Debt Ceiling

Bill or no Bill?

We wrote in an earlier posting that we were not economist, didn't even play ecomomist on television, so no matter how we look at this bill which will raise the debt ceiling we can not understand how adding $3 trillion to our borrowing limit while cutting the budget by only $1 trillion over the next ten years will do anything except raise our National debt to over $17 trillion. That $1 trillion cut over the next ten years will not even cover the borrowing of money needed to redeem a portion of the IOUs in the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds in order to pay current retiree's benefits. Again we ask, Are all politicians born that way or do they go to a special school to learn deception?

As to the actual cutting of the budget, nobody talks about what will actually be cut but if history repeats itself all the cuts will be to needed programs while completely ignoring waste and fraud. Will they leave duplicate and overlapping programs while closing libraries and much used National Parks? Will they cut back on Federal employees even by not replacing retiring employees? Will they cut out the Cost Of Living Adjustments (COLAs) for all Federal employees as they have for Social Security recipients or will they cap all Federal salaries at current levels? If you think the President or Congress has done anything but lead us to the brink of default then we have a bridge for sale. Maybe the promise of a vote on a bill to balance the budget will be worth something. At least, if they vote, we will know who is against a balanced budget. That could be something to use in the next election.

We'll be waiting to see how things work out before we say much more but we, at this time, have our doubts. Thanks for your time and input. Stay tuned. - William