Fighting debt ceiling lies and spin with facts (false equivalence...I don't play that game!)

[Roland99]

Came upon this posting somewhere else:

Kevin Hassett and Abby McCloskey: Obama Rewrites Debt-Limit History
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304906704579111020769496150.html

As the government shutdown continues, the nation gets closer and closer to the day—probably Oct. 17—when Washington hits the debt limit, and with it the specter of default. President Obama may be getting nervous about what will happen to his negotiating position as that day approaches.

He keeps asserting that the debt limit has never been used "to extort a president or a government party." Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is selling the same story, saying "until very recently, Congress typically raised the debt ceiling on a routine basis . . . the threat of default was not a bargaining chip in the negotiations."

This is simply untrue. Consider the shenanigans of congressional Democrats in 1989 over Medicare's catastrophic health coverage provision.

In this case, the problem was political infighting within the Democratic Party between the House and the Senate. "Weeks of political maneuvering brought the government to the brink of financial default," the New York Times wrote on Nov. 8 of that year. The debt limit was raised just hours before all extraordinary measures to avoid default were exhausted. The final bill dropped any action on Medicare but included a measure to repeal 1986 tax rules barring discrimination in employer-paid health insurance plans.

Democrat in-fighting over Medicare was the source of a debt ceiling fight in 1989, eh? And the NYTimes was apparently in agreement with that?

That's what that article is leading the reader to believe. And, of course, two wonks from the American Enterprise Institute wouldn't spin or lie, would they???


Well....let's dig a bit, shall we?

Oct. 19, 1989
Debt Limit Increase Is Sought
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/19/business/debt-limit-increase-is-sought.html

In a pointed letter to Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady, Mr. Rostenkowski, an Illinois Democrat, said that if the Administration was serious about avoiding the ''unthinkable and irresponsible'' consequences of a default, it should devote its energies to assuring that the Senate quickly approves an amendment-free version of the long-term debt ceiling legislation.

...

Senators who support a capital gains tax cut have been eyeing this year's debt limit bill as a vehicle for forcing a vote on their proposal. Many believe that a proposal to cut the gains tax would have an easier chance of passing if it were attached to a short-term debt measure rather than a longer-term debt-limit bill.

Hmm...sound familiar? Democrats pushing for an amendment-free bill (and this with a Republican President at the time).

And an apparent move to attach amendments to said bill. Hmm...what party enjoys pushing for capital gains tax cuts? Gee....I wonder.


Now, let's look into this quoted Nov. 8 NY Times article shall we??

Nov. 8, 1989
Agreement On Raising Debt Ceiling
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/08/business/agreement-on-raising-debt-ceiling.html

At one point, the Senate majority leader, George J. Mitchell of Maine, stormed off the floor, saying he was going to telephone President Bush and Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady and inform them that the bill could not be passed because a single Republican senator, John Heinz of Pennsylvania, had refused to give his consent to proceed.

Wow...a *Republican* Senator engaging in political histrionics and threatening the gov't with defaulting on its obligations!

Oh, and those capital gains tax cuts that were going to be an amendment? The party involved in that push for a non-clean bill? Let's see this last paragraph:

Republicans agreed last week to abandon their attempts to attach a capital gains tax cut to the debt limit bill, a measure they had regarded as their best hope for winning the votes needed to pass a tax cut this year.

Imagine that. History repeating itself a mere 24 years later.


Don't let anyone try to persuade you about false equivalence.

It's called false equivalence for a reason!!

[TheGunslinger]

1. AEI...economic terrorists

Richard Perle was (is?) one of their "Scholars"

[ticktockman]

2. American Enterprise Institute rewrites debt-limit history

Democrat in-fighting over Medicare was the source of a debt ceiling fight in 1989, eh? And the NYTimes was apparently in agreement with that?

That's what that article is leading the reader to believe. And, of course, two wonks from the American Enterprise Institute wouldn't spin or lie, would they???

I noticed the same thing. I never cease to be amazed at how some political wonks will so obviously misrepresent their sources. They seem to figure that the gullible readers who won't check their sources will make up for the few who do.

Anyhow, I wrote an analysis of the editorial and posted it at http://usbudget.blogspot.com/2013/10/is-obama-rewriting-debt-limit-history.html . Following is the concluding portion of it:

The study contains three tables. Table 1 lists information on all 53 debt limit measures since 1978. Table 2 identifies 26 stand-alone measures from these 53. Table 3 then lists the other 27 bills considered as other than stand-alone measures and provides brief background information on the nature of each measure and by what means it was considered. The following table gives some of the key items from Table 1 for the 27 non-stand-alone measures:

NOTE: the following two tables need to be viewed in fixed font for the columns to align. If need be, you can view them at http://usbudget.blogspot.com/2013/10/is-obama-rewriting-debt-limit-history.html . If anyone knows how to post here in fixed font, please let me know.

