Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
After I posted this morning that we should cap the debt ceiling rather than feed Congress’ heroin-like addiction to raising more debt, Mollie countered with a post citing John Podhoretz.
Podhoretz makes the point that he does not see from folks like me a plan for government post-August 2 should we fail to raise the debt limit on our national credit card.
Podhoretz asks the question by citing a 1979 comedy called The In-laws, where one of the characters asks another while facing a firing squad, “What’s the plan, Shel?”
Allow me to retort with a line from another movie:
“I’ll give you my answer right now, Senator. Nothing.”
John Podhoretz, do you really think I’m going to fall into your trap of coming up with a plan to solve a “problem” that doesn’t exist?
Why don’t you spend your weekend drafting a plan to corral all the unicorns that will escape on August 2 should we fail to raise the debt ceiling?
I was born on a Friday pal, but it wasn’t last Friday.
Here is what will happen August 2 if we don’t raise the debt ceiling: I will wake up, take care of the 3 S’s, work 10 hours, coach football, catch the end of the Mets game on television and fall asleep.
The government on August 2 will be flush with billions of dollars in its coffers and not one person expecting a government check will fail to get it.
Sell your Chicken-Little-sky-is-falling apocalyptic predictions to Democrats, Podhoretz. Their leaders are the ones who made it up.
What will change after August 2 is that Congress will no longer pretend to debate the need for piling more debt on future generations to support the baby boomer’s utopia, flush with free heath care and lifetime pensions for government workers.
Instead we will force our congresspersons to approach the budget like Black Mamba with a Hittori Hanzo sword. Time to slice it up.
What’s your fear, Podhoretz? Might you or your district have something cut? Do you have at stake a government grant to study cow flatulence or a military contract to sell $400 hammers?
When we limit the debt, we limit spending choices and force congress to prioritize.
That’s the plan.
We tried treating them like adults when it comes to responsible spending, but Democrats and Republicans turn into Dummycrats and Republicants when it is time to stop spending. They can’t do it. So we should no longer let them pretend to try. They’ve lost the privilege.
Don’t fool me with credit ratings, either. What use do we have for the blessings of an autocratic rating company when we have a government that prints money backed by nothing and no debt ceiling? The rating never was real and every investor in the world knows it.
Put in a real cap and for the first time our credit rating might mean something because congress will have to act more responsibly. Do you fear acting responsibly Podhoretz? Are you more comfortable with a movable and therefore fictitious ceiling on our debt and putting the pain on our children?
By the way, our debt has already exceeded the debt ceiling: The current debt ceiling is $14.294 trillion. The current debt is $14.324 trillion.
No one is dead, Podhoretz. Except your point.
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Comments :
Dec '10
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
Since the debt ceiling is not even a parchment barrier would you be for repealing it all together? Thomas Sowell makes a good point that having it allows the dems to tar and feather the repubs for allowing the borrowing needed to pay for the spending programs the dems pushed through. I think there may be something to his idea.
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
Don't get rid of it - make it real.
Jun '10
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
This may come across as a bit snarky, but I wonder if some of this "just do something" squabbling surrounding the debt ceiling isn't motivated simply by fear of what will happen when investors get the jitters and pull more capital out of the markets, sending the DOW and what-all tumbling down, resulting in a real (but likely temporary) kick in the 401k.
I'm probably wrong, but I still wonder if good old fashioned self-interest isn't behind some of the messaging telling me how I'm supposed to think, or that I'm too stupid to think.
Dec '10
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
Someone slap an estrogen patch on Tommy. Stat!
The problem with your plan, Tommy, is Obama's man still gets to sign the checks. If conservatives got to decide the spending priorities, like we're shooting for in 2013, it might be a good plan. But right now it's likely to damage our chances at winning the check signing authority.
Mar '11
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
This is a terrible situation...made ever-so-very-slightly worse by the personal attacks in this post and the earlier one today. This is not the kind of discussion that that I expect as a paying member of Ricochet.
Mar '11
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
BRAVO!
