Posted on 01/13/2023 10:59:31 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
“Everyone who has a 401(k) or pensions that contains US government bonds would take a massive hit.”
31 trillion worth? But I get you. So, then let’s say the bonds are protected. What else?
Appreciate the reply. My question is can the house now refuse to raise the limit without cuts from the authorized omnibus spending, like the 87000 IRS hires for example? By not passing a debt limit increase, do we somehow regain power of the purse, through a spending freeze or otherwise?
Every Republican who votes to raise the debt limit should be primaried. The solution is to SLASH SPENDING on all social programs.
The fact that I had to ask the question shows how ridiculously convoluted the government spending process has become...
Just say no. No increases.
“The “debt limit” seems to mean little or nothing.”
It is simply an announcement that the govt is going to keep paying on its loans on the spending it has Already Approved. If congress didn’t raise the ceiling, the entire world economy would come to a screeching halt.
Think about what happens when podunk Third World countries announce they can’t pay their debts.
“31 trillion worth? But I get you. So, then let’s say the bonds are protected. What else?”
You do realize that is what government debt is. Bonds. The government issues bonds and people give the government money in exchange for those bonds. Then at some point in the future the government redeems those bonds by paying interest and principal back to the people who bought the bonds.
All the wealth of Americans would instantly disappear and the following year we’d be eating bugs off each other.
Basically - they went over the credit card max and now seek to raise the limit [for the fiftieth time in a row].
They do these extraordinary actions every year or so.
Something that common, doesn’t seem extraordinary.
(I know it is a “term” used in the process.)
Walking away would be a bad thing for the economy.
“31 trillion worth? But I get you. So, then let’s say the bonds are protected. What else?”
This is how the real world works:
Announce you will make payments on the debt you already approved or the entire world economy stops functioning. As stupid as congresscritters can be, they know when they VOTE for the debt that they have to announce they are going to make the payments. It’s a paperwork formality that has been turned into political opera for people who are making fools of anyone that takes it seriously.
Is $31 trillion in debt too much to make payments on? How much could we get for Alaska? We have the ultimate commodities backing our ability to pay, oil, nat gas and many others. many We’ve been told the system was on the verge of collapse since long before it was $1 trillion. Somebody has been wrong about that for a long time, over and over.
If we declared a national debt emergency, and govt worked WITH energy producers for once and produced energy on the equivalent of a war footing, we could pay down that debt quite nicely. Every citizen and illegal alien would be much richer, all the way down to the homeless.
Why limit it to that? Simply cut the budget by 10%. Across the board.
If they are good managers, they will find a way. I know I was asked to do that a few times in my career.
That said, the government IS the economy. So, slashing budgets would end up with massive unemployment and lots of pissed off citizens.
In early December 2022 (which, if memory serves me right, was after the elections, during the lame duck, and before the last omnibus bill), the Washington Post printed the above story saying “sometime in 2023”, the US will hit the debt limit again. That “sometime in 2023” is less than 20 days into the year.
Until the Republicans can actually articulate a simple concept like “hey, y’all knew this was coming, you still passed a 1.7 trillion dollar spending bill anyway, this is on you.”, this stupid game will keep going.
Maybe they could articulate simple concepts like that if they weren’t in on the scam themselves.
I say raise the debt limit with the provision that every earmark from a republican who was retiring or voted out of office gets stripped and deallocated. The dems will get what they want and the republicans will get what they deserve.
Shouldn’t have done all that spending
“you still passed a 1.7 trillion dollar spending bill anyway, this is on you.”
It’s their collective responsibility, they are all in it. The Constitution says the House SHALL produce an annual budget. Every House Member should resign/be impeached just over that. This is a joint effort and they will continue in this fashion.
When you approve your spending for a year, you don’t hit your imaginary “ceiling” for a year. These debt ceiling approvals and the hidden deals used to make them are how they approve even more spending/debt under the table.
Congress should offer to fund the essentials and nothing more. That is one way to walk back out of the crap in the recently passed bill.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.