Short Term Memory

Just about a month ago, the genius light-worker Obama said, "Now, this debt ceiling — I just want to remind people in case you haven’t been keeping up – raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy.  ... It’s always a tough vote because the average person thinks raising the debt ceiling must mean that we’re running up our debt ...".  This is the link to the Human Events article which says Obama is lying, which is harsh but accurate, to paraphrase Dan Rather.

The article itself does a better job than I can do of dismantling Obama's arrogant assumption of stupidity on the part of the American people.  But then, more than half of the electorate voted for this twit, so maybe it's not such a bad assumption. 

In any case, I bring this up because people tend to quickly forget ridiculously false and/or dumb statements by leftists when such remarks are ignored by the Media -- the overall intelligence of which it is impossible to underestimate. 

Here's the problem with Obama's statement on a simple, easily communicated level:  if we are not going to borrow more money, why do we need to increase the debt limit?  And, isn't borrowing more money by definition increasing the debt? 

We already know Obama, however good his memory may be, or however clever or intellectual or well-read he may or may not be, has no common sense.  Obama has never held a real job, never solved an actual concrete problem in his entire life.  He has no connection with the real world.  All he knows is politics.  Clinton, as in Bill, is a despicable, disgusting, perverted lump of protoplasm, but, growing up in small-town Arkansas, he has more of a connection to the blood and soil of America than Obama.  (Clinton, as in Hillary, is, essentially, the old, fat, white, masculine version of Obama.) 

The truth is that a default need not occur if the debt limit is not raised.  Remind everyone every time you get the chance that the federal government has revenue coming in every month.  The interest on the debt as well as obligations to Social Security, Medicare, and the military payroll can all be covered by incoming revenue.  Back in July of 2011, the interest payment amounted about $29 billion, or roughly 15 to 20 percent of what the Treasury takes in during any given month. 

It is undoubtedly more now since we increased the ceiling just two years ago and added another trillion or so in that time period, but the ratio should be about the same.  But let's call it 25% of the monthly revenue just to help us think about it.  People who have a house payment, a car payment or two, and a credit card payment can relate to that quite well.  A significant portion of a family's income in that case goes to debt service and nothing else.

Right now the U.S. can still handle the payments.  It's rather dependent, however, on the current Fed policy that buys $85 billion in bonds every month to keep the 10- and 30-year rates low.  If the 10-year were to go to, say, 5%, there would be a lot less revenue left over after the monthly interest was paid. 

Somewhere we have to start thinking about what we are going to give up in terms of federal programs and government services.  Somebody has to get serious and realistic and tell the truth that we cannot continue indefinitely giving away money we do not have.