I could not agree more.
The downside of more debt and government exceeds the downside of an overnight balance-the-budget requirement.
Jun '10
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
Tommy De Seno ...
See how easy that was. Instead of spending thousands of man hours plotting how to raise the debt ceiling, they could be figuring out all the stuff that needs to be cut. Even if they only got through 20% of it after all this time, they would be hundreds of billions ahead of where they are now. Of course, that would be presupposing that cutting spending was actually the real objective in the first place.
Oct '10
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
Thank you.
This has been bugging me about the "accept the Boehner plan" crew, too. It's bought into the politicians' syllogism:
Hogwash. Haven't we learned yet that to choose to do nothing is still to have made a choice, and oftentimes the right one?
Aug '10
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
This seems like a rather utopian outlook. The government is currently borrowing 40 cents of every dollar it spends. Do you honestly expect a clean, orderly process of everyone acting like adults and finally getting together to cut the size of government by 40% overnight?
I suspect a more likely result is that Congress will start looking at 'emergency' measures to raise more funding. The fed will get into the act. There will be yelling and screaming from the public unions. There will be demonstrations and riots, and immense pressure on politicians to do anything to save the jobs and wage rates of public employees. Under that kind of pressure, the last people to get paid are likely to be creditors, and they know it. At least one ratings agency (probably S&P) WILL downgrade the U.S.'s credit rating. The result of this will be an increase of at least 50 to 100 basis points in the cost of new debt and rolling over expired debt. This will add another $150 billion to the deficit.
And all along the way, it will be repeated over and over again, "This is the Republican's fault."
Dec '10
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
I'm liking repeal better all the time, KP. The debt ceiling has always been a fiction and under Obama it has become a fantasy. Let Obama prove just how helpful statism is to economic prosperity. If we believe government spending is the problem, it seems to me there's something honest about letting Obama and the Dems have at it in a down economy. Natural consequences.
It's more honest than Republicans pretending unserious cuts in spending increases will make a difference. Maybe even katievs and others who have a problem with the dishonesty of the Boehner approach can be convinced. It's not like Republicans can even get close to the cuts we need under the current conditions.
Feb '11
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
Western Chauvinist: Someone slap an estrogen patch on Tommy. Stat!
The problem with your plan, Tommy, is Obama's man still gets to sign the checks. If conservatives got to decide the spending priorities, like we're shooting for in 2013, it might be a good plan. But right now it's likely to damage our chances at winning the check signing authority. · Jul 29 at 1:17pm
True, the president would get to prioritize. And if he prioritizes well, according to the desires of most voters, then he'll be rewarded (us too, indirectly, by having a government that finally lives within its means). If he prioritizes according to politics then we'll have to make him pay for it during the next election. Either way we have government living with in its means, we have what we've been working towards. We have victory along with all of the economic and social benefits we believe our ideas will bring. And we have it because it's the Democrats that wouldn't compromise - wouldn't even come up with a plan of their own.
Mar '11
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
I just love the idea of watching Obama actually trying to make decisions. It would destroy any remaining shreds of the myth of his presidency.
I, on the other hand, am an executive. I could cut the budget down to size in one afternoon. There would be lots of screaming, but it would be right where it needs to be.
Let's see.... eliminate Education, Commerce, Energy, Education, Health, NASA, EPA, HUD. Raise Soc Securty age by 2-3 years. Put everything out to bid in Medicare/Medicaid (removing reams of government employees). Privatize TSA overnight. Roll back ALL government income/Pension/Bennies to 2005 levels.
Are we there yet?
Jul '11
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
Tommy De Seno: Instead we will force our congresspersons to approach the budget like Black Mamba with a Hittori Hanzo sword. Time to slice it up.
[...]
When we limit the debt, we limit spending choices and force congress to prioritize.
That’s the plan.
Do you acknowledge the possibility that there might be unintended consequences that could be disastrous? Is it really a matter of truth vs. ignorant/malicious/lunatic chicken littleism?
