By Fareed Zakaria, CNN
I know you have all heard so much about the debt ceiling that you're probably exhausted. But I think it's important to point out a few facts because this matter has been so clouded by rhetoric.
Did you know that there is only one other country in the world that even has a debt ceiling? That's Denmark, a strange anomaly, and its debt ceiling is deliberately kept very high so that it will never need to be raised.
Why does no one else have a debt ceiling?
Because when a legislature votes to authorize spending at a certain level but authorizes tax revenues at a lower level, it is assumed that the government will have to borrow the difference.
The vote to have higher expenditures than tax revenues is - in effect - a vote to borrow money to cover the difference.
And in the United States, Congress - including Republicans - voted for a budget in which expenditures exceeded tax revenues.
The logical consequence of that budget - again, passed by Republicans and Democrats, is that the government has to make up the difference by borrowing.
To come at it now after the budget has been passed is like getting your Visa bill and calling up the company to say, "Actually we don't want to buy all that stuff we bought."
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3 comments:
the quote i'll reference is "we don't want to pay for all that stuff we bought".
ok; how about returning SOME of the things you bought and haven't used. how about cutting waste and fraud and abuse. i realize this takes work but that's why you're there.
cut 1% per year for the next 8 years (this has already been proposed).
fareek is very liberal and really doesn't get it. he is right to say the damage has probably already been done. this is unfortunate; but we have an idiot or a deceptive; maybe both, president.
none of this will get better until we get the dems out and more real conservatives in office.
Is this supposed to be and arguement FOR a high debt ceiling and high debt levels?
In reality there should be a very low debt ceiling and no reason other than emergency to ever use it.
We curretnly borrow 37% of what we spend. If GDP improves, we can expect this number to maybe go down to the mid 20's. How do you expect 8% cuts to do anything to get us out of debt?
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