As America rides the great glass elevator of irresponsible spending toward the ceiling of its national debt, many have noted Barack Obama used to be adamantly opposed to raising the debt ceiling. That was back in 2006, when some other guy from some other party was President. The hot new excuse for this change of heart, trotted out by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, is that President Obama “now believes it was a mistake” to stand against limitless debt.
“We believe that we should move quickly to raise the debt limit, and we support a clean piece of legislation to do that,” said Carney. “Clean” means no filthy, annoying conditions, smeared by people like Marco Rubio onto the beautiful and pristine declaration that government can go on spending imaginary money forever. Insolvency should be served straight with no chaser.
Don’t worry, because our suddenly responsible President – fresh from his triumph in dragging all of America into $38 billion of much-needed spending cuts – knows that the government can’t really keep going further into debt forever. It needs to stop the madness no later, and no sooner, than about ten years from now, judging by the budget he submitted recently. “Concurrently” with the blinding purity of the next debt extension, but not “linked” with it, Obama “is going to demonstrate on Wednesday his commitment again to deficit reduction.” Remember, folks, vitally needed projects such as solar shingles and high-speed rail are not “spending” and do not increase any sinister “deficits.” That stuff just happens, if you believe in Hope and Change.
Of course, all these “commitments” to fiscal responsibility in the future will melt away, once the government gets another trillion I.O.U.s to play with. There is no reason to believe this time, Wimpy really will pay us Tuesday for a hamburger today. The only thing Obama is guaranteed to do for deficit reduction is propose tax increases, and he wanted to do that anyway. The statutory debt ceiling is the only thing guaranteed to halt runaway spending. It should not be traded away for a couple of speeches by the father of ObamaCare. Remember, Obama’s people are still pushing the idiotic talking point that repealing his trillion-dollar health care boondoggle will somehow increase the deficit. That tells you everything you need to know about their idea of “deficit reduction.”
Did you like the $38 billion in cuts Obama is taking credit for? If you want to see that kind of spending reduction every week, leave the debt ceiling in place. Contrary to all the scaremongering, it wouldn’t cause the government to collapse. If any vital services were interrupted, it would be because Barack Obama willed it so. A firm debt ceiling would crush the life out of Big Government, due to the relentless pressure from mounting interest on the national debt.
We should demand a lot more than vague promises about “concurrent demonstrations of commitment” before we let the Democrats out of the trap they worked so hard to build for themselves. Meanwhile, savor the absurdity of a man who claims an impending collapse, brought about by unsustainable spending, convinced him he was wrong… back when he thought government debt had limits, and casually disregarding those limits was madness.