I wish I could agree with you, and I would if I believed that the potential for catastrophe were less than it is. Your position is based on the premise that failing to raise the debt ceiling now will either not precipitate a calamity or that whatever bad that comes will be better than what will happen if the ceiling is raised. You may be right, but the stakes are so awfully high I wonder how you can be so certain, not to say blithe or cavalier. Do you have no doubts that might lessen your vehemence?
Apr '11
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
That a boy Tommy! Show 'em how we roll in Jersey!!
Feb '11
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
Dan Hanson:
I suspect a more likely result is that Congress will start looking at 'emergency' measures to raise more funding. The fed will get into the act. There will be yelling and screaming from the public unions. There will be demonstrations and riots, and immense pressure on politicians to do anything to save the jobs and wage rates of public employees. [.....] At least one ratings agency (probably S&P) WILL downgrade the U.S.'s credit rating. [.....] This will add another $150 billion to the deficit.
And all along the way, it will be repeated over and over again, "This is the Republican's fault." ·
Yes it will be messy, and yes the Democrats will try to demonize us. Won't that be the case anyway in a presidential election cycle?
Also, why are you worrying about adding $150 Billion to the deficit? The options are:
Dec '10
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
Ed G.
Western Chauvinist:
True, the president would get to prioritize. And if he prioritizes well, according to the desires of most voters, then he'll be rewarded (us too, indirectly, by having a government that finally lives within its means).
I think yours is an exceedingly optimistic view. But, for argument's sake, let's say the president prioritizes "reasonably".
What does that mean? He pays the bond holders (to avoid default), and he makes sure Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are fully funded. And then he has to start making some decisions. The last time a "government" shutdown occurred, my husband, a DOD contractor at the time (separated from his company last week after 30 years), was furloughed for 2 weeks.
Obama can choose not to pay DOD contractors (for work already accomplished, btw). He doesn't have to cut government. He can make cuts directly affecting the private sector. Is that what Republicans consider a "victory"? And how much sympathy will the average voter have for scumbag DOD contractors and their "fat cat" executives flying around in their "private corporate jets"? Sounds like a win win for the Nobel "Peace" Prize winning president to me.
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
Yes I did go a little Jersey here. My apologies to the other 49 states for going all Chris Christie on Podhoretz.
Jul '11
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
Tommy De Seno
Yes I did go a little Jersey here. My apologies to the other 49 states for going all Chris Christie on Podhoretz. · Jul 29 at 1:45pm
I am in broad sympathy with the Tea Party, but sometimes I wonder if, for all its earnestness, there is a part lacking seriousness.
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
grotiushug
Tommy De Seno
Yes I did go a little Jersey here. My apologies to the other 49 states for going all Chris Christie on Podhoretz. · Jul 29 at 1:45pm
I am in broad sympathy with the Tea Party, but sometimes I wonder if, for all its earnestness, there is a part lacking seriousness. · Jul 29 at 1:52pm
The people demanding fiscal restraint from Congress is a less than serious undertaking? How so?
Edited on Jul 29, 2011 at 1:57pmFeb '11
Re: Here’s The Plan, John Podhoretz
Western Chauvinist
He pays the bond holders (to avoid default), and he makes sure Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are fully funded. And then he has to start making some decisions. The last time a "government" shutdown occurred, my husband, a DOD contractor at the time (separated from his company last week after 30 years), was furloughed for 2 weeks.
Obama can choose not to pay DOD contractors (for work already accomplished, btw). He doesn't have to cut government. He can make cuts directly affecting the private sector. Is that what Republicans consider a "victory"? And how much sympathy will the average voter have for scumbag DOD contractors and their "fat cat" executives flying around in their "private corporate jets"?
So are you saying that we should stop trying to have the government live within its means because DOD contractors - and, admittedly, countless unknown others - may get hurt in the process?
By your reasoning we should become Democrats, remove the debt ceiling entirely, and embrace "spend spend spend until no one will give us any more". In fact, may as well embrace Keynesianism because the government creates and directs economies and without its spending some people will get hurt.