Don’t raise the debt ceiling - By Andrew C. McCarthy - The Corner - National Review Online

This is pretty simple to understand ... we are out of money. If I spent money this way - beyond my means - sooner or later I can't more credit cards, the existing credit cards are maxed out, can't make the house payment, car payment, credit card payment ....

So in this example, what are my consequences for failure to adhere to basic economics (save some, spend no more that you make).  My creditors come and liquidate any assets I have. My credit rating will be ruined and nonexistent. I won't be able to borrow. My reputation will be ruined beyond repair. Yet, this is the path that my government is on. While I am a George Bush fan, I was not happy with his increase in spending during the second term. Our problems began to accelerate then, but under Obama - we will spend ourselves to the point of Greece. Read about the simple numbers in the article ...

[F]ederal revenues will reach $2.17 trillion this fiscal year. Interest payments on the nation’s debt are estimated to be $205 billion this year, or about 10 percent of revenues. Taking that payment off the top, as Mr. Toomey’s plan would, leaves $1.9 trillion for Congress to spend. That’s enough to pay for Social Security ($741 billion), Medicare ($488 billion), and Medicaid ($276 billion), with $395 billion left for other programs.

Clearly $395 billion is not going to pay for the massive government the country has come to assume without thinking about how to pay for it. Assuming entitlements are not touched, that $395 billion wouldn’t come close to paying the defense budget alone — DoD having requested a staggering $553 billion for next year … and that’s without the additional $118 billion the Pentagon says “overseas contingency operations” will cost us (long before we know what the contingencies may turn out to be).
There is no more money. The $395 billion can’t cover the nearly $700 billion for the Pentagon, and it certainly can’t be further stretched to cover another $115 billion or so for homeland security, $82 billion for HHS, $77 billion for Education, $42 billion for HUD, $21 billion for DOJ, $22 billion for agriculture, $14 billion for Treasury, $13 billion each for the Labor and Transportation Departments, $12 billion for Interior, $10 billion for EPA, and on and on and on (see here for relevant OMB tables — discretionary spending is table S-11). And all of that doesn’t count the prohibitive costs of Obamacare down the road.


Don’t raise the debt ceiling - By Andrew C. McCarthy - The Corner - National Review Online