“If you buy a car,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre explained the other day, “you are expected to pay the monthly payment…It’s that simple.”
Is it? Now, obviously, those who argue that the president can cancel millions of student loans by decree aren’t in a position to offer lessons on personal responsibility. The deeper problem with Jean-Pierre’s analogy, though, is that there isn’t a bank on Earth that’s going to keep lines of credit open when a person is compounding unsustainable debt year after year.
Speaking of which, the federal government has already hit the debt limit. The Treasury Department is now relying on “extraordinary measures” that will sputter out by June, at which time we will all be forced to forage for food and barter for medicine. The only thing that can save us from this dystopian hellscape, Jean-Pierre explains, is for Congress to do its “job” and return to regular order.
The White House press secretary is apparently unaware that regular order would entail Senate Democrats passing a bill and then negotiating with House Republicans, who have already passed a bill raising the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion into 2024.
Until this week, Democrats wouldn’t even talk to Republicans on the matter. In the old days, this kind of absolutist position would have every newspaper wringing its hands about GOP “obstructionism” and the dysfunction of the political system. Today, outlets like The New York Times simply pretend Republican bills are apparitions. “Are Republicans Willing to Raise the Debt Ceiling?” asks the editorial board this week.
Does the Times not know that the GOP has already agreed to lift the ceiling? They do. They pretend it isn’t real because it includes “deep cuts in federal spending” (by which they mean a return to last year’s discretionary spending levels, with no cuts moving forward), the reversal of “investments in tax enforcement” (some 80,000 new IRS cops monitoring, among other things, Venmo accounts with more than $600), a rollback of some “green energy” boondoggles, and so on.
And anyway, the Times notes, President Joe Biden has offered Republicans “a reasonable path to resolve the standoff” in which the GOP raises the ceiling without any conditions as Democrats demand, and then Biden will “separately negotiate measures to slow the growth of the federal debt.”
Dear Lord, can you imagine The New York Times editorial board urging Democrats to table their policy concerns and simply trust that a Republican president will negotiate in good faith at some undetermined, future time? And not any president, but one who claims a $3.5 trillion inflation-inducing bill “costs zero dollars.” So, not exactly a whiz with numbers.
But that’s not even the most ridiculous sentence in the editorial. The Times also contends that the debt ceiling “is not a useful mechanism for preventing the federal government from living beyond its means,” when that’s exactly why the law exists in the first place.
If the debt ceiling is mechanically lifted without any debate over spending, then it doesn’t really exist. If you want to spend without any limit, just say so. But even the Times concedes that Washington is “living beyond its means.” So, then, why is it more “reasonable” to negotiate the slowing of spending now, when the ceiling is in view, than a month from now or a year from now when there is no incentive to do anything?
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who for weeks was sending out snarky tweets demanding House Speaker Kevin McCarthy show the country his plan on the debt ceiling, won’t negotiate. And it’s clear that Biden is now pondering invoking the 14th Amendment and simply ignoring the debt ceiling much in the way he ignores the law on a slew of other issues. Such a move would almost surely be overturned by the Supreme Court – because, as Ilya Shapiro succinctly put it, “a constitutional provision that prevents repudiation of debt doesn’t also somehow authorize limitless new debt.”
Democrats spend their time blaming GOP administration for the preponderance of our debt – most of which Biden has voted for as a senator or helped shepherd through in the executive branch. No one is innocent on that front, of course, but most of our debt is propelled by constantly expanding entitlement programs, which are treated with a reverence by the left that the Constitution can never attain.
But even if the GOP were culpable for every single dollar of debt and were engaged in blatant hypocrisy, it wouldn’t change the fact that they are objectively correct today in arguing that we need to slow spending and mitigate debt. The arguments used to oppose even a modicum of responsible budgeting do not make any sense.
David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books – the most recent, “Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent.” His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post and numerous other publications. Follow him on Twitter @davidharsanyi.
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The U.S. Constitution calls itself the “supreme law of the land.” This clause is taken to mean that when state constitutions or laws passed by state legislatures or the national Congress are found to conflict with the federal Constitution, they have no force.
