What we don’t talk about when we talk about the debt ceiling

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At the Atlantic: The Two Sentences That Should Be Part of All Discussion of the Debt Ceiling:

  1. Raising the debt ceiling does not authorize one single penny in additional public spending.

  2. For Congress to “decide whether” to raise the debt ceiling, for programs and tax rates it has already voted into law, makes exactly as much sense as it would for a family to “decide whether” to pay a credit-card bill for goods it has already bought.

2 thoughts on “What we don’t talk about when we talk about the debt ceiling”

  1. FIFY

    …For Congress to “decide whether” to raise the debt ceiling, for programs and tax rates it has already voted into law, makes exactly as much sense as it would for a family to “decide whether” to CONTINUE charging a credit-card for goods it DOES NOT HAVE TO BUY.

  2. Well no, that’s not precisely true. They have spent the money by voting for the programs and activities. Note they are just grandstanding about paying the bill, and it’s dishonest. The reasonable place to attack spending is during budgeting and appropriations.