That Pesky Debt Ceiling

Yesterday there was a tweet from Ari Fleischer, a former Bush-era press secretary, calling for an end to the debt ceiling.  "It served no purpose", Fleischer noted, except to cause the risk of shutdowns and general antagonism in Congress.

The debt ceiling, of course, is the law, as amended and amended and amended, ad nauseum, wherein the USA is limited in the amount of debt it can take on.  In turn, that limits the spending that Congress can authorize to only that which is funded with actual Treasury funds and what is left to borrow, up to the ceiling.

Now, I like Ari Fleischer, but I would oppose the eliminate the debt ceiling for exactly the same reason that I oppose legalizing addictive, psychoactive drugs.  Proponents of legalizing drugs generally point out that so much crime and violence are caused by the black market in those drugs, and that their legalizing would generate a lot of tax revenues for the government.

The thing is, if it is wrong, it is wrong.  Handing addictive drugs over to the unregulated economy violates our collective security, at least to the extent that we are unwilling to allow soaring addiction rates, dangerously psychotic people out on the streets fearlessly, and a drain on our health-care capacity.

And that's the issue here.

What is wrong, specifically, with eliminating the debt ceiling, is that deficit spending is itself wrong and cannot and must not be tolerated.  We don't actually need a debt ceiling, we need to eliminate new debt.

No action should be taken on the debt ceiling that is not part of a defined and congressionally (or constitutionally) mandated program to require a balanced budget.  States, of course, mostly require that, and it is not really the debt ceiling that facilitates our current $20 trillion debt as much as the lack of a mandated incentive not to borrow, not to spend more than is taken in.

No one is doing that at this moment, although I bet that it is President Trump's inclination to try to get Congress to do something to move to a balanced budget and ban deficit spending.  It was, in fact, laughable that Chuck Schumer, of all people, in having the gall to make "demands" on the majority in the coming tax debate, included one that it would "not affect the deficit."  Democrats.  Making "demands", after being thrashed in several elections.  And insisting on preventing an increase in the deficit.  One has to laugh, perhaps a Sheldon Cooper laugh (link).

So I'm of a mind to insist not only that the debt ceiling be left in place for now, but that the next legislation to increase it build in mandatory reductions over ten years until the 2027 budget is required to be balanced.  Of course, we have to start paying principal, which we don't do now, but that's a really good thing to do also, much as we are required to do as individuals.

Who aren't, you know, "on" something.

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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