This just in: The debt ceiling is the maximum amount of debt the United States is legally allowed to incur. It is not a budget. It is not the same thing as the “national debt” or the “deficit.” It is not intended to be used as a budgetary or spending tool. It is an artificially created thing that basically causes Congress to notice when they are spending a lot of money that they don’t have.
If you want to increase or decrease spending, then do that will budget appropriations. This is when Congress decides to spend or not spend money. Various members can vote for or against spending or spending cuts.
To vote against the Debt Ceiling however, is something very different. It basically says, “I am voting to not pay the bills that our government agreed to pay when we created the budget.”
Let’s look at it another way. You have a certain amount of income every month and your spending is based on that. You may want to spend less and save money or you may decide that to get something you want, you have to borrow or create a debt. So, let’s buy a house and have a debt that we pay every month. Deciding to not raise the debt ceiling is not the same as deciding to not buy a house. The house has already been bought. Deciding to not raise the debt ceiling is the same as saying, “I want to spend less money so I think I will stop paying my mortgage.”
If you don’t pay your mortgage, your credit rating will drop and all future debt spending will cost you more because lower credit ratings equal higher interest rates. Also, if you don’t pay your mortgage, someone else won’t get their money who won’t be able to pay someone else who then won’t be able to pay someone else….on and on.
In short, not paying your debt, or not raising the debt ceiling is the fastest, most certain way, to ruin the economy.
And remember, this is not about budgeting unless you make it that.
You could just as well say, “We Republicans aren’t going to approve raising the debt ceiling unless the president resigns or we all get free cars or we change the name of Thanksgiving to Food Appreciation Day. None of these are related unless someone decides to make them so.
The Republicans in Congress, the ones that raised the ceiling every year under Trump, the ones that added 2 trillion to the national debt by giving tax cuts to the rich, have all decided that they will link the debt ceiling to some budget cuts. Furthermore, they have not even specified what these cuts would be.
In short, they are willing to ruin our economy so that the United States will default on its debt. Once that happens, they will blame this default on Biden even though he is fighting to keep the Republicans from causing it to happen.
This is our Republican Party. The very same party that thinks the reason the United States leads the world, by far, in gun violence is that, for some reason, we have more mental illness in the United States. The same party thinks women should not make critical health decisions for their bodies. The same party that was appalled when Bill Clinton got a BJ from an intern but cheers for Trump who is about to lose a rape trial.
Our government is a mess. I know who to blame for this. Do you?
Time to save the world.
Up, up and away…
Jim
