’t get,” the President stated.

“How can we ask a student to pay more for college before we ask hedge fund managers to stop paying taxes at a lower rate than their secretaries? How can we slash funding for education and clean energy before we ask people like me to give up tax breaks we don’t need and didn’t ask for?”

Arguing that Republican leaders were acting outside of the interests of their constituents, President Obama called on voters to “make your voice heard.”

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) unveiled a plan earlier on Monday that would raise the debt ceiling temporarily for six months. Obama addressed the plan stating, “In other words, it doesn’t solve the problem,” he said. Speaker Boehner issued his own rebuttal speech immediately following Obama’s address.

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Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been engaged in intensive negotiations for weeks to figure out how to lift the $14.3 trillion debt limit but a devastating default looms as the two parties have yet to reach agreement. President Barack Obama addressed the nation with his frustration over the deadlock: “Once again, the economy will be held captive unless they [Republican lawmakers] get their way. This is no way to run the greatest country on earth.”

“Every day that goes by without a deal will see investors become a bit more defensive,” said Omer Esiner, chief market analyst at Commenwealth Foreign Exchange in Washington to Reuters. The stalemate has shook the American position in global markets and experts say that failure to reduce the government deficit by $4 trillion over the next 10 years will downgrade the United States.

President Obama said in a televised address on Monday “I have told leaders of both parties that they must come up with a fair compromise in the next few days that can pass both houses of Congress – a compromise I can sign. And I am confident we can reach this compromise.” Leaders of both parties have insisted that they will not allow the United States to default but so far, demands from both sides have been irreconcilable.

Republican lawmakers say the lift of the debt ceiling must be accompanied by even larger reduction in spending, reflecting the Tea Party line to shrink government. Meanwhile, the Democrats want to shield Medicare and Medicaid to secure old and poor Americans — they want any cuts in the healthcare system to be balanced by changes in the U.S. tax code, something that Republicans in the House of Representatives have staunchly refused.

Because of the division between Republican control in the House and Democratic sway over the Senate, it seems unlikely that their competing plans will win bipartisan support by August 2, when the US ‘runs out of cash to pay its bills’.

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