The entire political landscape is currently engulfed in debt ceiling flames, for largely artificial and concocted reasons.
This man-made inferno is now centered around and fixated upon the August 2 so-called “drop dead” date for reaching a deal to raise the nation’s borrowing limit.
If we do not by then do so, we are told, America will go into default.
Which is little more than repetitive absurdity.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has already given us numerous such “drop dead” dates. March 31? April 15? May 16? May 31? July 8? July 22? These were all “drop dead” dates with which Geithner previously tried to concern us.
Now we’re even being told it’s as likely to be August 10 as any of the others.
In short, on this federal government power grab disguised as a fiscal “crisis,” Lil’ Timmy Geithner is many times over the Boy Who Cried Wolf.
These ever-rolling “drop dead” dates prove (at least) one additional thing: conservative Republican leverage for a deal to their liking indubitably increases every day after the date passes – else Geithner would not be so keen on repeatedly moving it.
As with these myriad others, August 2 is only a drop dead date mostly in the minds of Leftists and the Media (please pardon the redundancy) – who wish to manufacture a crisis so that they can then not let it go to waste.
We can no longer borrow money after August 2 – we will still be collecting tons of coin via taxes and fees. To the tune of approximately $200 billion per month – not at all an untidy sum.
But that $2.4 trillion in federal money to be collected this year is dwarfed by the $3.82 trillion we are planning to spend.
(The latter number we’ve reached with a monstrous 29% increase in profligacy in just the last four years.)
And this is one of the many Alice in Wonderland moments in this debt ceiling debate.
We’re borrowing about 40% of the money we’re spending – but that is somehow not the crisis. The “crisis,” we are told, is our not granting ourselves permission to continue doing so.
Thusly do we go through the Looking Glass and down the rabbit hole.
But the other side of that coin is that we still have access to 60% of the money we spend. Which means we are in absolutely no danger of defaulting on our debt.
We can also easily cover the Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, military and veterans’ payments President Barack Obama and others have of late (yet again) shaken like a shibboleth.
So while we will not be able to cover all of the 80 million checks Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says the feds cut each month, we can easily pick and choose our way around any potential land mines – both real, and fabricated for political purposes.
(And here’s another Lewis Carroll moment – 80 million checks a month? I will bet all the money in my pockets versus all the money in your pockets that the Founding Fathers did not design the Constitution and its government with the intention of it cutting 80 million checks in a century – let alone every thirty days.)
And here’s another dirty little secret the Left and the Media (again, apologies) vociferously insist on not sharing with us. We the People are overwhelmingly opposed to a debt ceiling raise of any kind, under any conditions – by about 2-1.
What we currently have in Washington is a Republican Party agreeing to raise the debt ceiling – the biggest of all compromises – in exchange for fundamental, structural budgeting reform.
Reform of which We the People are in favor – by about 2-1.
And a Democrat Party playing politics – disingenuously demagoguing these genuine, genuinely favored efforts, while offering no substantive plans of their own.
The Leftist-Media nexus is attempting to force-feed us demonstrably false stories – that we must raise the ceiling so as to avoid defaulting on our debt and stiffing seniors, the poor – all the “most vulnerable Americans,” and that the latest, overwhelmingly popular Republican proposal to repair the long-term damage is the “worst piece of legislation” ever.
We the People aren’t buying.
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All of this is in ways very similar to how we arrived at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s illegal December Internet power grab – so that they could then impose the absurd Network Neutrality.
Like with the debt ceiling power grab, the Leftist-Media nexus has been long force feeding us scary – and mythical – Net Neutrality stories. About evil corporations that would block us from the Web content we wanted.
Like with the coming – and going – of the many debt ceiling raises, we kept waiting for the alleged Internet terribleness to transpire – and it never did.
Like with the debt ceiling power grab, Net Neutrality was woefully unpopular with We the People. In fact more so. 95 Democrats signed a pro-Net Neutrality pledge in advance of the 2010 election – and all 95 lost.
And in substantive ways, the Net Neutrality power grab is in fact even worse.
On the debt ceiling, you have representatives from both political Parties going along with the terrible joke – pretending that we must raise the roof by this latest “drop dead” date to avoid alleged default.
On Net Neutrality, you had 302 members of the then overwhelmingly Democrat Congress telling the FCC not to do what they ended up doing.
(Not to mention the Democrat-led D.C. Circuit Court – which ruled unanimously that the FCC doesn’t have the authority to do anything to the Internet.)
On the debt ceiling raise, you have several large Democrat-paragon unions fighting on the side of increasing Huge Government.
On Net Neutrality, you had and have several large Democrat-paragon unions vocally opposed.
Not to mention myriad others that are usually almost always in Democrat lockstep – including seventeen minority groups, several racial grievance groups and an anti-free market environmentalist group.
See? Net Neutrality is – even worse.
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Both the debt ceiling increase and the FCC Net Neutrality usurpation are insufferable federal power grabs.
That are incredibly unpopular with We the People.
We who have to repeatedly cede our freedoms and our coin in acquiescence to our alleged “representatives.”
Who routinely, rigidly flout or will – rather than represent it. And dictate – rather than listen – to us.
The lessons of 2010 were clearly never learned. They must be retaught in 2012.
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