My Take on the Debt Ceiling "Crisis"

Thanks to modern liberalism, our system of politics now seems, not merely to function, but to thrive on the crisis of the day (or crise du jour if you speak French which I do not). Adhering to the Saul Alinsky doctrine of manufactured crises (crisises? crisi?) the politicians in Washington cannot seem to pass any legislation, let alone reform legislation, without manufacturing a crisis of one kind or another. Neither party is immune to modern liberalism. The Democrats proudly bear the standard of community organizing and union thuggery, while the Republicans easily adopted the big government model.

Case in point is the debt ceiling manufactured "crisis." Why is this a manufactured crisis? We only need to read (or heaven forbid listen to) the statements from both parties to realize that neither side is serious about solving the underlying problem of the debt ceiling. President Obama's rhetoric called for raising taxes on the evil rich (what he named a "balanced plan" option). Speaker of the House Boehner manufactured a crisis by tying the vote on raising the debt ceiling to spending cuts.

While I agree with spending cuts, limited taxation, and a far, far smaller government than the one we now own, the current crisis bothers me - perhaps not in the same way it bothers most other Americans. Here are some of my thoughts:

1) Why do we have a debt ceiling?
The US is saddled with too many laws which don't work, cannot work, or which will not work for the simple fact that Americans keep putting representatives and presidents in power who have no intention of obeying the law. The debt ceiling intended to curb federal spending by putting an absolute cap on the national debt. Yet, time after time, when the ceiling was reached, Congress merely raised the ceiling.

The intent of the law was good, but should why should we put up with the charade of the debt ceiling law when it obviously doesn't work as intended? I agree with Moody's assessment. We should just get rid of the debt ceiling law. Stop clinging to the hope that the law will somehow limit spending.

2) Right now, the government is working exactly as it should.
The US government was not designed for a single faction or party to have control and force through legislation or executive orders without the consent of the people. Government failed the US when the Democrat controlled Congress and President Obama forced through the 2009 spending bill and the 2010 health care bill. The people responded in 2010 by electing Republicans to stymie the expansion of Democrat ideology.

Now that President Obama and Congress are wrangling over the debt ceiling, spending cuts, balanced budgets, and the possibility of reform, I'm satisfied that government is once again working at its peak inefficiency. Laws should and need to take time to formulate. Compromise and self-interested dealing are the keystones of our republican system. It's only when one political party or the other gets too much control that our process becomes what it should not - a forum to extend government power and waste the resources of the American people on foreign wars, social programs, and entitlement spending.

3) Neither side is serious about reducing the size of government.
We can tell that neither side is really serious about reform or shrinking government. Sure, there are a few conservatives who understand and hold firm to reduced government principles (case in point is Arizona's Jeff Flake), yet the vast majority, including Boehner in the House and Reid in the Senate, are looking to preserve power, not to limit government. This is merely an indicator of how much leftist thought has seeped into all areas of political thought.

4) Congress could easily fix the "crisis."
The current "crisis" could be over in a heartbeat by unlinking the debt ceiling legislation from spending cuts. Republicans forced the crisis, using the opportunity to press for what the people of the US want, low taxes, controlled government spending, and reduced dependency on borrowed money. Yes, it is proper and good to use such leverage to extend a political agenda. Yet, have you noticed that Speaker Boehner didn't link the debt ceiling with repealing Obamacare? (Now that would have been an interesting battle.)

5) Modern leftist ideology is getting in the way.
Leftist ideology wants to see an increased government role in the everyday lives of Americans. It wants centralized planning. It wants to stem capitalism. It wants to create equal economic (and social) outcomes for everyone. It is linked with the bankrupt ideology of socialism.

There is hardly a branch of government in the US that doesn't believe in some implementation of these ideals. Hence, whether Harry Reid or John Boehner suggest cuts to the budget, the cuts are insignificant gestures compared with the growing national deficit and federal debt.

The mainstream media, of course, gets in the way, by propagandizing the leftist ideology to the American people, convincing the masses that not raising the debt ceiling will cut off grandma from her only source of income, or that spending cuts will lead to the collapse of civilization as we know it.

It's all a bunch of horse hockey.

Which leads us to the question, who are the worst offenders at spreading the dung? I've got my money on the socialists.