debt ceiling

Looking beyond the current debt crisis, the Obama Administration (and future presidents for that matter) should expect continued stiff resistance from the Congress whenever the ceiling needs to be increased. No one likes to vote for a debt ceiling increase; there’s no clear upside and plenty of down, particularly for members of Congress who were elected promising to hold the line on spending and taxes.

Moreover, the composition of our accumulated debt is incomprehensible; just seems to be a growing miasma of political toxicity – a debt blob. Notwithstanding imaginative, though apparently unworkable, short-term fixes like the platinum coin, there needs to be consideration of ideas beyond the binary choice of Congress either enacting a debt ceiling increase or failing to act and putting the nation into default. Keep reading →

Rather than diving into salary freezes, furloughs or other federal workforce measures for cutting government costs, the congressional “super committee” created by the debt ceiling deal instead bantered more about unemployment and war funding during its first public session Wednesday.

After months of legislation that would have imposed staff reductions and furloughs, along with a salary freeze that did go into effect, federal employees were concerned they would be a prime target for the panel. Instead, Federal Daily reported, the members of Congress appointed to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction heard testimony by Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and talked about unemployment and war funding. Keep reading →