Smacking Down the Scare Tactics

Via Angry White Dude

At a press conference this morning, presidential candidate and Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann said that President Obama’s scare tactics about going into default on the government’s financial obligations, if the debt ceiling is not raised, are “simply not true.” Appearing beside her, Representatives Louis Gohmert (R-TX) and Steve King (R-IA) said the same about Obama’s threats to freeze Social Security checks and military funding.

It is remarkable that this simple truth about government funding has been obscured to the point that Bachmann, Gohmert, and King have to hold a press conference to restate it. If the debt ceiling is not raised, it means the government cannot go further into debt. Obama’s wild spending spree left us at the point where hundreds of billions in new debt per year are necessary to keep up with the exploding cost of existing government programs, and interest on the national debt. In fact, the government will spend $1.6 trillion more than it collects in revenue this year.

If we don’t raise the debt ceiling, that means spending would have to be cut by the amount of new debt that would have been needed. In other words, we’d have to cut that $1.6 trillion in excessive spending, rather than throw it atop the moldy pile of debt bones piled up in Uncle Sam’s basement. Barack Obama has increased government spending by more than twice that much since he took office two years ago.

If we can add so much spending in such a mad rush, why can’t we cut it with equal efficiency? That’s just crazy talk, right? Tax cuts are fragile things that could be crushed at any moment, but Big Government spending programs instantly become mighty oaks with roots sunk into a legion of fiercely protective dependents. You can’t just cut those programs with a single vote in the dark of night, on a bill nobody read, the way they were created! If nothing else, think of how unemployment would spike, with all those government functionaries and bureaucrats suddenly bounced out of their jobs!

That all sounds like a strong argument to never let the national debt get a nickel higher to me, but I guess some people don’t think of it that way. None of us should be willing to put up with fraudulent scare tactics. Why don’t we compel the President to go on the record with a list of his concrete funding priorities, if the debt limit is not raised on August 2?

He could easily produce such a list. He spends most of his time fundraising for his re-election, so of course he’d chafe at having to actually sit in the office for a while and do his job, but he has a gigantic staff to assist him.

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