by Debt Ceiling Nonsense Yet Again – A Catch 22? Of course, there should be no debt ceiling. The US is the only nation to have one for absolute amounts of money (some other nations have ones tied to percents of budgets, and so forth). Even though it is nonsensical and absurd, it has been around for over a century, a recrudescence of a deal to get funding approved by Congress for WW I in the wake of the passage in 1913 of the new amendment allowing a federal income tax. Somehow nobody in Congress or any White House has the guts to push for the ending of this thing, so it hangs on like some stinking zombie. Of course, for most of the time since it was passed, Congresses have been “responsible” and raised the ceiling without too much fuss, although
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Barkley Rosser considers the following as important: Debt-ceiling, politics, Taxes/regulation
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Debt Ceiling Nonsense Yet Again – A Catch 22?
Of course, there should be no debt ceiling. The US is the only nation to have one for absolute amounts of money (some other nations have ones tied to percents of budgets, and so forth). Even though it is nonsensical and absurd, it has been around for over a century, a recrudescence of a deal to get funding approved by Congress for WW I in the wake of the passage in 1913 of the new amendment allowing a federal income tax. Somehow nobody in Congress or any White House has the guts to push for the ending of this thing, so it hangs on like some stinking zombie.
Of course, for most of the time since it was passed, Congresses have been “responsible” and raised the ceiling without too much fuss, although it has been normal when different parties occupy the White House and the Congress for there to be some grumbling by people in Congress before they do the responsible thing. But in recent decades, while Dems in Congress have been responsible, raising the debt ceiling several times for President Trump, we have on several occasions see GOPs in Congress make big stinks and force temporary government shutdowns while making demands for this or that.
The current situation is probably not that bad, but absurdity is definitely reigning. Assuming they can keep all their people in line, especially Sen. Manchin of WV, it can probably be raised by reconciliation. But GOP Sen. McConnell is loudly declaring no GOP will support raising it, and has threatened a filibuster, although reconciliation can get around that if all Dems agree. However, even as he is loudly declaring not GOP support for raising the debt ceiling, he is also demanding that it be raised so that government bills get paid. I really have no comment on this further, aside from noting that this is just further evidence on why this silly thing needs to be done away with once and for all.
Barkley Rosser