The bad news is that America will exceed its debt limit of $14.3 trillion sometime next week. Still worse news is that Sec. of the Treasury Timothy Geithner says he can play games with the nation’s books and keep paying the bills until Aug. 2.
Geithner should have kept that to himself. Giving Congress 10 more weeks of grace before it must act responsibly probably guarantees 10 more weeks of posturing and increasingly stupid games of chicken.
Of course the nation must pay its bills on time; must keep its credit rating sound worldwide. To default, as investor Roger Altman said, is “the fiscal equivalent of suicide.” (Investors, let us remind ourselves, are the job creators everyone wants to keep on board.)
Chances are that some of the major players will start punishing the dollar and the U.S. well before Aug. 2 if Congress continues to play politics with the nation’s good standing rather than increase the debt limit — which probably should be abolished in any case — and getting back to the nation’s business.
House Speaker John Boehner pushed bipartisan action further into the future Tuesday with a unilateral declaration that taxing the rich at 10-year-ago levels was “off the table” and denying that Congress would even consider ending the tax breaks for an oil industry rolling in wealth created by today’s sky-high prices.
Doing so, he said, is a “non-starter.”
What he considers “a starter” is $2 trillion or more in budget cuts put into effect right now. That would be enough, he said, to win Republican support for lifting the debt limit so the United States of America can remain a nation of good standing in the world community. (Implication: Republicans are for America, Democrats are not.)
Maybe an acceptable exaggeration for a high school sophomore to make in a first debate. An absolutely preposterous statement for the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives to make, considering that he is fully aware of how power is divided in the nation’s capitol in 2011.
Both parties created the deficit. Both parties support budgets for the coming year that require additional borrowing. Both parties should work together to bring spending in line with income, as it was just 11 years ago.
But the government can’t be run for the next decade or more without borrowing every budget year. The alternative to raising the budget limit is going out of business.
A business can shut its doors and turn out the lights. Perhaps a nation can also fold up its tent and walk away into the sunset. Even a nation which many like to think is the greatest that ever was or ever will be.
Mr. Boehner seems to think so. I hope he’s wrong.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
