This is drivel, drivel in disagreement with drivel; my short sermon to you, my members of a silent choir in a forgotten cathedral. We had a good run; we tried, and volumes of history will be written in Red, White and Blue ink.
Our dear leaders are nearly finished yelling at each other for the time being, and have settled on a course of action which will allow them to continue on toward catastrophe. Republicans cheer for fiscal responsibility; fiscal responsibility is confused, because he was not invited to the party. Democrats decry the impending doom the Republicans have wrought this term, ignoring the centuries of proud expansion and deficit spending which have brought us to our fate.
Here’s the problem: borrowing is only right when you can pay back your creditors. US policy is to fund our debt payments with additional debt. Tax revenues, even vastly increased tax revenues, cannot pay back the present debt. Growing that debt more slowly is not a solution; if the federal government can’t pay its bills without perpetual borrowing now, how is it supposed to pay those bills later? At some point, some creditors must be left holding the bag.
But our elected representatives provide us with political theater in the meantime. They’ve agreed to “cut” the deficit by $2.3 trillion over the course of the next decade or so. In order to do this, the debt ceiling must be increased $2.1 trillion dollars. I am not sure how the latter can possibly lead to the former… but I am certain that greater problems are ahead, and that there’s a limit to how much debt our government can issue before there’s nobody left to buy it.
“The state tends to expand in proportion to its means of existence and to live beyond its means, and these are, in the last analysis, nothing but the substance of the people. Woe to the people that cannot limit the sphere of action of the state! Freedom, private enterprise, wealth, happiness, independence, personal dignity, all vanish.” – Frederic Bastiat
Skip,
Bastiat was the man. A true radical of his day.
Time is absolutely getting shorter. The U.S. is hanging by fingers over the edge of the cliff. When time ends as we know it and a New Time begins–which clock will you be using? The clock of reason(self determination) or the clock of insanity(relying of others).
Raising the debt limit was absolutely necessary. The First Lady wanted to take her posse back to Europe and the extra money was needed.