Failure to Raise the Debt Ceiling "Catastrophic"?

Mark Noonan

So says Chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers:

Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers, said if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling, the “impact on the economy would be catastrophic.”

“I don’t see why anybody’s playing chicken with the debt ceiling,” Goolsbee said today on ABC’s “This Week” program. “If we get to the point where we damage the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity.”…

Uh, Goolsbee, old buddy, the default has been caused by insanity – such as running $1 trillion+ deficits for two years. That is insane – that is what is causing us to risk default. The only thing more insane would be to allow the government to shove us even further in to debt.

It is time to call a halt to this. If we were just reduce spending to 2008 levels, we’d have a good handle on it…if we showed some real courage and reduced spending to 2004 levels, we could swiftly balance the budget. And its not like we weren’t over spending in 2004 – remember, Democrats, how you all were complaining about how profligate and wasteful we Republicans were being? Well, here’s your chance to live up to your words and show you have at least a shred of honor…go along with returning spending to just that profligate level and our fiscal crisis is solved.

But, we won’t get that, now will we? Because all the complaints about GOP spending were just campaign rhetoric. That’s ok. We’re used to that, from Democrats…we know the Democrat leadership is relentlessly dishonest and only concerned with power and wealth. But, remember, they were lying back then and they are just as certainly lying today…so, when they talk about “catastrophe”, what they mean is “catastrophe to us“; catastrophe to Democrats, and their waste, big government spending plans. They might not be able to steal taxpayer’s money and use it to buy votes – that is the catastrophe they’re worried about.

Shove them back – don’t raise the debt limit until we’ve got rock solid and certain spending cuts of a major nature. Then, and only then, start talking debt increase.