—Article 1 Section 8: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States Clause 2: To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
—14 Amendment Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States,..…shall not be questioned.
—Congress by approved legislation determined a cap on federal debt, the debt or the debt cap is not in question, however, any debt occurring passed the approved debt cap would be not valid or enforceable because, it had not not been approved by congressional legislation.
— With Congress aware of previous statements of using the 14th Amendment, congress should be preparing to take congressional legislative action and preparing for federal litigation. The POTUS does have the Constitutional authority to usurp the Constitution.
Edit: ** does not have
Thanks for a truthful unbiased report on this issue.
Here we go again. For the 200th time the media revs up the old “the government is gonna
shutdown” bull____ . If only that were possible. Then we would spend no money. AWESOME !
Or: ” the govt is going to send employees home” Reality is that only 17% of federal govt
workers would go home and these are all unneeded employees that we can do without.
After 2 weeks, always, these employees come back and are paid all back pay. Thus the
not needed employees are given paid vacation. Only in the US.
RULE 2: The media always blames this on the Repubs. Always.
So lets turn off the media and read a book or take up knitting.
The “Media” is and has been for many decades past always promotes the DemocRat Party agenda. Even during the depression the Media was never nipping at the heals of the DemocRats. Over the past century, the “Media” by-and-large promotes and praises the ineptitude of the DemocRat Party as a pure cover-up … and that seems to be largely the present state of affairs. Adding the Media bias to the eptness of the DemocRats, it is tough for the American voter to overcome the election rigging that the DemocRat Party has as its most productive success.
This is a prime example of how the attitude of the president and senate are known for their senatorial arrogance. They will be that way unitl or unless they get their way in controlling the lives of the American people.
It makes perfect sense. Part of their agenda is to reward friends and political allies. They can’t do that if spending is cut. Under their new monetary theory, if Govt needs money they turn on the printing press and computer to create money. Thereby devaluing the money already in circulation….. Magic INFLATION!
Beijing biden has NO grounds to invoke the 14th Amendment Section 4.
It does NOT cover or say anything Beijing biden is trying to use it for. Such as for political power and control for one side only, meaning theirs.
I strongly suggest everybody read it.
This is a fear tactic so he can continue to put the United States DEEPER in DEBT by continuing unchecked spending so he can RAISE TAXES MORE to PAY for MORE DEBT and SOCIALISM with his ILLEGAL ALIEN TERRORIST INVASION including still sending $BILLIONS to Ukraine.
Your Great grandchildren’s kids, kids are still going to be paying for Beijing biden’s DEBT and he wants to SPEND MORE on everything but the UNITED STATES and AMERICANS.
Beijing biden has done nothing but turn YOU into a SLAVE paying all your income on TAXES and INFLATION. That’s why he wants to raise the Debt Ceiling.
Just check your Bank account.
Another excellent reason why I am Voting for:
PRESIDENT TRUMP.
One last thing…If Beijing biden is so worried about the Debt Ceiling then why is he leaving for Japan next week for the G7 Summit?
Wonder how many will be flying in on their Private Jets causing Global Warming?
Well David, as you well know the magic jets of the Democrats and their supporters do not contribute to global warming. Neither do any of their insane energy policies, tax policies, spending policies, bribery scandals, attacks on the conservative Supreme Court justices, attacks on conservative Christian voters, parents of school age children, anyone who is opposed to mutilating children to change their gender, anyone who harms someone in self defense, and anyone who ask for documents from anywhere in the justice department to confirm that crimes of high treason have been committed. It seems that everyone in government has forgotten that they took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. To work for the common good of the American People not a certain political agenda.
Instead of admitting they (the New Age style Democrats), want to spend money with no constraints as if the money doesn’t need to be budgeted for every project, they instead spend time trying to blame something else for why there needs to be a budget—like using Social Security and Medicare programs as being abused by seniors ( all of us who are on Social Security already and actually contributed while working into the fund), because eliminating that cost from the budget means they, the Democrats, will be able to give more “free benefits” to non-contributing individuals who will do whatever they say to get their “free stuff” After all, Medicaid needs expansion to provide “free healthcare” but seniors are getting “too much coverage” with Medicare. And why do seniors need their social security since they have money already? I highly doubt that seniors have a monopoly on the entire group being the 1% rich. Most of us, seniors, rely on Social Security for 90% of our income in retirement because we support the families in our lives, but the younger generations think we don’t need that money and should be eliminated.
