Debt Ceiling Magic

Months of hand-wringing, partisan squabbling, and political melodrama in Washington over the deficit spending and national debt crisis has finally, as if by magic, on the very last possible day before the supposed deadline, resulted in a legislative compromise deal passed by Congress and signed by the President.

The so-called “Budget Control Act of 2011” raises the national debt ceiling by another $2.4 trillion so that government borrowing may continue unabated until 2013; conveniently after the next presidential election. This means the $14.5 trillion debt ceiling burden we now have will balloon to nearly $17 trillion within the next year and a half.

OK, so that resolves the debt ceiling problem for a short while; the government can keep right on borrowing; but what about the other side of the crisis equation – spending – the cursed demon that got us into this financial mess?

The following items will be cut: … what? What? The fact is we don’t know what yet. No one knows. We know only that the borrowing will continue starting right now up to $17 trillion in debt in just a year and a half, but we don’t know if even any spending will be cut by then.

Instead, a supposedly bipartisan joint committee of Congress has until Nov. 23 to propose ways to reduce deficits, and any proposals must be voted on by Dec. 23.

All we know about possible spending cuts is that the politicians say they plan to cut $2.1 trillion in the future; not now, but over the next 10 years! There will be no spending cuts now. And the so-called planned future “cuts” will come from projected spending increases over the next decade.

The bottom line is that they plan to trim about 5% from 10 years worth of future projected spending increases. Swarms of special interest groups have successfully made sure that their special pet programs will be left intact.

So we know for sure now that there will really be no spending cuts at all; not really; spending is going to increase, not decrease; about 20% more spending than in the year 2008.

Within the projected 10 years, government spending will still equal 22% of the entire U.S. economy, just as it does now, and we’ll be $25 trillion in debt. It’s like a fat man trying to lose weight by eating more but not quite as much; maybe 5% less eating as he might otherwise like to consume.

That’s just business as usual in Washington as the nation stumbles toward financial ruin.