It’s one for the rites of passage in politics – watching Republicans and Democrats pretend to engage in a “stand-off” over the debt ceiling. We’ve heard this song before and we’ll hear it again, it’s what they do. It allows Republicans to be seen as caring about spending and Democrats to pretend to stand up to them. It’s as big of a joke as you imagine. So why not just default already?
Look, I know default won’t be pretty and I’m not here to tell you it will be good, but it is going to happen, sooner or later. (And, honestly, if it were to happen now it would be a choice by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen under the orders of President Joe Biden because we take in enough money to cover our debt payments, but that’s beside the point.)
Our government has spent almost $32 trillion more than it has taken in – about $95,000 per person or $250,000 per actual taxpayer – and there’s no way it will ever be paid off. I don’t say that because it’s impossible mathematically, I say it because it’s impossible politically. Only a handful of Members of Congress even pretend to care, fewer still actually do, and none of them are in a position to do anything serious about it.
We will default at some point, the sooner we do it the better off we’ll be.
What do I mean by that? The longer we wait, the larger the debt, the harder it will be to get a handle on and the more dramatic the measures needed to address the problem will actually be. It’s the difference between swerving to avoid a rock in the road you see a football field away vs one you see a car length away – both move you away from the problem, but one can be gradual while the other must be violent.
The sooner we deal with spending, and I mean that in a serious way not a Washington way, the less painful it will be. Just know that whenever we deal with it there will be pain. But if we deal with it now, or at least start, a good percentage of the politicians who created this problem are still around and can face the scorn they deserve for getting us in this mess.
Joe Biden, for example, might be President now, but he’s been in Washington since 1972. Back then, the national debt was a quaint $427 dollars, so he’s been involved with the creation of damn near all of it. If allowed to progress naturally, when the debt collapses our economy, or dealing with it is so painful that it feels like the economy is in collapse, Biden will be long gone from the planet and most of the others responsible will be with him or at least long out of office. Why should they avoid accountability?
Republicans and Democrats have all pretended to care – the Reagan era national debt of $2.6 trillion seems quaint compared to what these people have done – so make them face the music.
Every politician who’s been in office since 2010, which is a whole lot of them, has been involved in adding $17 trillion to the national debt, or since 2017 has $10 trillion on their hands. They deserve all the scorn possible for the measures needed to get spending under control.
We will default sooner or later, either through interest rate hikes or the massive crush of the debt itself, there are no two ways about it. And the corrective measures needed to address it will not be fun, to say the least. Don’t let those responsible off the hook.
There’s a big difference between reducing the rate of spending increase and cutting or eliminating programs. We can do the former now but will have to do the latter later. It may not be in our lifetimes either, the government can pull all sorts of tricks and accounting gimmicks to fend off the inevitable. But politicians have been playing kick the can with the national debt my whole life, we will come to the end of the road eventually. Best to deal with it now to lower the pain level and incentivize voters to hold the people largely, though not exclusively, responsible.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.