Chicken Little in the White House
So the country waits while the President and the Congress argue over what to do about the fact that the Federal Government is going to run out of money. That statement contains two glaring errors. First of all, it is only the House of Representatives that is demanding that the Debt Ceiling Limit shall not be raised without guaranteed cuts in Federal spending. This is a result of the voter rebellion against the Democrat liberal program, including such details as Obamacare. Republican Representatives, many adhering to Tea Party policies, were elected in 2010 bringing the balance of power in the House over to a Republican/conservative majority. If the Senators were not elected one-third at a time we might have had a similar change of power in the Senate.
So the country waits while the President and the Congress argue over what to do about the fact that the Federal Government is going to run out of money. That statement contains two glaring errors. First of all, it is only the House of Representatives that is demanding that the Debt Ceiling Limit shall not be raised without guaranteed cuts in Federal spending. This is a result of the voter rebellion against the Democrat liberal program, including such details as Obamacare. Republican Representatives, many adhering to Tea Party policies, were elected in 2010 bringing the balance of power in the House over to a Republican/conservative majority. If the Senators were not elected one-third at a time we might have had a similar change of power in the Senate.
The second error is the statement that the government is going to "run out of money".
"The secret they don’t want you to know is that the US Government is currently taking in over $200 billion a month. This could easily service the debt and forestall any default. It could pay current Social Security and Medicare bills....."
(The Indicated quotations above and in subsequent portions of this briefing are from well established news media.) But the real scare tactic is the rumor that unless the debt limit is raised, the United States will default on its obligations and subsequently lose its triple-A bond rating which would lead to much higher costs to borrow money.
"...What would have to be cut is discretionary spending, and Congress doesn’t like this idea....."
( actually it is only the Democrats in Congress who don't like that idea.)
"....Gone would be money Obama wants to expand the EPA. Gone would be ethanol subsidies. Gone would be the billions poured into universities and colleges to subsidize the “intelligentsia.” Foreign aid money wouldn’t gush out. The cuts would hurt many in government employment, but default would never have to result, and grandma would still get her social security."
Interestingly, the President seems to have made an about face on the issue of raising the Debt Limit.
Interestingly, the President seems to have made an about face on the issue of raising the Debt Limit.
"During the debate to raise the debt ceiling in 2006, then-senator Barack Obama had this to say: “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure... America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership . Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit.”.."He subsequently voted against raising the ceiling. As president, however, Obama has called opposing a rise in the debt ceiling as dangerous."
The News Media are aiding and abetting the 'Default Myth' by neglecting the notion that the Federal Government can continue to function by witholding non-essential expenses and need not go into default or lose its credit rating:
"NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States took a step closer to losing its coveted triple-A credit rating over the weekend as a political impasse in Washington reduced hopes of an agreement to meaningfully cut the nation's budget deficit.
Although analysts still expect a last-minute deal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling and avoid a default next week, it seems unlikely that Democrats and Republicans will agree before the next election in November 2012 how to find $4 trillion through government spending cuts and revenue increases.
Prospects of a budget breakthrough faded as lawmakers missed a self-imposed deadline to produce a deal by the time Asian markets opened for the new week. They still plan to outline proposals on Monday, but both sides appear further apart than ever.
Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch have said they will downgrade the U.S. credit rating if failure to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling leaves the Treasury without cash to service its debt obligations in August."
Now the most signifigant detail in the above is the magnitude of the numbers bandied about. Only an astronomer can grasp numbers of this size. For example, the 14.3 trillion which is our current National Debt Limit, if converted to seconds would add up to about 444 THOUSAND YEARS! We're talking about the number of grains of sand on the Pacific Coast beaches kind of numbers. Think about this in terms of a family budget. We are currently spending about 40% of our National Budget to pay the interest on the National Debt. Imagine, if you will, if your credit was maxed out to the point that 40% of your net income went into paying JUST THE INTEREST on what you owed. If your net income was $60,000, you would be paying $2000 a month to your creditors and not making any headway at getting out of debt. You would be advised at that point to seek debt management counselling to eliminate unnecessary bills. Drop all the movie channels from your cable service! No, that would be just a drop in the bucket. You can't AFFORD cable service!
Well, it's time for our government to seek debt counselling. Some politicians have reluctantly admitted that water does run downhill. They still refuse, however to recognize that it eventually reaches bottom. It is time to draw the line.
"In another day of tense negotiations in Washington on Sunday, plans to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from the national debt have been proposed and then quickly discarded as the debate degenerated into an ideological battle. Republicans, driven by the fiscally conservative Tea Party movement that helped them win the House of Representatives last November, strongly oppose tax increases, while Democrats dislike proposed cuts to popular social programs."
Popular social programs? (the emphasis is mine), Popular with WHOM? Let us not lose sight of the fact that WE are paying for those social programs, some of which were enumerated above.
"Neither party cares much about anything other than perpetuating their power. This discretionary spending money is the key tool they use to stay in power."
Actually, it appears that it is primarily the Democrats who appear to be most interested in perpetrating their power. Another way to stay in power is to give everyone a social program of reduced cost of government and, therefore, taxes. But that's another story. An important message that we are trying to get across is that the sky is not falling, no matter what the "established news media" says. Trying to find an unbiased journalist these days is harder than finding an honest politician. It's a sad day indeed, when the truth content of respected news outlets have fallen to the level of the National Enquirer. An honest free press was one of the major factors that allowed our great nation to come into being. If we lose that, we are doomed to blindly seeking truth and unable to find it. ______________________ Publius
...secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy..... Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrarily, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not nuclear bombs, not anything. You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
-Robert A. Heinlein
