US one step from default as Senate blocks House plan

The Republican-dominated House of Representatives passed a vote to raise America's debt ceiling and to cut spending, only for the Democrat-controlled Senate to block it almost immediately. Meanwhile the clock ticks toward the deadline.

The Republicans pushed their deficit-cutting plan proposed by Speaker John Boehner through by a vote of 218-to-210. But Democrats in the Senate defeated the Republican legislation, which was sharply criticized by President Barack Obama, by a vote of 59-to-41 later in the day.

However, economist Max Fraad Wolff from the New School University in New York says that none of the plans will reduce the national debt.“They just change the speed by which it grows. A downgrade, which I think is quite possible, and the sheer spectacular public failure of the American political system will take a while to figure out. And so as, unbelievably, the worst-case scenario moves closer, it gets harder to retain your faith that we will avoid the worst outcome.”

The final decision on how to prevent America from defaulting must be made by Tuesday, August 2, or America will default on its debt. And while lawmakers still cannot agree on how to stop America's massive debt from falling off a cliff and into default, the military money's firing on all barrels to fund its overseas campaigns.Former US Congresswoman and 2008 presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney told RT that all presidents let the war profiteers win, leaving struggling citizens to foot the bill.“It is the same old story that the powers inside the United States can find money for war, but they can’t for the poor. And so unfortunately the many wars of President Obama, of both Democrat and Republican parties, have been taken off the table,” Cynthia McKinney said. “In the different values of the policy priorities of the republicans versus the democrats, we have clear winners and we have clear losers. But under both of the political parties the people are the clear losers. If you look at any of the statistics, whether it is family income, wealth, jobs, employment, underemployment, access to healthcare, access to quality education…the statistics that indicate the quality of life of the people of the United States…and there are very real winners in this economic arrangement of the chairs. The winners happen to be war profiteers and that is why war dollars have been taken off the table.”