President Obama continues to enlighten me about
economics. The other day he gave a speech to the Business Roundtable in which
he offered this gem:
Raising
the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase
our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy.
As puzzled expressions began popping up in his audience
of successful businessmen who know a thing or two about profligacy, he clarified
thusly:
The
average person thinks raising the debt ceiling must mean that we’re running up
our debt.
Count me among the average. Let’s see, the only
thing in either of these quotes that happens to be true is the statement that
the debt ceiling has in fact been raised by Congress “hundreds of times.”
Unfortunately for the President, each of those hundred times has resulted in an
increase of our debt. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s what is
known as a 100% correlation. Matter of fact, it would seem that from an
historical perspective, if one wants to increase our national debt, the quickest,
surest way to do so would be first to raise the debt ceiling! What could the
President possibly be thinking? Since I refuse to accuse my President of an
intentional, deliberate lie, I chose to believe that he is simply delusional.
For example:
Let’s say that you were issued a credit card from
Capital One with a $5000 credit limit. Then you promptly went out and racked up
$5000 in purchases. Although you would be within your rights to do so, the
credit card would now be unusable. What to do? Well, you could begin to pay
down the card over time, and each time you did, it would restore a portion of
your credit. But there would be another option. You could petition Capital One
for an increase to your credit line. If they granted your request by doubling
your credit line to $10,000, I suppose that technically
that would not be increasing your debt, just your credit. One assumes that
this is the President’s line of flimsy reasoning. But we all know what happens
next. Since you now have access to $5000 more dollars worth of credit, you will
find a way to blow through it as sure as night follows day. When the President
looks back at our fiscal history, he sees the same fact, that every single time
our national debt ceiling has been raised it has also been breached, every single time.
Yes, we average people who suspect that when our
debt ceiling gets raised that will mean more debt, suspect as much for an
excellent reason, Mr. President. But what do we know? We live in the real world where if we don’t make our car
payments, someone comes and tows it away. The elites in Washington just raise
the debt ceiling.
Help me out here, am I missing something?
Count me among the average as well. It seems simple to me, a simple mind. It frightens me for my children and grandchildren if we continue at this rate. If you decide to run for President....count me among your strongest supporters!!!!
ReplyDeleteDoug as president. Now that would be hilarious! Just kidding, my sweet brother. I've been trying to get him to run for office since we were in college! But alas--it would require too many meetings.
ReplyDeleteI have come to the conclusion (although I may be wrong) that the President is a liar....just one of the techniques that he uses to get what he wants.....which is to take from those who work for a living and give it (via social programs) to those like his neighbors when he was a child. Nothing else matters.....like the economy, jobs, etc.
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