Debt Limit

Debt Ceiling Cheetahs

In yesterday’s blog, I talked about how Republicans don’t actually care about corruption unless a Democrat does it. In the case of the Biden family, Republicans can only pretend there’s corruption…but they really really care about it. The same holds true to a lot of other issues, like debt.

Republicans don’t give a shit about debt except when Democrats are in power. Right now, they’re tying raising the debt ceiling to cutting government spending. That sounds nice, right? If it’s the right thing to do, then why didn’t they make those same demands during the Trump administration (sic)? Republicans raised the debt ceiling three times during Trump’s presidency (sic).

Republicans are often better at messaging than Democrats. Most people have the perception that Republicans are better with budgets and the economy. But the facts are that most economic downturns occur during Republican administrations and most government spending is created by Republicans. Republicans are as good with finances just as much as they are with patriotism (Russian meddling), law and order (January 6 and defending Trump crimes), and family values (grab them by the pussy).

Ronald Reagan added $1.86 trillion to the national debt, a 186 percent increase from the $997.8 billion debt at the end of Jimmy Carter’s last budget. Reagan was a big fan of the trickle-down myth and gave huge tax cuts to asshole billionaires.

George H. W. Bush added added $1.55 trillion to the debt, a 54 percent increase from the $2.857 trillion debt at the end of Reagan’s last budget.

George W. Bush added $5.85 trillion to the national debt, a 101 percent increase from the $5.8 trillion debt at the end of Clinton’s last budget. He funded two wars while giving billionaire assholes more tax cuts. No one could have predicted that wouldn’t work out (that’s sarcasm).

And Trump? He added nearly $7 trillion to the debt. Take in the fact that Trump added $7 trillion while only having half the time of Reagan and George W. (because he lost his reelection attempt to Joe Biden and is now a one-term loser). His greatest legislative accomplishment was giving himself a tax cut because he’s a billionaire asshole. All three times that the debt ceiling needed to be raised during the Trump presidency (sic), guess who voted for each time. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Do you know what preconditions they attached each time they voted to raise it? None. Zero. Zip. Nada.

But in all fairness to Republicans, there are very good reasons why they didn’t add any preconditions to raising the debt ceiling during the Trump presidency (sic). It’s because they’re lying scum-sucking hypocritical weasely stupid racist bastards who don’t actually give a flying fuck about debt. And in fact, if you listen to them, most don’t understand the debt ceiling. And according to a recent poll, most Americans don’t understand it either.

A new poll commissioned by CNN says that 60 percent of Americans only want the debt ceiling raised if spending cuts are attached to it. They don’t specify what spending they want cut, they just want cuts. But, some people do lie when asked a question by a pollster. For example, nearly half of respondents claim they have been following negotiations over the debt ceiling, but that has to be a lie…or they’re stupid. Are we a nation full of Boeberts?

Are the respondents stupid? Yes, they are. While 60 percent are on the GOP’s side with attaching spending cuts to raising the debt ceiling, only 23 percent say Republicans have the right priorities? That’s like saying Nickelback is the best band in the world while also hating bands that keep rewriting the same song over and over and over and over and…

Kevin McCarthy said, “I told the president Feb. 1, ‘I said, Mr. President, you’re not going to raise taxes. You’ve got to spend less money than was spent this year.'”

Raising the debt limit, pay attention, DOES NOT INCREASE SPENDING and despite what Fucker McCarthy said, it DOES NOT RAISE TAXES!!!! Raising the debt limit is paying off spending that’s already been agreed upon, legislated, and passed. Republicans are screaming about cutting spending before they will raise the debt ceiling while NOT working on the next budget where you do negotiate spending cuts.

And Repubicans are proposing cuts to a lot of social programs while demanding increases in others, like the defense budget. Kids, spending more money isn’t spending less money. Fact, fact, fuckity, fact, fact.

Another demand Republicans are making is to eliminate the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents over the next decade. Republicans have to lie to sell this bullshit. They claim that the new agents are being hired to come after the little guy, but most importantly, poor white people who vote Republican. They will punish you for being conservative. In fact, all these new agents will be armed with guns. Be afraid…be very afraid.

The reality is, most of the new agents are to replace retiring agents and over the ten years. Most will not be armed. And most of these hirings are so the IRS will have more manpower to go after tax cheats….you know, Billionaire assholes. Republicans circle the wagons around billionaire assholes. For example, Donald Trump paid ZERO in federal taxes in 2020. How does an asshole that claims he’s worth $10 billion come out paying zero in taxes? How does an asshole who’s worth is actually $2.5 billion come out not paying any taxes?

So when President Biden and Kevin come to terms on raising the debt limit, it won’t be enough for all the Republicans in the House. A lot of them will still vote against it. Kevin has a slim GOP majority in the House, but he will still need Democrats to pass raising the debt ceiling his demanded cuts. Have fun with that.

