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Because, when you get down to it, the debt ceilings very existence was always a political threat. Joel Send a noteboard - 09/08/2011 05:02:12 PM
I'm honestly curious about that. From what I understand, the debt ceiling has been increased something like 100 times in the last 60 years. It's absolutely routine. Bush Jr's administration for example raised the debt limit by several trillion dollars. Clinton raised the limit, Bush Sr raised it, Reagan raised it, and on and on. The issue is more the ability to meet the interest payments, no?

And yes, taking on less debt is an integral first step in wrangling with the payments, but as you say, clearly the ceiling had to be raised again at this juncture. But given how commonplace such a procedure has been, why is that in itself such a talking point?

I mean, to be brutally honest, the only real surprise here is not that Republicans finally decided to pull the trigger on that threat, but that they waited so long (of course, the fact that most Presidents in the last 30 years have been Republicans and they would've been bludgeoning their party leaders budgets might've helped. ;)) Now, IMHO, the statute itself has been alarmist theater from the beginning, and that it HAS been routinely raised so many times is a good argument it was always pointless as anything BUT a political weapon that should therefore never have been enshrined in US law to begin, but that's why it's a big deal: It was designed to be.
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Because, when you get down to it, the debt ceilings very existence was always a political threat. - 09/08/2011 05:02:12 PM 821 Views
Ultimately, I'm forced to agree completely. - 09/08/2011 05:09:19 PM 897 Views

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