The Democratic creative math is a dead end. Bad math, no common sense, hate of anything or anyone American, and liars. Shame on them and shame on them who support and vote for them. Jesus talks about what parent would give their child a snake when they are hungry. Answer: anyone who cares only for their own interest. Oh sounds like people in our government—not the conservative for sure. Marxist-Democrats-Communists-anyone that is anti-American.
Why even worry about this? The country is done……finished. Stick a fork in us……..done. Forget about waiting til 2024…….too late. We are going to experience a change in living standards we will find it difficult to believe when the dollar completes its transition away from being a forced at gunpoint “reserve currency”. We gave/sold our industrial base away, our youth refuse to even consider actually working. Too many citizens are too stupid to know what a male or female is. Our military accepts criminal, gay, transexual, fat slobs that can barely read. We blindly follow governmental medical decrees.
We are done but what is worse is that we deserve it.
“Our youth refuse to even consider working”
grampa the youth is trying to solve their rent problems not old people problems get over it.
You ain’t gonna solve squat playing pokemon or making Tik Toks.
GET A JOB. (like we did)
I don’t care. Call your grandkids and talk to them about getting a job.
oh wait you can’t. They don’t talk to you.
Explain Social Security fund to me. News media this week said SS benefits will stop if default. According to AARP bulletin May 2023, their was a $2.83 Trillion surplus in the SS fund at end of 2022, so why cannot these monthly SS checks go out. When SS started in 1935, Social Security taxes went into a separate fund so that govt. could not spend this. The govt. has borrowed from this fund & owes/pays a lot back to this fund every year. Congress needs to shore up this fund so that benefits continue past 2034 & whatever happens do not let Congress roll this SS fund into the general fund so that govt. will not have to repay what they have borrowed. This threat of stopping SS benefits if debt ceiling is not raised by June 1st is a threat to American taxpayers that should not happen. Social Security is not an entitlement, but is a benefit that Americans get back the tax money they have paid in on their wages + the employer matches this tax & today both of them combined pay ound 12.4% FICA taxes on wages. Both parties need to answer this question, & perhaps AMAC can answer?
I explained how SS works (It is essentially a pay-go system where those working today pay for the current retirees of today. Money in, money out with most of the currently money you receive being drawn from the surplus because the ratio of active workers per number of retirees has declined to less than 3 to 1 from the original 16 to 1 back in 1935. There are several reasons for this ratio change over the decades, which are all well documented. With any excess tax receipts left over from the monthly payout being rolled into what politicians call a surplus fund. That is then invested in U.S. Treasury bonds which is a whole other story as why it was structured that way. Back when I worked at the Federal Reserve I spoke with a number of Treasury people to validate the accuracy of how and why SS was designed the way it is. It is somewhat of a convoluted mess, but that was intentional by the original designers of the program.
There have even been a few decent articles written on the subject here and elsewhere over the years, that cover the main points you are asking about in much greater detail. To make this short and sweet, the so-called SS fund has enough money in it to continue paying existing retirees until the early 2030s. So the fear mongering you may be hearing on whatever network you watch on TV is just trying to scare you and others to try and force seniors to demand Republicans in Congress cave to Biden’s demand for just upping the debt limit without any spending (reducing the rate of budget growth, not actual, real cuts) cuts the House wants. It’s just fear mongering 101, so you can just ignore the noise. As I pointed out in my original post below, this is all largely political theater being played out in Washington.
It has many years since Congress has raised FICA taxes. SS benefits were raised about +8% this year & the FICA & Medicare taxes stayed the same. In my opinion, Congress must raise the taxes on wages & increase the top limit on FICA if they really want Social Security to survive. Otherwise , it will end for the reasons that you talk about. I still think there is time to save Social Security or Congress can do nothing & let benefits drop around year 2034. I admire the foresight shown by the Government in 1935 when they set up SS system & were astute enough to keep it separate & out of General Fund.
