Brooks: Using Debt Ceiling as Leverage Is ‘Only Mechanism’ to Control Unsustainable Debt, Regular Budget Process Doesn’t Work

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that while he doesn’t think doing budgeting through negotiations over the debt ceiling is the best way to do things, “this is the only mechanism we seem to have, as crazy as it is, to bring down spending” because both parties just tend to rack up huge deficits in the normal budgeting process.

Brooks said, “Well, first of all, this has happened dozens and dozens of times over the last many decades. Of the last 43 times we had a debt ceiling crisis, I think it’s something like 28 percent — 28 of those times, a clear majority, it was attached to some sort of spending bill. So, we probably shouldn’t do budgeting this way. But the fact is, we’ve been doing it. Democrats have been doing it. Republicans have been doing it. Republicans have been doing it more. It’s just — it focuses the mind. And if — both parties in the normal budgetary process tend to just blow through deficits. And this is the only mechanism we seem to have, as crazy as it is, to bring down spending. And we really do — our average deficits historically, recently, have been about 3 — just over 3%. Now they’re over 6%. We just can’t run that much debt year upon year.”

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