The Red Herring That Is The Debt Ceiling Debate

As the debt ceiling debate grinds towards a bloody end, we should all note one thing. The debt ceiling is the biggest red herring ever when it comes to government finances.

Purpose of Debt Ceiling

What is the stated purpose of the debt ceiling? It is an arbitrary cap created by Congress that caps what Congress can borrow. The basic purpose of the debt ceiling is to shame Congress into slowing down its maniacal borrowing by forcing it to vote on raising the ceiling.

So…has it worked?

Not a chance.

The debt ceiling is the single biggest fraud in our government. Since 1962, the ceiling has been raised 74 times. For those of you math challenged, this means the ceiling has been raised 74 times in 49 years. This equates to roughly 1.5 times a year. Think about that for a second.

So, what does all this mean? Well, it clearly means that our government is broken. The process has become so corrupt that Congress can’t even go a full year on average without having to break its previous cap. Is it any wonder that we are carrying so much debt? We are all a bit number to the $14.3 trillion number at this point, but that is a huge number. The classic example is that if you stacked this number of dollar bills on top of each other, the peak would go to and from the moon four times.

Real Thing

The really odd thing about this is the fact that the current vicious debate is actually what the debt ceiling is supposed to cause. Before you think I am contradicting myself, keep in mind the current stances by the Republicans and Democrats are purely political plays. All of these Republicans who were in office during the Bush years voted for debt ceiling increases over and over and all the Democrats, including President Obama, opposed increases while Bush was in office. Ah, don’t you just love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning?

The truth of the matter is the current debate in Washington reveals everything that is wrong with our government. The current debate is a political puppet show put on by politicians/actors who change their position depending on who is in power. Do they care about you, me or the future of our country? Only to the extent it keeps them in power.

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