SHUT DOWN the “Shut-down Shenanigans”
...raise the borrowing limit
Government Shutdown? Congress seems to be on a course that would fail to increase the United States Treasury’s borrowing limit and thus shut down the government and many of its functions as of September 30.
Here’s some relevant facts you should become aware of as you watch the news and express your opinion at the water cooler and over the back fence:
1. Increasing the government's borrowing limit has nothing to do with future budgets, and everything to do with honoring commitments already made for services already received. According to the US Treasury's website:
"The debt limit is the total amount of money that the United States government is authorized to borrow to meet its existing legal obligations, including Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries, interest on the national debt, tax refunds, and other payments. The debt limit does not authorize new spending commitments. It simply allows the government to finance existing legal obligations that Congresses and presidents of both parties have made in the past…"
2. Congress has raised the debt ceiling 78 times since 1960, 49 times under Republican Presidents. The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampel states that raising the debt limit “doesn’t authorize any new spending. But it does enable the federal government to pay off existing obligations that past Congresses had committed to through their previous tax and spending decisions."
3. Congress raised the debt ceiling 3 times during Donald Trump’s term. In fact, according to analysis by the Manhattan Institute, a very conservative think tank:
President Trump signed legislation and approved executive actions costing $7.8 trillion over the decade—compared to $5.0 trillion for President Obama and $6.9 trillion for President Bush, and he enacted these costs in just a single four-year presidential term, compared to his predecessors’ eight years in the Oval Office. The largest drivers were pandemic relief legislation ($3.9 trillion), the 2017 tax cuts ($2.0 trillion), and legislation raising the discretionary spending caps ($1.6 trillion).
Most of the gang now clambering for these cuts were Trump’s handmaidens in those free-spending, tax-cutting days.
And the dysfunction this faction creates has real-world consequences, such as:
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the five-week partial government shutdown in 2018-2019 reduced economic output by $11 billion in the following two quarters—including $3 billion that the U.S. economy never regained. Moody's Analytics estimated that the 2013 full government shutdown reduced GDP growth by $20 billion.[1]
“…Fitch Ratings lowered the credit rating of the United States one notch to AA+ from a pristine AAA….citing a ‘deterioration in governance’ along with America’s mounting debt load, [Fitch] suggested that it could be a long time before that decision was reversed.” (NY Times, Aug. 2). While the “mounting debt load” can be blamed on both parties, as well as taxpayers who want government programs and services but don’t want to be taxed for them, the “deterioration of governance” can be laid almost entirely at the feet of the GOP. See “government shutdowns” from Gingrich to Cruz to McCarthy.
This threat is an act of hostage taking by the far-right nihilists in the Republican caucus, otherwise known as “the Freedom Caucus.”[2] This gang is demanding not only cuts in programs they don’t like, but also tying policy goals that are unpopular with most Americans – and mostly unrelated to the budget – to their demands.
Freedom Caucus chair Scott Perry professes to be acting on behalf of “We the People”; this member of the People – yours truly – called and wrote his (Republican) Representative with this message:
“…[Y]ou well know that Republican Congresses routinely raised the debt limit under former president Trump, even as he (and you and your "R" Congressional colleagues) massively added to the Federal deficit. Do the right thing, and make it known that you won't follow your attention-seeking colleagues off the cliff, taking the world economy with you…I’m hoping you will show some sense, because I am not real confident that the right thing will happen if this decision is in the hands of the likes of George Santos, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Scott Perry, and the "Arizona twins" Gosar and Biggs.
Could taxpayer money be spent more effectively and efficiently? Absolutely. Is a government shutdown the way to make it happen. Absolutely not – that’s what the budget process is for.
Contact your Reps…Tell them: “ Be a grown-up…pass an increase in the debt limit. Don’t tank the economy.” It only takes a couple of minutes…You can find his/her contact info at: https://www.house.gov/representatives .
[1] https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/democrats/issue-briefs?id=B7FCE9F4-4DFE-495C-8263-AD277CE4716B#:~:text=The%20Congressional%20Budget%20Office%20(CBO,the%20U.S.%20economy%20never%20regained.
[2] Mark Meadows – in the news a bit lately for his attempted election-stealing – was a founding member of the Freedom Caucus before his “promotion” to become Trump’s chief of staff and fell victim to the Trump Curse (“Everything Trump Touches Dies,” by Republican strategist Rick Wilson).