Maybe There's a Pot of Gold on the Other Side of the Debt Ceiling
The Way We Live Now: putting our head right through the ceiling. We are giants. We grow a foot every day. Our ceiling's only seven feet high, and we're eight feet tall. Should we raise the ceiling? Nah. Risk it!
Super interesting thing here, Tim Pawlenty, the new moderate reasonable admirable handsome trustworthy middle-of-the-road mainstream Republican guy has a moderate reasonable "Third Way" of playing with very solvency of the U.S. economy.
Mr. Pawlenty said Congress should pass legislation that would put interest and debt payments ahead of other federal spending and allow the federal government to pay its creditors as tax revenue flows in. With the surge of tax payments that come in between April and June, that would at least buy time to try to cut spending dramatically, he said.
What he means is, do this and also refuse to raise the federal debt ceiling. So this way he can use the threat of actual real live default by the U.S. government on its debts—an unprecedented step which would imperil our nation's economy for good—as a little incentive, a lil' old poke and prod, to cut some spending here and there.
But not, you know, defense spending. We need those guns.
It's fun now that Republicans are bluffing about actually in real life allowing the U.S. to default, in order to prove that debt is bad. Why wait to see if our debt is actually unsustainable? Destroy the economy in one fell swoop, and prove it! You know when a good time to maybe cut government spending would have been? A few years ago, when the economy was good, and when we weren't embroiled in any unnecessary wars of choice. That would have been an awesome time to do it. But now, you know, in a fragile economy in which government spending may very well be the only thing keeping our nation afloat, maybe it's not the best time. Haven't Republicans ever played Sim City? Borrow and spend when you need to. Pay it back when times are good. But since that's not an option right now, I guess... collapse the national economy just because, is the next best step.
If you can't come up with your $45,300 share, you have only yourself to blame.