The majority of Americans want spending cuts attached to raising the debt limit. But, just because the majority believes in something that doesn’t make it right. Mob rule doesn’t make anything factual. Once upon a time, the majority in this nation was against gay marriage. Hell, a majority used to be against interracial marriage. In 2003, a majority of Americans were in love with the idea of invading Iraq only because it made them feel warm and squishy inside.

Kevin McCarthy created this crisis. There would not be a crisis if they simply voted to raise the debt ceiling without conditions. It would be done. The bills would be paid. It would not push the entire global economy into chaos. As it is now, the nation may be in default of its debts on June 1.

Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans are holding the entire planet hostage over this GOP-created crisis.

Musice note: I listened to Alice Cooper, Alien Ant Farm, Anna Nalick, and Audioslave (I was in the A’s).

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

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Debt Ceiling Chicken

Here’s your cartoon for this week’s CNN Opinion newsletter. Please sign up to get these in your inbox every Sunday

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

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Kevin’s Kick-Start

The House of Representatives have passed a lot of bills this year and it’s made many of its members bark on Twitter about how they’re keeping their promises and saving America, yada yada yada. But most of these are on bullshit like keeping men out of women’s sports, condemning attacks on pro-life facilities, an “abortion survivors” protestion act, preventing the government from selling oil to China, pushing more drilling on government lands, and rescinding the hiring of new IRS agents that was passed last year in the Inflation Reduction Act.

The reason I call these bills “bullshit” is that they’re just noise. They won’t pass the Democratic-led Senate, and even if they did, they’d never get signed on the Democratic president’s desk. In fact, most of these barely even passed the Republican-led fucknut House.

This is why Kevin McCarthy’s House gets a failing report card. They don’t legislate to improve the lives of their constitituents. They only work on dogma and gaslight which they all hope will get them on Tucker Carlson Tonight, and guess what. Tucker’s gone.

Real leaders would read the room, face reality, and work on what they can get passed to improve the lives of their constituents instead of wasting time by being bottom feeders for the lowest common denominators. While the entire House may not be Gaetzs, MTGs, and Boeberts, it’s held hostage by them. Stop catering to the illiterate knuckle-draggers and do your jobs, losers.

Kevin McCarthy was set to become the worst Speaker in the history of this nation before finally winning that 15th vote to become Speaker. He established that he will trade anything for votes and this week, he barely passed a bill to raise the debt limit.

The debt limit authorizes paying the bills Congress has already passed. It’s like paying your credit card bill. Imagine instead of paying your bills, you and your wife negotiate what you’ll pay for next year, and if you can’t come to an agreement, you default on your bills, your lights are turned off, there’s no cable, creditors start calling, and you lose your house and have to move in with your mom and her hairless cat she loves more than she loves you. the creditors don’t care about your drama, your relationships, or the the hairless cat. They just want you to pay your bills.

The best thing to do when you get your bills is to pay them. Not paying on our government debt can send the government into default and totally trash the economy. It can cost jobs. Republicans like to use the debt limit to go back and renegotiate what they couldn’t block in previous congressional sessions. It’s holding the nation hostage. It is a game of chicken, but with opponents who don’t realize what happens in head-on collisions. Republicans are stupid.

But they only do this when a Democrat is in the White House. They passed a debt limit increase three times while Trump was president (sic).

The bill the GOP House is sending to the Senate won’t pass. Kevin knows this and says it’s to “kick start” negotiations with President Biden, who’s rightly said he’ll negotiate future budgets but not a debt limit increase. Congress should pass a clean increase for the debt limit, without the games.

And what the House passed is based on cruelty, because that’s what Republicans do. It adds work requirements to receive Medicaid and welfare benefits while cutting college loan forgiveness, child healthcare, daycare, veteran healthcare, housing assistance, pell grants, environmental protection, train safety inspections…wait.

The House wants to cut train safety inspections? Did I imagine all that noise and blame they were throwing around about the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio? They never did blame the company responsible, Norfolk Southern, but they sure went after Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Now, they want to cut those inspections? By the way, has anyone checked on whether Trump is still sending aid to East Palestine beyond that crate of Trump Water he took for his photo-op?

They also want to cut the funding for the IRS to hire 87,000 agents over the next decade. So, they’re not cutting the Trump tax breaks for corporations and billionaires that added over $2 trillion to our debt, but they want to reduce government debt by making it easier for billionaires to be tax cheats. Sure, let’s starve children and cut healthcare to our veterans, but make sure Tiffany doesn’t get hit by an inheritance tax, because she can’t be rolling in royalties from “Like A Bird.“

This is why you should never vote Republican. They’re not serious and they hold the nation hostage. Did we learn nothing on January 6?

What we should do is lock Kevin and his fellow Republicans in a room and force them to hear “Like A Bird” on repeat until they finally pass a clean debt-limit increase. I give it 30 seconds.

Music Note: I listened to Infant Sorrow.

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

Watch me draw: