‘I Will Not Negotiate’

During the past week, President Obama drastically shifted the rhetoric concerning the stand-off between the White House and Congress – more specifically, the House Tea Party caucus – on legislation that would raise the debt ceiling. The White House and the President himself were comparing the behavior of the Tea Party to that of hostage-takers and blackmailers. In his weekly address, Obama continues to drive home that message:

I will work with anyone who wants to have a serious [conversation] about our economic future. But I will not negotiate over Congress’ responsibility to pay the bills it has already racked up. I don’t know how to be more clear about this: no one gets to threaten the full faith and credit of the United States of America just to extract ideological concessions. No one gets to hurt our economy and millions of innocent people just because there are a couple laws you don’t like. It hasn’t been done in the past, and we’re not going to start doing it now.

Watch the entire address:

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.