Category Archives: Government

It’s Do Or Die: How Important Is NOT Raising The Debt Ceiling?

One of the most important stands the near-irrelevant Republicans can take is to NOT raise the debt ceiling. As was pointed out in “Debt-Ceiling Hike Denier And Proud,” on EPJ (the preeminent libertarian site on the World Wide Web), if the Republicans stand firm just this once and “refuse to raise the debt ceiling,” they would force the government to balance its budget. Also explained in the column: The government’s receipts are more than sufficient to cover its debt payments by a factor of approximately ten.

More via Professor Jeffrey Dorfman, at Forbes:

Reaching the debt ceiling does not mean that the government will default on the outstanding government debt. In fact, the U.S. Constitution forbids defaulting on the debt (14th Amendment, Section 4), so the government is not allowed to default even if it wanted to.

In reality, if the debt ceiling is not raised in the next two weeks, the government will actually have to prioritize its expenses and keep its monthly, weekly, and daily spending under the revenue the government collects. In simple terms, the government would have to spend an amount less than or equal to what it earns. Just like ordinary Americans have to do in their everyday lives. …

… An increase in the debt ceiling allows the government to continue to run a budget deficit, which by simple accounting means that the national debt will increase. Not raising the debt ceiling does not mean defaulting on the current debt, but rather that no new debt can be incurred.

As a libertarian, it hurts me to “plot” all the state’s immoral and wastrel appropriations. As an economics professor, Dorfman has done the necessary work. He has worked out a balanced budget for the plundering class.

Read it.

It really is do or die.

Eurocrats Award Themselves A Peace Prize

EU, Government, The State, UN

They sure use up all the oxygen in the world, don’t they? A glorified governmental committee awards a close ally of the United Nations with a prize for its “efforts” to do a job it was entrusted to do. Wow!

The Norwegian Nobel Committee (appointed by the Norwegian Parliament) awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Arguably, the OPCW is an arm of the UN. Via Wikipedia:

The organisation is not an agency of the United Nations, but cooperates both on policy and practical issues. On 7 September 2000 the OPCW and the United Nations signed a cooperation agreement outlining how they were to coordinate their activities.[13] The inspectors furthermore travel on United Nations Laissez-Passer in which a sticker is placed explaining their position, and privileges and immunities.[14] The United Nations Regional Groups also operate at the OPCW to govern the rotations on the Executive Council and provide informal discussion platform.

The OPCW received the award for its “efforts to eliminate chemical weapons,” and for “trying to destroy Syria’s stockpiles of nerve gas and other poisonous agents.”

The always unintelligible U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon—does anyone English-speaking understand this man’s mixed metaphors?—approved, of course. Perhaps he will win next year?

“Like the United Nations, the mission of the OPCW was born from a fundamental abhorrence at the atrocities of war,” he said. “Together, we must ensure that the fog of war will never again be composed of poison gas.”

The evil European Union, “which endeavors to herd Europeans by stealth into a supranational European State,” “won the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize for uniting a continent ravaged by two world wars and divided by the Cold War.”

Uniting? As was observed in “Adieu to the Evil EU,” “[a]dding an overarching tier of tyrants—the EU—to European governments has benefited Europeans as a second hangman enhances the health of a condemned man.”

The name of Malala Yousafzai, “the 16-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban last October for advocating education for girls,” had been floated as another candidate. She is certainly courageous. But she’s a pacifist, venturing recently that if a Taliban attacked her, it would be wrong to defend herself with a shoe, because that would be stooping to his level. Come again?

Debt-Ceiling Hike Denier And Proud

Debt, Government, Propaganda

“Debt-Ceiling Hike Denier And Proud” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

The government “not paying for all sorts of things” is how Tom Foreman messily defined a default on the debt-ceiling for the Chicken Littles of his news network. In one of many doom and gloom debt-ceiling segments for state broadcaster CNN, Foreman forewarned that a default on the country’s debt “would not be just about D.C., but it could be about YOU.”

In the same phillipic, Foreman carelessly conflated a debt default with a failure to raise the debt ceiling before its Oct. 17th deadline. But then President Pain has been setting the tone for the media, having accused Republicans, in his “Oct. 8 news conference on the shutdown and debt limit,” “of refusing to “meet our country’s commitments, pay our bills,” and of generally precipitating an “economic shutdown.”

The notion, however, that not raising the government’s credit limit must necessarily result in a default on the debt is untrue.

The government takes in approximately $250 billion a month in revenue. Servicing the national debt costs about $30 billion a month. Three trillion dollars is what the federal government expects to loot in the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1, 2013 and will end on Sept. 30, 2014.

On reflection, the U.S. Treasury collects enough to pay down the interest on the debt as well as a portion of the principal.

Claiming that the president is powerless to prioritize won’t wash either. “There is no constitutional feature that says the president cannot allocate revenues,” David Stockman told Lou Dobbs. Paraphrased, the director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan said this: Unless President Obama orders it, there will be no default on the government debt, because Obama has the power to prioritize and allocate the revenue coming in. Oct. 17 is a phony date, designed to intimidate Republicans—and anyone trying to stand against a massive increase in the “public debt.” The Beltway is silent about the ability of the president to honor the country’s debt, because of an opposition to entitlement reform. …

Read the complete column. “Debt-Ceiling Hike Denier And Proud” is now on WND.

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MORE Debt Dross

Debt, Government

Before Republicans caved on the debt-ceiling, Tom Foreman of the state broadcaster CNN warned that interest rates may climb, if what he billed incorrectly as a default on the debt came to pass.

That would be a much-needed correction. Interest rates should more realistically reflect the risk of lending to the U.S. government—and borrowing in general. That has to happen eventually.

Foreman also worried that the 148 million Americans (!!!) who are currently partaking in government programs will suffer. Not if they bite the bullet and decide, instead, to partake in the economy, if only for minimum wages.

The profligate president fretted too that not enough people will risk buying Treasury bills from the U.S. government. That’s a good thing too.

Like white on rice, the U.S. is on any country with significant foreign currency reserves. We’re even borrowing from … Brazil, which is now the United States’s fourth-largest creditor. The countries who buy U.S. government bonds to finance our debt are enablers. Anything that discourages this dubious investment will encourage the U.S. government to live within its means.