Gearing Up for Debt Ceiling Debate

At some point in October of 2015, the Obama Administration will ask for yet another Debt Ceiling increase under threats of some inevitable apocalyptic federal default on the national debt. Obviously, we’ve been here before; and I think we all know what John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and President Obama intend to do. President Obama will threaten to deliberately default on the national debt (as opposed to activating immediate reductions in spending, as any American Household would have to do after maxing out their credit cards). Boehner and McConnell will run around Washington parroting Obama’s threat of  a national default, as if it was both inevitable and necessary. They will force their representatives in the House and Senate (the ones elected by us, but who never seem to represent us) to increase the debt limit.

Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Jim Jordan, Dave Brat, Thomas Massie, Justin Amash, and Mark Meadows will try to force the issue, prevent an increase in debt, and be vilified by the Republican and Democrat parties. The media will run story after story about how any debate on raising the debt limit will hurt the Republicans chances in 2016 (and why Republicans listen to Democrats in the media with regard to what is good for the Republican Party in midterm and Presidential elections is still well beyond me!). The debt limit will be raised once again, with no end in sight and no hope of fiscal responsibility from this government in the future.

I will throw this fact out there for nothing: If the government increases our debt and our spending, ad infinitum, our money will eventually be worth a great deal less than it’s worth today. Maybe the dollars we do have, today, would be well spent on financing the campaigns of representatives like Dave Brat, Justin Amash, Thomas Massie, and Mark Meadows (and all the rest of the good guys out there). Just saying.

We need to offer up alternative plans today, which can be repeated in October. We can’t afford to wait to October to offer alternatives because it will reek of showmanship and grandstanding. If we offer up alternatives today, however, it is not like the House of Representatives wouldn’t have had the time to think about it.

We could come up with a five point plan to stave off a debt increase. We could immediately defund Planned Parenthood and end all corporatist subsidies and loopholes which, while helpful to well-connected corporations who purchase a plethora of politicians to ensure low levels of free market competition, do very little for the average American citizen. We could immediately end 30, 40, or 50 nonessential federal programs and studies. We could lay off thousands of federal employees through the end of the fiscal year. We could reduce or end foreign aid to anti-American countries. We could use this opportunity to stick a final fork in the Export-Import Bank.

There are a thousand ways our government could save money if they wanted to save money. We could offer bonuses of up to $250,000 a year to bureaucratic department heads for coming up 5% under budget. The options are endless. If only we considered any options whatever.

Let’s reach out to our Congressmen and Women in the House of Representatives today and ask them what we might do to reduce spending in order to stave off increasing the debt limit. Let’s ask to see legislation and amendments brought to the floor when Congress comes back from recess.

I also would like to hear every Virginia Congressman state publicly, in Newspapers or on Television, that the debt ceiling is not inevitably tied to a default on our national debt, that a default on our national debt could only occur by direct executive action out of the White House. It’s true. People should know that.

At the very least, we should tie this vote on a debt ceiling increase to spending cuts and cuts to waste, fraud, and abuse, tied with a bow of a congressional promise to never request a debt limit higher than the one before us today. Let’s make this debt ceiling increase the last debt ceiling increase in our nations’ history. We need to begin to lower the debt ceiling, not raise it. The ideas must start coming out tomorrow. Or Sunday, if any of our faithful politicians by chance have spots on our meaningless Sunday Shows.