The Senate voted Thursday, December 24, 2009, to raise, once again, the ceiling on allowable government debt by another $290 Billion, raising the ceiling to $12,394,000,000 Trillion (H.R. 4314). The vote to raise the limit split along party lines with 57 Democrats, 2 Independents and only 1 Republicans voting to pass it. President Obama will need to sign the increase into law to prevent potential defaults on U.S. Obligations.
At the rate government is spending money, they’ll spend that newly borrowed $290 Billion by mid to late February, at which time they’ll look at passing yet another bill to increase our nation’s debt limit yet again. I don’t know about you, but I think that should be against the law! They should have a balanced budget within which they have to live unless an increase is approved by the voters.
These increases in our debt ceiling have to STOP! If we don’t stop … our creditors will stop lending (or worse, they start charging loan shark rates like the credit card companies) … and then where will we be? Families and businesses cut back when they realize there’s not going to be enough money in the bank to pay their bills … but not government. They just sell more bonds and print more money. But debt is debt!
President Obama needs explore imposing wage/budget freezes across the massive number of government agencies. In a different time, another president did just that, President Nixon signed Executive Order 11723 on June 13, 1973 which ordered a freeze on prices such that prices would be held at levels no higher than those charged during the first 8 days of June 1973. It covered all prices paid by consumers.
I worked in Training or in Human Resources the bulk of my career. Those types of organizations are generally considered a “non-productive” expense by most organizations and it’s a b**tch to try to get money in your next year’s budget for a special project. Well … government is a “non-productive” expense for all Americans as well as business and industry. They should have to justify each and every dime they spend on our behalf … and they should have to justify each and every request for budgetary increases. But, that’s not the case.
I spent 8-1/2 years in the Navy and each and every November, I remember having to generate a ‘wish list’ of equipment, tools, and other materials I wish I could have to do my job if there was ‘extra’ money in the budget. If it looked like we weren’t going to max out our budget, they’d start buying items off the wish lists until they max’d out the budget. The logic was, that if they didn’t spend their entire budget, they wouldn’t get that much money for a subsequent budget, let alone an increase in budget. It’s a common practice that’s engraiined in the culture across all government organizations to start spending in late November to ensure they spend their full budget. President Obama should end that too. And … he should just start cutting budgets across the board. We can’t afford any more ‘deficit’ spending. It has to stop! Families have cut their budgets, businesses have cut back to the bare bones … it’s time that governmental agencies and Congress did the same.