Submitted by Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger
Humorist Tom Bodett observed on NPR’s “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me” this weekend that if we raise the debt ceiling any higher, we won’t be able to paint it. In addition to being funny, his comment was more intelligent than most of what passes for debate on the issue.
Raising the debt ceiling is hardly a difficult decision to make, requiring that Congress answer only the following questions:
1. Are we unable with existing revenues to pay our debts as they become due?
2. Do we have the ability to borrow the funds necessary to cover the shortfall?
3. Will the additional borrowing push us over the existing debt ceiling?
If the answer to these questions is “yes,” the debt ceiling needs to be raised. Congress has always managed to get through the process rather easily, voting to increase the debt ceiling 74 times since 1962. So why the current impasse on a routine matter?
The answer, of course, is that the debate is about something other than the national debt. That something is the trilogy of programs known as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Republican efforts in the past to privatize Social Security disappeared in the Washington fog. The Ryan budget, which includes the elimination of Medicare, has as much chance of passage as I do of appointment to the Supreme Court. (Medicare is already getting hammered throughout the country, even as severe unemployment has increased the number of eligible recipients.)
But Republicans view the debt ceiling debate as an opportunity to move forward with their plans for the Great Dismantling, strongly encouraged by two factors. The first is the large number of freshmen Tea Party representatives who share with the average college radical the notion that compromise bespeaks a lack of moral integrity. The second is the President’s propensity to compromise first and ask for something in return later. The strategy has already borne fruit; the Obama administration has offered cuts in Social Security and Medicare without extracting a single binding promise on revenue increases. Fully expecting a complete collapse of Democratic nerve, Republicans are now treating the public to something resembling the drag racing scene in “Rebel Without A Cause.”
So is it nevertheless an honest debate? Not by a long shot. For one thing, everyone knows the debt ceiling must be increased regardless of any other considerations. Congressional hypocrisy is thicker than Louisiana sorghum on this point. The phrase “debt ceiling,” after all, is a misnomer. The limits imposed by the statute apply to borrowing authority. The actual debt ceiling is whatever Congress decides it will be through its enactment of spending bills. When Republicans exacted continuation of the Bush tax cuts last fall, they certainly understood that the additional debt burden would require increasing the debt ceiling. Therefore, opposing an increase in the statutory debt ceiling is equivalent to refusing to pay debts one has already incurred.
Moreover, there is nothing honest about hiding one’s real agenda. Insisting on spending cuts which one knows cannot be accomplished without seriously damaging so-called entitlement programs is stealth politics posing as principled resolve. The budget cut debate can take place at another time, and the Republican leadership knows it.
The mature solution is to terminate the present negotiations, adopt a reasonable debt ceiling increase as a stand-alone bill and take up spending and taxing measures separately. Bookies aren’t taking bets on political maturity in the present Congress.
Sources: CNN Money; Austin, D. Andrew and Levit, Mindy R., “The Debt Limit: History and Recent Increases,” Congressional Research Service (Jan. 28, 2010).
I’ve read that he was joined by every other Democrat Senator. Was that vote politics as usual?
Here’s the list
Akaka (D-HI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Burns (R-MT)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Clinton (D-NY)
Coburn (R-OK)
Conrad (D-ND)
Dayton (D-MN)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL)
Ensign (R-NV)
Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (D-CT) Lincoln (D-AR)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Obama (D-IL)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Wyden (D-OR)
From then Sen. Obama’s Floor Speech, March 20, 2006:
The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that “the buck stops here.” Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.
In 2006 then Sen. Obama voted against raising the debt limit; I’ve read that he was joined by every other Democrat Senator. Was that vote politics as usual?
Accepting that the limit has been raised 62 times, at what point does doing the same thing meet the definition of insanity?
Well said Bud!
