Raise the debt ceiling

Ben and I tackle the debt ceiling vote in our newest Scripps column

When you're out driving with your family and see a stop sign ahead, how do you usually handle the situation? Do you wait until the very last second, then slam on the breaks -- hurtling your passengers forward against their seat belts and causing bruised ribs and bloody noses, along with no small amount of unnecessary alarm? Do you ignore the stop sign altogether and drive right on through, oblivious to crossing traffic?

If you're a halfway decent driver, you do neither of these things. You try to slow down gently and calmly before coming to a full stop -- knowing that the panic-driven way of halting might be just as injurious as plunging through the intersection. This, roughly, is the situation we face with the debt ceiling.

Simply put, if the feds try to completely slam the breaks on federal spending now, we'll end up in a fair amount of pain. Under one scenario, America would simply stop making interest payments to China and its other creditors -- destroying our country's worldwide economic leadership, most likely never to be regained. In the other scenario, interest payments would continue and all other programs would be hollowed out immediately.

That might sound good in some Tea Party scenarios, but the sudden loss of funding and thousands of federal jobs would upend the recovery.

To throw another metaphor on the pile: This wouldn't be ripping off a Band-Aid quickly -- it would be re-opening the wound. We don't need that.

We also don't need to pile up ever-more exorbitant amounts of debt endlessly into the future -- neither Democrats nor Republicans believe that. Big changes are coming to the federal budget. They should happen in an orderly fashion. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling at this point wouldn't be orderly, but it would be incredibly destructive.

Ben, on the other hand, advocates "holding the line." Read the full column for his take.

Raise the debt ceiling

Ben and I tackle the debt ceiling vote in our newest Scripps column

When you're out driving with your family and see a stop sign ahead, how do you usually handle the situation? Do you wait until the very last second, then slam on the breaks -- hurtling your passengers forward against their seat belts and causing bruised ribs and bloody noses, along with no small amount of unnecessary alarm? Do you ignore the stop sign altogether and drive right on through, oblivious to crossing traffic?

If you're a halfway decent driver, you do neither of these things. You try to slow down gently and calmly before coming to a full stop -- knowing that the panic-driven way of halting might be just as injurious as plunging through the intersection. This, roughly, is the situation we face with the debt ceiling.

Simply put, if the feds try to completely slam the breaks on federal spending now, we'll end up in a fair amount of pain. Under one scenario, America would simply stop making interest payments to China and its other creditors -- destroying our country's worldwide economic leadership, most likely never to be regained. In the other scenario, interest payments would continue and all other programs would be hollowed out immediately.

That might sound good in some Tea Party scenarios, but the sudden loss of funding and thousands of federal jobs would upend the recovery.

To throw another metaphor on the pile: This wouldn't be ripping off a Band-Aid quickly -- it would be re-opening the wound. We don't need that.

We also don't need to pile up ever-more exorbitant amounts of debt endlessly into the future -- neither Democrats nor Republicans believe that. Big changes are coming to the federal budget. They should happen in an orderly fashion. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling at this point wouldn't be orderly, but it would be incredibly destructive.

Ben, on the other hand, advocates "holding the line." Read the full column for his take.

The wealthy aren't unduly burdened by taxes

With Tax Day fast approaching and deficit reduction all the rage, one fact deserves significant attention: the wealthy are enjoying the some of the lowest taxes in generations. The Figure shows the average tax rate in 1979, 1992, and 2007, as well as the tax rate for the top 1% of households, and the top 400 households (who have an average annual income of nearly $350 million).  Since 1979, the country’s overall average tax rate—the share of income paid in taxes—has fallen slightly, but for those at the top of the earnings ladder this share has fallen dramatically.

via epi.org

It may not be the case that we can solve all our problems by increasing taxes on the wealthy. But it's also not the case that the wealthy are stumbling under the weight of an overbearing tax burden in the United States, either.

Terry Bradshaw's concussions

Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw says he’s feeling the effects of numerous concussions sustained during his NFL career.

Bradshaw, a 62-year-old Shreveport, La., native, says he has been having short-term memory loss as well as the loss of hand-eye coordination. He also said he is undergoing rehabilitation for those ailments.

“I forgot the numbers. It’s pretty staggering,” Bradshaw said. “If you play in the NFL and start for 10 years, it’s not good. It is not good.”

via kansascity.com

There is part of me here that says: "So what?" Coal miners, for example, see their lives shortened pretty regularly by the work they do, but I'm not going without electricity. So if Terry Bradshaw finds himself harmed by the same work that made him rich and famous, who am I to complain?

The difference here, of course, is that electricity is a vital and necessary component of modern life. We can't really live without it. Terry Bradshaw scrambled his brain ... so we could be entertained. Me? I can easily find something else to do on Sunday afternoons that doesn't involve watching men sacrifice their mental capacities and good health for my amusement.

Big Gubmint for its own sake

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, said in a speech on the floor Tuesday that “too often, it seems, Democrats in Washington claim to be interested in helping those in need, when what they really seek is to protect big government.”

via nytimes.com

I hear this a lot from my conservative friends, and I guess my question is: To what end? Why would we love big government if not as an ends to helping those in need?

Conservatives value small government for its own sake--they believe smaller government produces more liberty. I think that's an insight worth considering, frankly. But some of my conservative friends (like Mitch McConnell above) seem to then assume the inverse is true: Liberals want Big Government because, well, we really love Big Government.

It doesn't really make sense. The truth is that lots of liberals really do want to help the less-fortunate, and see government programs and regulation as the best way to do so. There's nothing tricky about it, no love of government for government's sake.

Priorities

They want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that’s paid for by asking 33 seniors each to pay $6,000 more in health costs.  That’s not right.  And it’s not going to happen as long as I’m President.

Barack Obama, via whitehouse.gov

If you don't believe government should be in the business of defraying health costs for the elderly, this probably doesn't move you. I've got to think there are more than a few independent voters out there who would agree with the president.

Barack Obama didn't make the deficit by himself. Neither did Social Security.

But as far back as the 1980s, America started amassing debt at more alarming levels, and our leaders began to realize that a larger challenge was on the horizon.  They knew that eventually, the Baby Boom generation would retire, which meant a much bigger portion of our citizens would be relying on programs like Medicare, Social Security, and possibly Medicaid.  Like parents with young children who know they have to start saving for the college years, America had to start borrowing less and saving more to prepare for the retirement of an entire generation. 

via whitehouse.gov

Still reading my way through Obama's speech, but it's worth noting that the long-term deficit problem we have today didn't start with Social Security back in the Roosevelt era or Medicaid back in the LBJ years. It started in the 1980s...roughly the same time we started getting a generation of politicians who told us we shouldn't have to pay for the government we get. As I said in the Scripps column last week, the deficit isn't just a spending problem—it's a paying problem.