Tag: Debt Ceiling (page 2)

"The President's stubborn insistence on raising taxes during a tough economic time is wrongheaded.  We are still in the midst of one of the worst recessions in a generation because of the government's constant threat of the trifecta of higher taxes, excessive regulations, and runaway spending.  Last week's Labor Department report showed more than 14 million Americans are unemployed, the highest number this year, and many are asking where are the President's promised jobs.   Mr. President, I have the answer, and it's found in releasing the constraints on the American people and their exceptionalism.  Tax increases cost jobs.  A serious proposal to get our economy back on track cannot include more taxes for jobs to be created."

So what happens if the debt ceiling is not increased? Why is it important to expand our debt even further to promote a feeling of solvency?  Why is black white, up down, and slow fast?

The above quote is from a letter written by Abraham Lincoln, while serving in the United States Congress (representing Illinois' 7th District), to his friend and law-partner William H. Herndon on 15 February 1848.  The purpose of the quote, and indeed much of the letter, was that Lincoln was defending his Spot Resolutions and his position opposing the Mexican-American War.

Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution clearly specifies that the power to declare war is reserved to Congress only.  While the President is indeed the Commander-in-Chief of the U. S. Armed Forces, he does not have the authority to order the military into an offensive engagement without Congress' consent.

But that's about to change . . . and God help us all if this stands.

To make sense of this statement, we first have to set aside the ridiculous premise that "they've always done it in the past" should guide what Congress does today.

Second, Congress has not always voted to raise the debt ceiling. When they elected not do so in 1995, the sky didn't fall and our economy did not implode. What's really being said here is, "We need to borrow more today so we can begin to have a conversation about saving tomorrow."

And frankly, unless our entire income is outgoing as interest, we will pay our obligations. The threat we will not is absurd. Going forward and adding to that interest burden hardly serves the better prospects of digging ourselves out, unless some have the fantasy that this asphyxiating administration will bring economic prosperity any time sooner, or later.  So shorting the next possibility of balance leaves only one other prospect, and that is collapsing the currency.

The Michigan congressional delegation needs to hear from us, that no more debt is acceptable.  Not now, and not in the future.