Posted on 02/11/2014 5:22:17 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
A mere eight weeks from the December budget deal, House Republicans on Tuesday bowed to the inevitable and allowed a vote on a "clean" debt-ceiling increase that Democrats promptly passed—no reform strings attached. Perhaps as a follow-up the GOP could repeal the debt ceiling altogether and finally end this periodic self-torture.
Before it created the debt ceiling in 1917, Congress had to vote to approve each new government bond issue, specifying the amount to be borrowed and the terms. This is in stark contrast to today's practice, when Treasury is generally free to borrow at will until it hits the statutory borrowing limit. Congress could repeal the debt ceiling and go back to approving each new debt issue.
Returning to the pre-1917 practice might provide better negotiating leverage to limit taxes and spending. It would also make Congress again directly responsible for government borrowing, returning some political accountability for federal debt accumulation that hasn't existed for nearly 100 years.
We realize this is precisely why Congress won't do it. But wouldn't it be nice to be free of more debt-ceiling melodrama that is designed to make voters think Washington cares about the debt but does nothing to reduce it?
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
No, enforce existing debt ceiling.
There is a certain logic to this.
If the ceiling is going to be reflexively raised every time it’s hit, there’s no point in having it.
The real problem is runaway deficit spending.
Fix that and the “debt ceiling” problem goes away.
Like that’s ever going to happen.
congress did not “vote on a “clean” debt-ceiling increase”.
They voted to suspendd the debt ceiling entirely for a year.
Treasury can borrow all it wants to for any spending authorized by law.
Repeal the GOP!
They should just quit counting it...
First: Repeal that worthless POS Boehner!
No.
We need to have some say in how much we owe. Plus it publicizes our debt.
It is a very constitutional act to authorize debt.
It is very practical to set our limits instead of letting the lenders set them- which is what the opponents are in favor of.
When we hit the lenders’ limit it will cost us big time.
I agree for the most part. The “debt ceiling” is a fantasy, and nobody plans to abide by it; there’s always a way around it, and no way to enforce it. Even shutting down the government didn’t force people to take it seriously because the Dems unnecessarily made life so miserable for the average citizen that no politician wanted to stick it out long enough to really bother anybody in government.
It’s meaningless.
Nothing will be done until the whole thing blows up. Only then will there be change.
None of the politicians currently in power will ever stop the spending spree.
i think if we repealed every law written in the last 100 years we would become again the richest and most envied country in the world!
From my last count, that would be over 200 thousand laws ... you might be right, but ain’t gana happen.
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