You know the reality of it all.
Anything else is smoke and mirrors.
We cannot sustain the spending. Either spending goes down, and consequently services are cut, or the whole damn thing falls down.
The dems don't want services cut. So they try everything to keep it going. Their solutions are untenable, unless they cut services and rein in spending.
We are approaching the last crossroads. It is not with this debt ceiling battle, though. The crossroads we are coming to are November, 2012. If we continue on the same road then, we are doomed.
And then you'll all know why I chose my FReeper name all those many years ago. The greatest economic power in history, destroyed.
Before they cut services and rein in spending, they will try to raise taxes and cut defense. They will fight tooth and nail to keep the system going. If history is any judge, in the battle between guns and butter, butter always wins. With 54 million on SS, 47 million on Medicare, 60 million on Medicaid, and 44 million on food stamps, there is a huge constituency to keep the gravy train going. Add Obamacare to the mix and the fact that by 2030 one in five Americans will be 65 and older, twice what it is now, and you have the ingredients for a crisis of epic proportions.
We are approaching the last crossroads. It is not with this debt ceiling battle, though. The crossroads we are coming to are November, 2012. If we continue on the same road then, we are doomed.
This latest smoke and mirrors exercise over the debt ceiling demonstrates that there is not the will among our political elites to make real spending cuts. Rather, both parties continue to play word games about "cuts" that are not reductions in spending but in the rate of the growth of spending. We will still continue to run trillion dollar annual deficits for years to come.
If/when interest rates reach historic norms, we will be paying close to a trillion dollars a year in just debt servicing costs within a decade. Imagine, when Obama took office the national debt was $10 trillion, it is now $14.3 trillion, and by the end of 2012 it will be close to $17 trillion. Alas Babylon!
“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero