The federal debt limit is a triumph of false advertising

[The Straight Story]

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — The federal debt limit is a triumph of false advertising.

It doesn't really limit the national debt. Whenever the false ceiling has been reached, it has been raised — forcing unpopular votes in Congress, but not the really hard ones it would take to cut spending, raise revenues and balance budgets.

Ranting about the debt is easier than taming it. So the same political theatrics are played over and over again. The debt limit has been raised 78 times since 1960. The current hassle over No. 79 is more contentious and divisive than the previous rounds because of hardened lines in Congress, not only between Democrats and Republicans but within their rosters, especially on the GOP side where about 80 freshmen sent by tea party voters consider compromise a crime.

The hypocrisy of the whole process was summed up by an expert witness, Barack Obama, now the president championing a debt limit increase, when he tried to explain his own vote as junior senator from Illinois to oppose the raise then-President George W. Bush sought.


Read more: http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/US-debt-limit-really-doesn-t-limit-debt-1681790.php#ixzz1TnuEpkAK

[truedelphi]

1. K & R number five.

Off to the greatest with ye.