I come at the issue of saving SS from the purely economic realities perspective, like most professional economists and money managers, rather than the political talking points perspective uttered on TV. While some politicians will talk of raising FICA taxes and an ever-decreasing number of workers to retiree’s ratio, the actual answer, based on the growing number of retirees and longer lifespans is to generate a higher rate of return so the program won’t be under constant threat.
If the SS program is to be saved, the answer lies in generating a greater return on the money collected via taxes. That means broadening the investment base for the funds collected beyond just U.S. Treasuries. Which are the absolute worst investment to place 100 percent of any retirement plan’s money in, if the number of retirees is steadily increasing and the rate of inflation stays above that low number for an extended period of time. Both of which have been the case for decades now.
Up until recently, the long-term return on U.S. Treasures has been slightly over 1 percent annually even as number of retirees has been on the upswing for the last 20 years. Thus the program is hemorrhaging money for years and years now. The federal government does NOT want to diversify its investment stream for SS, because the American people, via their FICA taxes, are the single largest consistent domestic buyer of U.S. Treasuries which underpins how the federal government finances its debt. In much simpler terms, diversification of investment by the SS program would force the United States government to trim its rate of spending on everything, because the remaining domestic and foreign buyers of Treasuries would be insufficient to cover the spending spree the government has been on for decades.
Here’s a little math exercise for you to do to understand how simple it would be to fix SS. Take the $2.83 Trillion dollar surplus and calculate the interest income generated off that sum at a 1 percent annual interest rate. Now take that same $2.83 Trillion dollar surplus number and instead calculate the interest income using a 5 percent rate of return, which has been the safe and sustainable rate of return available on numerous investment grade investments for the last 25 years. You’ll see that not only would the solvency issue of the SS program be solved, but the government could actually afford to pay a higher annual COLA going forward. All without any need for an increase in FICA taxes.
As for FDR’s crowd in 1935, who just essentially copied the German version of a national retirement plan in order to find a means to finance the country after WW1 via creating a market for German bonds following WWI. I wouldn’t use the term foresight to describe the FDR crowd. They were far from honest with the American people at the time and they certainly didn’t design the system to account for either the inevitable increase in lifespans nor expansion of the number of recipients from various politicians. If you or I would have tried to put a so-called supplemental retirement plan into place designed exactly like SS, we would be in prison. The only reason the government got away with it is because it is the government.
There is NO CEILING TO DEMOCRATS SPENDING!
There has been no ceiling for either party for the last 13-years, thru Obama,Trump,Biden as National debt has increased every year by +$1 Trillion
I suggest you take a look at the approximately 70 times the national debt ceiling has been raised over the last 100 years before you attempt to draw some sort of correlation. The national debt has been on a steady upswing over the last 40 years, with both political parties showing less and less fiscal restraint in Congress to actually do any real cost cutting (as opposed to simply slowing the annual rate of automatic budget increases) of wasteful and unnecessary spending. The last 25 years have been especially disastrous in terms of spending with abandon by both parties of Congress. The administrative state has successfully leveraged the largely hands-off approach of Congress, in terms of managing fiscal policy at an agency or department level, over the last quarter century to create unaccountable fiefdoms.
Looking back at history, the last balanced budget was when Bill Clinton was in office. Do you agree with that & how many years ago that was .
You do seem fixated on Clinton. The reason the budget was balanced is the House Republicans under Gingrich forced Clinton to accept certain social program reforms and spending cuts. It’s not like Clinton unilaterally did anything unilaterally. By the way, Clinton had to raise the debt ceiling during his term in office as well. Everything was a negotiation, unlike the current clown in the WH demanding nothing in exchange for the $1.5 Trillion dollar debt limit boost McCarthy is offering him.
If your end-game position is to destroy the country, it makes perfect sense.
“The arguments used to oppose even a modicum of responsible budgeting do not make any sense.” Sure they do…especially when your goal is to bring this country to it’s knees. To bankrupt it, to systematically dismantle everything about it.
