Newt vs. Newt

Townhall.com ^ | January 5, 2013 | Steve Deace

[CharlesWayneCT]

He is wrong about the debt limit. Increasing the debt limit has almost nothing to do with the bills we have incurred. It has to do with the bills we will incur in the future. Which is the whole point.

If you get into serious financial trouble, and try to work out your debt problems, you can’t fix it by running to the credit card companies and getting them to give you a higher credit limit. Instead, you put together a spending plan that shows how you will pay off your debt.

The media now sells a fiction that the downgrade of our credit rating was because the republicans “played games” with the debt limit. But the fact is, we were downgraded because in the end, the new debt limit bill did NOT show that we were able to control our spending, and therefore indicated that we would ignore our debt limit in the future, meaning our debts would be less likely to be repaid.

The simple fact is, any current creditor wants to know you will not simply keep borrowing more money, because that indicates you will never get around to paying things back.

Newt falls into the trap of agreeing with Obama about “paying the debts we incurred already”. Thus buying into the notion that a spending bill, once passed, is just like having already spent all the money that bill authorized.

The 14th amendment guarantees that the president WILL pay all creditors as their debt becomes due, and will pay all interest payments on-time. (It does NOT say that we will increase our debt limit, it says that the debt we ALREADY incurred will be faithfully dispositioned).

So if we refuse to increase the debt ceiling, ALL current debt will be unaffected; what will be changed is that we will have to limit spending to what we take in taxes.

BTW, the debt limit will NOT SHUT DOWN GOVERNMENT. It will limit government spending to the amount of revenue collected. So it would be a “half-government-shutdown” at most, since our current tax revenue is between 1/2 and 2/3rds of the total spending.

And since we are about to hit April 15th, the actual tax revenue in the short term will be much higher than average — there may even be a month where we collect more in revenue than we spend.

So, contrary to Newt Gingrich’s ridiculous assertion, the debt limit is EXACTLY the vehicle to use. If I were the republicans, I might even pass a bill that increases the debt limit by a certain amount each month, equal to the projected deficit from their proposed spending cut plan; that way, Obama can decide whether to simply NOT sign that bill, forcing a bigger crisis, or sign that bill and have more money to spend.

Note that by doing so, there’d be no logical reason for the senate not to pass the bill, since it wouldn’t preclude a different bill later, and would do nothing but improve the situation for government. Of course, the media would say otherwise.

My thoughts on shutdown will be in the other thread.....

[Servant of the Cross]

IMHO, Newt probably agrees with much of what you say regarding the debt limit. He is strategically thinking on how best to win the debate in the rigged messaging game that exists in our media environment. If we argue the debt limit, the Dems and their MSM mouthpiece will scream that the full faith and credit of the USA is in jeopardy. And 0bama will say that the Social Security checks of our retirees will be stopped. It doesn't matter that it's not true. The State Run Media will say it's true and therefore it is. It sucks but it is what it is.

Therefore, Newt is searching for messaging that DOESN'T get caught in that losing trap. Newt is playing chess while you insist on checkers.