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Posts published in “Day: January 6, 2013”

From this week’s Briefings

January 6, 2013
Boise street
The Idaho Historical Society is launching celebration of the Idaho Territorial Sesquicentennial – 150 years since the formation of Idaho Territory (the first major land mass with the name of Idaho), in 1863. This street scene from Boise in 1866 is one of several free photos available for download.

 

Little noted in current news, but - this is the year of Idaho's territorial sesquicentennial; it marked the first real designation of a substantial land mass as "Idaho."

Last week was a quiet week, but the political storms are just beginning to brew as legislatures in Washington, Oregon and Idaho get ready to gear back up into action.

Pay national debt with funny money?

January 6, 2013
rainey
Barrett Rainey
Second Thoughts

Suppose you get a bill from your credit card company. It shows a large balance due the end of the week. Deciding you should pay in full promptly, you get out pen and checkbook. You draw what looks like one of your usual checks, fill in the exact amount and drop it in the mailbox. Bill paid.
Yeah. Sure.

But, before you ashcan this example of substituting worthless paper for currency-of-the-realm to pay bills, consider what folks are tossing around in Washington, D.C. circles. And not all of ‘em elected incompetents.

We’ve hit the debt ceiling. Did it a couple weeks ago. Federal debt reached $16.394 trillion. That’s the current limit. The ceiling. So, until the zoo we used to call Congress fixes the problem, the Treasury Department is playing shell games with the loose change still available to pay bills. Even that slight-of-hand will have to stop about the first of March. Flat broke.

So – let’s have the folks at the U.S. Mint create a platinum coin in the exact amount of the national debt – $16.394 trillion. We’ll take that new coin down to the nearest bank and deposit same in the federal account that’s brimming over with red ink. Bill paid. Debt gone.

Crazy? Maybe. Legal. Yes. (more…)

Speaker Simpson – in Congress this time?

January 6, 2013
carlson
Chris Carlson
Carlson Chronicles

The table just may start to be set for Idaho’s Second District Congressman, Mike Simpson, to become the next Speaker of the House of Representatives. Yes, the split in the House Republican Caucus started to show when one member cast a vote for Idaho’s 1st District Congressman, Raul Labrador, and Labrador himself refused to vote. Rep. Labrador, however, even though the darling of the Tea Party types, will never be
Speaker.

Mike Simpson, on the other hand, has a real shot in part because he has been a loyal lieutenant to Speaker Boehner. One can predict that if it becomes clear to the Speaker that he no longer enjoys the confidence of his Caucus and should step aside, he will still have a sizable contingent of loyalists. Boehner could no doubt direct these loyalists to vote for one of his key advisors, Mike Simpson.

It not only takes skill to maneuver successfully to ride herd on the incredibly divisive House, it also takes luck and a talent for being perceived to be the right person at the right time and the right place to become the next Speaker. Simpson, however, over his long career has demonstrated both skill and luck.

Make no mistake, Boehner has been mortally wounded. He just barely survived a major in-Caucus rebellion over his bumbling, lackluster inability to draw and quarter the president in the “fiscal cliff” negotiations. The fact that the split within became so obvious is in all probability an unmistakable sign his days are numbered. He clearly cannot deliver a majority of his caucus on anything, which the Democrats smell, as do the House members of the Tea Party.

Simpson is thought to command the respect of all the factions within the Republican caucus in part because he is a good listener, a shrewd analyst and a savvy negotiator who is not afraid to compromise in order to achieve consensus and move forward.

There’s an old political saying about he who intends to kill the King ought to make sure they’ve done so. In this case, the challenge initially has failed but Boehner may be a member of the walking dead. It may take time to recognize his legs have been cut out from under him. But not by Simpson. Ever the loyalist he is not about to knife a friend and scramble over the body. That is another point for him.

Another attraction is that while second in line for Presidency, the House Speaker has rarely ever ascended to the Presidency. It is not a stepping stone. In fact the only Speakers of the U.S. House to ever make it were James K.Polk and James A. Garfield who by all accounts were successful speakers. Elected in 1880 he never was able to fulfill his promise as he was shot by an assassin within months of taking office. Incompetent doctors helped him to survive the bullet but he couldn’t survive their incompetent care. (more…)