The Communist Democrats know exactly what their doing.
Little, if anything, the democrats do make sense. Unless you want communism.
Biden claimed he lowered the national debt 1.7 trillion last fall. So why does the debt ceiling need to be raised to cover for his wild wasteful spending?
OOooooooh because biden was lying then and the whole democrat party is lying now. Got it!
Any Leftists want to try to defend biden and your lovely corrupt democrats today?
I would like to see where Biden lowered national debt last year, as the data I have seen shows debt increased. Does anyone know the truth & did Biden lower the debt as he claims?
Biden did NOT lower the national debt last year. You can look at the publicly available national debt data that the United States Treasury regularly puts out for the public to see such things yourself if you wish. As usual, Biden tends to either not understand what he is talking about or he lies almost every time he opens his mouth. So relying on what Old Joe says wouldn’t be wise.
In the case of the supposed decrease in the national debt, Biden was confusing the fact that government spent less in so-called emergency Covid stimulus compared to the year before. So in his addled mind, he thinks that means the national debt declined because he didn’t flush taxpayer money down the toilet as fast as the year before in this one area of the total federal budget. That’s understandable given the fact that even before Biden developed dementia, he had a really poor understanding of basic economics or finance.
You can tell when Biden is lying fibbing … his lips are moving.
Thanks for clarifying this, & do you know the real increase in National Debt in year 2011 and 2022. Lastly, how can Biden say he has decreased debt without being called out on this by someone?
I’ll answer you last question for you and you can look up the 2011 and 2022 info for yourself. I do have other things to do. The reason Biden gets away with lying so much is the MSM covers for him. Do you really think anyone at CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC or ABC is going to say a peep about Biden or any high-level Democrat? If something comes up that is negative for Biden or the Democrats, the MSM will either ignore it and not cover it at all or they will just give it less than 5 seconds of air time. They will never come right out and correct any of Biden’s misstatements.
Even other world leaders have come out afterwards and had to correct things that Biden has said about them or their countries that were completely wrong. You should try watching how the foreign media covers what Biden says on a regular basis as they point out each and every “error” (lie) that he speaks. It’s a sharp contrast to the
China Booster Biden is long sense provide a huge number of documented lies … he says what sounds good … not the truth.
The only way to avoid the bankruptcy is to cut the spending to the absolute minimum Doubt there is anyone willing to do it and enough to accept it
Anyone who doesn’t see the financial destruction of democrats lavish spending of Americans hard earned tax dollars deserves the end results but those of us who use intelligence don’t. Where is Trump? He didn’t lose the election he was cheated and now they say he’s a criminal. Hey joJo biden! Let’s look at you and your sons crimes which are REAL!
I will never vote GOP again if they back down on this fight. Joe Biden has been allowed to act like an emperor choosing which laws he will enforce and refusing input from the GOP, writing executive orders to get around legislation he knows would not pass. He was not elected emperor and he does not have the leverage to get his way. Make him a believer in Democracy.
As a senior citizen who has had to live within my means for a lifetime I am fed up with Washington DC budgeting! You could learn a lot from the common man!
If you to cut the budget, close the border and quit giving millions to lawbreakers who enter the country illegally. That is Joe Biden’s job and he fails at it miserably to create new Democrat voters.
With them (the Democrats such as Yellen) rising the rates, it just floors me, that the Congress as a whole, thinks it’s okay to raise the debt ceiling at all. If anything, they should be cutting and slashing as much as possible. Anything to make the budget more palatable. We the people, need to take it out of their hands and cut and slash it ourselves. We need to make it more palatable.
The debt is 1/3 or more of the world GDP, estimated as $103,832,452,678,546. There is not enough money in the world to bail us out if the STF without the world economy, making 1929 look like a garden party. If we don’t have the manufacturing to sell to the world, our economy cannot generate enough money to pay the debt. If enough countries use the yuan to buy petroleum and/or as the reserve currency, our asses will be mowed grass. Mulched mown grass.
But the majority of Americans like it that way. Especially reference 2020 elections. Also previous elections.