Oh and the part about it being Obama who gets the raise because he’s head of the country, the raise is to pay for Bush’s wars and and pharmco spending spree. Basically, Obama is having to pay for Bush’s unpaid for dinners
and how much money has Obama spent while in office. How much did the national debt go up since his inauguration?
and add sound fiscal policy
Another Obamacare ‘Glitch’ Will Add Billions to the Deficit
A new report from Cornell economist Richard Burkhauser and his colleagues has once again called into question the claims of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and White House that Obamacare would have only a minimal impact on employers’ decisions to offer their employees health care. The report warns that Obamacare could cost at least $50 billion more per year than originally thought.
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/07/22/another-obamacare-glitch-will-add-billions-to-the-deficit/
And the feds can start selling off assets as well.
If all we were concerned about was what has already been spent, then the debt ceiling doesn’t need to be raised.
Bdaman,
Which is exactly the choices the government has.
You forget about printing money, for one.
Nevertheless, the restructuring of governmental spending and taxes still has nothing to do with paying what has already been spent. They are two different arguments and conflating them is exactly what this brouhaha is about.
Oh and the part about it being Obama who gets the raise because he’s head of the country, the raise is to pay for Bush’s wars and and pharmco spending spree. Basically, Obama is having to pay for Bush’s unpaid for dinners
And I thought the republicans got 100 per cent of what they wanted when Obama didn’t prosecute Bush/Cheney, or close Gitmo, or stop torture, or stop the renewal of the Patriot Act etc etc etc.
http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/07/trump-to-gop-make-sure-obama-isnt-re-elected-by-forcing-default/
About 1/3 foreigners and 2/3rds U.S. citizens.
Personally you either borrow money to meet the payment or increase your revenues or you get help and restructure your debt…or you walk away
Which is exactly the choices the government has. Oh and cut spending where you can.
Bdaman,
If I buy something with my credit card today, which is spending money that I don’t have, and then I can’t make the payment when the bill comes due, what do I do?
Personally you either borrow money to meet the payment or increase your revenues or you get help and restructure your debt…or you walk away and wait for seven years.
It’s obvious from your reply that you indeed do not understand the difference between a personal debt and a national collective one. Answer this: Who holds the majority of the US national debt?
Mike Spindell,
“The other alternative to this which keeps rising to my consciousness, only to be forced down by my unwarranted optimism, is that we have lost all semblance of democracy and are not the rulers, but the ruled.”
That conclusion has come up in my contemplation of our current ship of state as well.
1) it is not Obama who is receiving the raise, it’s the country,
Obama is the leader of the country so in effect he is.
the raise is to cover debts we have already incurred. This whole politic is nothing more than a push for the great dismantling by people willfully ignorant enough to consider a national budget operates in the same manner as household budgets.
If I buy something with my credit card today, which is spending money that I don’t have, and then I can’t make the payment when the bill comes due, what do I do?
Mike A.,
It’s all part of the plan:
@culheath, actually raising the debt ceiling is required to deal with the future debt we are about to incur because we are continuing to spend more than we are taking in. So the two are legitimately coupled.
Very succinct, culheath.
Well put Culheath.
I really loved their use of Christmas as a divisive ploy … Merry Christmas versus Happy Holidays … what a hoot that was.
I get a lot of mileage out of that at meetings when I ask people how many of them “bought” into that issue. It’s a great ice-breaker when the aim is to get people to think rationally rather than emotionally.
Bdaman,
There is no legitimate coupling of the deficit ceiling and budget deficits. The debt ceiling is based on what has already been spent…not future spending. So to infer that giving Obama a 2.7 trillion raise in the debt ceiling to allow more spending is dishonest in two ways; 1) it is not Obama who is receiving the raise, it’s the country, and 2) the raise is to cover debts we have already incurred. This whole politic is nothing more than a push for the great dismantling by people willfully ignorant enough to consider a national budget operates in the same manner as household budgets.
Well done Mike. This debt ceiling nonsense is just that. The Republicans do not want it to end because they think they can exact more concessions from the Democrats and Obama. However, I think that the President has reached his line in the sand. At least I hope so.
Keep working Blouise. It is worth it.
kderosa,how many times did the debt ceiling get raised during the Bush regime without the Dems exacting concessions? How is that for your false equivalence?