Watching TV while eating lunch today inspired this rant. Relevant ideas for your consideration:

  1. The budget “cuts” are compounded over ten years, but the debt ceiling raise is just until it gets used up again. So when they talk about “$2 Trillion in cuts and $2 Trillion in debt ceiling increase” what they mean is they will cut $200 Billion a year from the budget, and raise the debt ceiling by $2 Trillion. Since the deficit is $1.6 Trillion, if they cut $200 Billion the deficit will be $1.4 Trillion, meaning that the added $2 Trillion debt will be used up and the debt ceiling will need to be raised again in about a year and a half (right after our next chance to hold them accountable, November 2012!), by which time we will have “saved”…about $300 Billion. In other words, we will go $2 Trillion deeper in debt and will have cut $300 Billion from our spending. They will get to continue to promise us things they can’t deliver until right after the election.
  2. There’s a story going around right now about the scary, deadly August 2 deadline. It goes something like this: “Tax receipts for August are expected to be about $170 Billion, and expenses are more than that, so we’re going to default in August unless we raise the debt ceiling.” This story is complete crapola. The fact is that, while receipts are expected to be about $170 Billion in August 2011, interest expenses are expected to be in the neighborhood of $35 Billion, so there is no credible threat of August causing us to stiff our creditors. (Side note: our creditors ARE going to be stiffed, but by the Federal Reserve’s printing presses, not the debt ceiling.)
  3. There’s another argument that is also popular but is also very revealing. It goes like this: “We need to raise the debt ceiling so that we can continue to pay our bills”. This is virtually the same thing as the ever-popular “We need to apply for another credit card because all of our cards are maxed out.” It is just as revealing and stupid.
  4. “The world will come to an end if we don’t raise the debt ceiling.” How many times are we going to let them use the “Armageddon” tactic against us? It is always used to get us to surrender either our rights (9/11 = PATRIOT ACT) or the fruits of our labor: TARP, bank bailouts, QE / QE2, foreclosure fraud, debt ceiling, you name it, it’s always about stealing something from us, isn’t it? I, for one, am tired of being stolen from at the point of a rifle by people who are supposed to be my servants. They spend the money in order to cement their power over me. Why should I buy into that?
  5. “We can raise the debt ceiling now and work out the spending cuts later.” Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me countless times, shame on me.
  6. “We need to raise the debt ceiling in order to preserve our creditworthiness.”   This is just monumentally stupid, and you should immediately and forcefully challenge the intelligence of anyone who ever says that to you. We need to borrow more money in order to preserve our credit rating? What they’re really saying is that we need to borrow more money in order to be able to make debt payments. This is either an admission that the person making the statement really is an idiot, which should be pointed out to them loudly and repeatedly in the most disrespectful manner possible, or that we are already in a debt trap, which means that borrowing more money is only delaying the inevitable. We might not have enough income to pay all of our bills, but we DO have enough income to pay interest on our current debt. Maybe we can raise money by firing everyone who works for TSA and sell all the airport naked body scanners back to Chertoff, or maybe Larry Flynt will buy them. After all, TSA is nothing more than the WPA with guns and attitude.
  7. “Tax the Rich.” Damn those rich people! Now, first I want to personally thank rich people who got that way by working hard and running a successful business, bringing a useful and quality product or service to market at a competitive price. Thank you for your faith in genuine free market capitalism. Next, I want to demean, in the most demeaning terms imaginable, all those who got rich by selling fraudulent financial products, cashed out at just the right time, used a few percent of the ill-gotten proceeds to bribe regulators and legislators to avoid being prosecuted for fraudulent acts, used Congress and the Fed to paper over the mess with taxpayer cash, and made recovery impossible by zombifying banks to avoid taking losses. As this crisis continues to unfold, you will find yourselves ever more in the hot seat; the facts are coming out. And that is as it should be. The civil suits are starting to fly.
  8. “The debt ceiling is unconstitutional and we’re going to ignore it.” This formalization of our debt-slavery and casual brushing aside of the facade of “representative government” would push millions of patriots off the fence and into our camp. Please do this, and right away. Pretty Please?