{"id":320,"date":"2013-01-15T13:06:43","date_gmt":"2013-01-15T18:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/?p=320"},"modified":"2013-03-08T15:35:20","modified_gmt":"2013-03-08T20:35:20","slug":"fallows-debt-ceiling-in-a-nutshell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/fallows-debt-ceiling-in-a-nutshell\/","title":{"rendered":"Fallows: Debt Ceiling in a Nutshell"},"content":{"rendered":"

…a Public Service Announcement from James Fallows over the weekend:<\/p>\n

\n

The Two Sentences That Should Be Part of All Discussion of the Debt Ceiling<\/a><\/h2>\n

Here they are:<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. Raising the debt ceiling does not authorize one single penny in additional public spending.<\/li>\n
  2. For Congress to “decide whether” to raise the debt ceiling, for programs and tax rates it has already voted into law, makes exactly as much sense as it would for a family to “decide whether” to pay a credit-card bill for goods it has already bought.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n
    That is all.<\/div>\n

    \"Thumbnail<\/a><\/p>\n

    [This is redundant and painfully obvious to anyone who has actually thought for two minutes about spending, budgets, deficits, and debt. But one of our political parties plus much of our commentariat is acting as if this were not so.]<\/div>\n
    <\/div>\n
    Offered as a public service.<\/div>\n
    <\/div>\n
    For political-spectacle reasons, I’m sorry that we’re apparently\u00a0not going to have<\/a>\u00a0further discussions about a new trillion-dollar platinum coin — shown in\u00a0one imaginative depiction<\/a>\u00a0here. But nothing about the magic coin is less logical, or exposes America to more ridicule, than the debt-ceiling showdown we’re apparently about to endure once again.<\/div>\n

     <\/p><\/blockquote>\n