<$BlogRSDUrl$>

21 February 2013

Who Created the Budget Crisis?

In the February 20, 2013 Wall Street Journal, Speaker of the House, John Boehner, argues that President Obama created the federal budget sequestration crisis. He makes the confusing claim that reducing the deficit would have allowed for an increase in the federal debt limit. It’s just such obfuscation that will guarantee Mr. Boehner’s retention of the honored speakership as long as benighted Tea Party sympathizers control the administration of the lower chamber of Congress.

Let’s make a few clarifications:

1. The main obstacle to raising the debt limit was certainly not the size of the budget deficit—paying our bills with more debt is what we must do when we spend more than we earn.
2. We spent so much, first, because of the outlandish expenses incurred by a national government led by the Speaker’s own party and, second, in order to spark the admittedly slow but undeniably steady recovery we are now experiencing from a deep recession caused when wise investors realized that all balloons eventually burst.
3. We all bear some responsibility for that foolishness, including the wealthiest among us. The only equitable way to share the burden of working out of that hole is to spread the cost by means of more severely graduated income taxes.

The Obama administration and the Democratic leadership must continue to play their hand strongly in negotiations with the Republican Party bosses in hopes the latter will admit that voters will turn them out of their limited power in 2014 if they force the country into another self-inflicted economic collapse.

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?