[pre]
OTHER THAN STAND-ALONE DEBT LIMIT MEASURES

House Vote Senate Vote Public Law Debt
---------------- ---------------- Date of Limit
Year Bill Number Tally Margin Tally Margin Enactment ($ bil)
---- ------------ -------- ------ -------- ------ ---------- ------
1979 H.R. 2534 209-165 44 62-33 29 4/2/1979 830*
H.R. 5369 219-198 21 49-29 20 9/29/1979 879*
1980 H.R. 7428 335-34 301 68-10 58 6/6/1980 n.c.
1983 H.R. 2990 Voice Vote 51-41 10 5/26/1983 1389
1984 H.R. 5692 211-198 13 Voice Vote 5/25/1984 1520*
1985 H.R. 3721 300-121 179 Voice Vote 11/14/1985 1903.8
H.J.Res. 372 271-154 117 61-31 30 12/12/1985 2078.7
1986 H.R. 5300 305-70 235 61-25 36 10/21/1986 2300
1987 H.J.Res. 324 230-176 54 64-34 30 9/29/1987 2800*
1989 H.R. 3024 231-185 46 Voice Vote 8/7/1989 2870*
H.J.Res. 280 269-99 170 Voice Vote 11/8/1989 3122.7
1990 H.J.Res. 666 362-3 359 Voice Vote 10/9/1990 n.c.
H.J.Res. 677 379-37 342 Voice Vote 10/19/1990 n.c.
H.J.Res. 681 380-45 335 Unanimous Consent 10/25/1990 n.c.
H.J.Res. 687 283-49 234 Voice Vote 10/28/1990 3230
H.R. 5835 228-200 28 54-45 9 11/5/1990 4145*
1993 H.R. 2264 218-216 2 51-50 1 8/10/1993 4900*
1996 H.R. 2924 396-0 396 Unanimous Consent 2/8/1996
H.R. 3021 362-51 311 Voice Vote 3/12/1996
H.R. 3136 328-91 237 Unanimous Consent 3/29/1996 5500
1997 H.R. 2015 346-85 261 85-15 70 8/5/1997 5950
2008 H.R. 3221 272-152 120 72-13 59 7/30/2008 10615
H.R. 1424 263-171 92 74-25 49 10/3/2008 11315*
2009 H.R. 1 246-183-1 63 60-38 22 2/17/2009 12104*
2010 H.J.Res. 45 233-187 46 60-39 21 2/12/2010 14294*
2011 S. 365 269-161 108 74-26 48 8/2/2011 16394
2013 H.R. 325 285-144 141 64-34 30 2/4/2013

* measures with a final vote margin of less than 100 in the House or less
than 10 in the Senate
Note: n.c. = no change
Source: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41814.pdf
[/pre]

A number of interesting facts are evident from this table. First of all, it doesn't appear that all of these 27 cases are independent. For example, there are 5 cases in less than a month, from 10/9/1990 through 11/5/1990. The first 3 of these cases involve no raise in the debt limit. Perhaps more interesting, the majority of these votes do not appear to be heavily contentious. Only 10 of the 27 measures resulted in a final vote margin of less than triple digits in the House or less than double digits in the Senate.

The following table contains notes from Table 3 on the 27 non-stand-alone measures:

[pre]
Year Notes on the Measure
---- --------------------
1979 required Congress & President present balanced budgets for 81 and 82
made increase in debt limit part of budget process (in the House)
1980 included a repeal of the Presidentially imposed oil import fee
1983 included making the whole debt limit permanent
1984 included some miscellaneous admin authority to Treasury Secretary
1985 extended for a month some expiring acts, including a cigarette tax
required report on legislation for alternative minimum corporate tax
1986 required the restoration of lost interest to certain trust funds
1987 used as legislative vehicle for the Balanced Budget ... Act of 1987
1989 included change in method of accounting for federal debt instruments
repealed nondiscrimination rules that deal w/ employee benefit plans
1990 change in Debt Limit included in a continuing appropriations measure
change in Debt Limit included in a continuing resolution
change in Debt Limit included in a continuing resolution
change in Debt Limit included in a continuing resolution
change in Debt Limit included in Omnibus Budget Recon. Act of 1990
1993 change in Debt Limit included in Omnibus Budget Recon. Act of 1993
1996 temporarily exempted from limit monthly insurance benefits to SSA
temporarily exempted from limit monthly insurance benefits to SSA
included an increase in the debt limit in Title III
1997 included a debt limit increase in Title V, Subtitle G
2008 included an increase to the debt limit
included an increase to the debt limit
2009 included an increase to the debt limit
2010 included provisions for “Statutory PAYGO” and “wasteful spending”
2011 included provisions aimed at deficit reduction
2013 required hold on Member salary if no budget resolution by April 15
[/pre]

These are of course very abbreviated notes on the measures. Still, they suggest that most of the additional items in the measure were not very major. I saw no mention of the issues that Wallace mentioned above (campaign finance reform, school prayer and busing and a nuclear freeze). Also, it appears that some of the debt limit increases may have been included with other bills (such as continuing resolutions) simply for convenience. At the very least, more study would be required for these cases. Simply treating all non-stand-alone measures the same does not make sense. Hence, it may be correct that, as Secretary Lew suggested above, "the question of threatening to cause a default of the United States, not until 2011 did it become a positive agenda".

On Friday, Warren Buffett was quoted as saying the following about the debt ceiling:

It ought to be banned as a weapon. It should be like nuclear bombs, I mean, basically too horrible to use.”

Perhaps that is the final solution, to pass a law that the debt ceiling must always be addressed in a stand-alone measure. Meanwhile, those who distort history to defend such threats, as do the authors of the Journal editorial, should be challenged.

[Roland99]

3. Nicely done

Thanks for the research and summary!

(and the only way I've found to do a fixed-font layout is a screenshot of that layout on another page...)