Tag Archives: spending

That’s Easy

Posted on by
Reply

Progressive-Democratic Party politicians claim they want to prevent a future [debt ceiling] standoff by trying to defuse the borrowing limit as a weapon.

Congressman Brendan Boyle (D, PA), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said there is an increasing number of Democrats who want to fundamentally change the debt-ceiling process, with many colleagues recognizing it is “just insanity to keep doing this over and over and over again.”

Boyle also said this, as though it were a bad thing:

Because we have been fixated on this issue for months and months, we are dramatically behind on all the rest of the legislative work that Congress has to get done.

Actually, the only things Congress has to get done, and it would take very little time were Party to stop being obstructionist, are to pass a budget and then lower personal and corporate income tax rates across the board and pass the dozen separate appropriations bills that give effect to that budget.

As I wrote during an earlier debt ceiling fight,

Getting this profligacy [in spending] under control—eliminating that profligacy—is the only way to get rid of budget deficits, and the elimination of those deficits—not their reduction, but their elimination—is the only way to avoid having to repeatedly increase the amount of our borrowing, the only way to eliminate the “need” to repeatedly raise the debt ceiling….

Eliminating debt ceiling fights should be perfectly straightforward to do. However, those politicians are congenitally incapable of reducing spending. They still can’t even say the words “cut spending.”

Hype that Deadline

Posted on by
Reply

Even The Wall Street Journal is in on the artificial…excitement…act. Congress has just a few days to pass a bill before June 5 deadline goes the subheadline.

It’s not much of a deadline, with revenue flowing in under existing tax laws that’s more than sufficient to pay as scheduled the principal and interest on our nation’s debt, and then the scheduled payments for our soldiers and veterans, and then the scheduled payments for Social Security and Medicare along with the scheduled transfers to the States for Medicaid, and then the scheduled payments for HHS, then DoT (for good or ill), then DoEd (for good or ill), then….

You get the idea.

There are only a couple of things of note should a debt ceiling deal not be enacted by 5 June (or whatever becomes Yellen’s deadline du jour). One is that much of the Federal government would have to shut down. That amounts to a big so what.

The other is that a number of Federal government contracts with private businesses would have their payments HIAed, to the detriment of those businesses. The failure to pay on time also would strongly negatively affect our economy and to a large extent our reputation around the world.

That last is a consideration worth taking very seriously, but not at the expense of enacting a debt ceiling deal, any deal. Republicans and Conservatives in the House need to stand firm. The present deal isn’t all that, but, to coin a phrase, think of the (Progressive-Democratic Party’s) alternative.

The deal also shouldn’t be stand-alone.

Some conservatives in the House and Senate have said they would oppose the deal because it doesn’t go far enough to limit federal spending….

One way to show they’re serious about that is via the as yet undeveloped Federal budget for the next fiscal year. Beginning Thursday (assuming today’s vote is up rather than down), the House—which is to say, the Republican caucus, since they’ll get no cooperation from the Never-and-Nothing-Republican Progressive-Democratic Party caucus—needs to begin work on that next Federal budget, a budget that codifies reduced Federal spending, reduced Federal tax rates, and reformed Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid transfer payments, and have that budget passed and ready to send to the Senate the day after that body votes on the debt ceiling bill.

And then the House—the Republican caucus—needs to get to work on the dozen separate appropriations bills that are due by this fall.

There’s no need to wait on a President’s budget proposal (what President Joe Biden (D) tossed over the House’s transom this winter is not one that can be taken seriously) or to put up with Progressive-Democrat obstructionism and knee-jerk “No.”

Press ahead.

“We Object”

Posted on by
Reply

Last month, against the backdrop of the Federal government approaching the debt ceiling, the House passed a bill that raised the debt ceiling along with some small steps toward controlling Federal spending.

Members of the Progressive-Democratic Party object and are trying to blame Republicans for the debt ceiling imbroglio.

Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D, CA) when asked who would be to blame:

It’s Congress’ job, only Congress can raise the debt limit.

Umm, the Republican-led House did. Where are the Progressive-Democratic Party-led Senate and the Progressive-Democrat who occasionally sits in the Oval Office?

Congressman Seth Moulton (D, MA):

It’s pretty obvious who to blame here—the extremist Republicans who control Kevin McCarthy. …we raised the debt limit three times under Trump because it’s the right thing to do for the country.

Umm, the Republican-led House did this time, too.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, NY) insists that Republicans must

agree to raise the debt limit because, frankly, this is a very serious situation that nobody wants[.]

Umm, the Republican-led House did.

Congressman Jason Crow (D, CO):

The Republicans and Speaker McCarthy in particular need to come to the table in good faith and get this done….

All together now: umm, the Republican-led House did.

And, according to Crow:

We have a Republican-controlled House, and it’s a Republican-controlled House that’s brought us to the brink[.]

Passing a bill that raises the debt ceiling brings us to the brink. Sure.

Progressive-Democrat politicians would complain about being hung with a new rope, if the rope were offered by Republicans. Their intransigence regarding raising the debt ceiling is just the much more dangerous extension of their childish temper tantrums of holding their breath until they’re blue in the face if they can’t have their way.

A Telling Graph

Posted on by
Reply

This one via The Wall Street Journal in an article positing three scenarios regarding our economy and the existing debt ceiling negotiations. The graph, which the WSJ sourced to the Bipartisan Policy Center, is especially dispositive given the backdrop of Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden refusing to negotiate over an already House-passed bill that raises the ceiling along with some initial, and small, spending reforms. That backdrop also includes Biden’s, his Progressive-Democratic Party Congressional cronies’, and journalism’s shrill panic-mongering over default if the debt ceiling isn’t raised.Notice that. Interest on our nation’s debt is tiny compared with the revenue flowing in for June; that means there’ll be no default if Biden and his Treasury Secretary obey our Constitution, the latter which makes the situation plain in the Preamble to Article I, Section 8:

The Congress shall have Power…to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States….

There’s also plenty of revenue with which to make the scheduled principal payments on our debt. In addition to the lack of default, there’s provid[ing] for the common Defence: DoD, military salaries , and veterans’ benefits together, along with Homeland Security, are similarly tiny compared to the revenue coming in. Biden’s lies about cutting those veterans’ benefits in particular are exposed. Then there’s the general Welfare: these comprise the biggest share of that revenue—and there’s plenty of revenue with which to cover Medicare and Social Security as scheduled and with which to make the Medicaid transfers to the States.

The hard numbers will vary from month to month, but the revenues will be there to make the Constitutionally required payments.

What’s necessary to resolve the current situation are two things: Republicans need to stand firm on passing a debt ceiling increase only with spending reforms in order to reduce the need for future ceiling increases (along with, separately and subsequently, passing out of the House, where such things originate, a budget that reduces spending in the out years. There’s no need to wait for Biden’s foolishness of a sham budget proposal, ever), and for Biden and his Party cronies to get serious about negotiating specifics within that framework instead of blindly following an angry old man’s stubbornness.

Debt Limit Extensions

Posted on by
Reply

James Freeman quoted Capital Alpha Partners‘ James Lucier’s prediction concerning reaching the current debt limit and Congress’ response to it:

We think that Congress will pass a temporary extension of the debt limit deadline for 30, 60, or 90 days.

The House already has passed a temporary debt limit extension—of ~365 days.

The sad fact is that all debt limit extensions, of however many years, are merely temporary, and that will continue to be the case until Congress quits spending more money than the Federal government takes in. The most efficient way of achieving that end is to cut spending—not merely reduce its rate of growth.

That efficiency will take We the People getting off our duffs and electing Representatives and Senators—and Presidents—who have the courage to do the cutting.