The government shutdown/ debt ceiling/ economic crisis topic is very confusing. There seems to be a fairly apparent issue, the government is spending more money than they have. Now, when the average person spends more money than they have, they usually decide to balance their budget. They recognize you cannot spend more than you bring in. Failure to appropriately balance a budget results in a ever increasing debt. The government pretends to balance their budget, or at least minimize the rate of their debt acquisition, by setting a meaningless debt ceiling. The supposed incentive to get this meaningless debt ceiling set, is a government shutdown, which of course is fake. I fail to see the logic behind this shutdown, which didn't seem to be much of a shutdown. I think the idea of a "shutdown", at least in its current use, should be abolished. The shutdown no longer serves any financial purpose, in fact, it costs a lot of money and congressional time. To me, the shutdown seems like we are shooting ourselves in the foot for no reason.
I think some sort of "balanced budget" constitutional action should be taken. Right now it seems the U.S. government looks to be bankrupt. The government needs to prioritize how they should allocate their income, and follow the plan with a superficial ceiling. If such prioritizing cannot be agreed upon, perhaps equal cuts across the board on spending will have to be the method. One way or the other, the U.S. needs to stop spending more than they can, using a national default as a political weapon, and get rid of the meaningless debt ceiling. We are rapidly closing in on a default, some say we essentially already have defaulted, so rapid change in policy needs to take place to give ourselves a chance. We will find ourselves in the "government shutdown" fiasco at the next date that has been set. Other countries can see we have no control over our spending, and that our dollar is becoming increasingly useless.
It seems like since I cant remember our government has been "shooting themselves in the foot". Everyday the debt is raised and it seems like every other day the debt ceiling is raised. It's time for our "leaders" to take a stand and lead. Our government cant be spending more money than we take in. The house and senate need to stop bickering and find a reasonable conclusion instead of wasting our money in what they call a "shutdown".
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. China is buying up gold and silver like crazy now to brace themselves for the world chaos that will occur once the dollar fails. The debt ceiling is totally fake, as you said. The shutdown, much like other scenarios in Washington, was costly political theater.
ReplyDeleteI very, very much agree with you that a balanced budget constitutional action should take place. The only problem with that is that the government may have to actually cut something, and stop increasing its reach. Another option would be to increase taxes, which may not sit too well with many Americans. However, unknowingly to many, right now we are having an invisible tax put on us by the mass printing of our currency, decreasing the value of every dollar that is already in circulation.
This is a confusing time. Part of the problem is that the debt ceiling and the shutdown are actually two different things that just happened to coincide randomly in this episode. The reason the debt ceiling is pretty meaningless, as you note, is because it is spending bills that determine what the government spends. When they don't pass those bills, there is a shutdown. But even with a shutdown, there are mandatory spending bills that don't need to be reapproved (like social security). So even during the shutdown, spending was continuing. If this spending is not balanced by taxes, you get a deficit. The debt ceiling is just another artificial hoop added after the fact. It's a silly artifact, as you note, and largely symbolic/political.
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