Pay debts, but don't keep spending

It is called the “debt ceiling.” But based on experience, there is no ceiling to the debt that Congress is willing to approve for the United States of America.

That’s why it’s time to take a different approach to America’s spending spree. If Congress simply votes to approve raising the debt ceiling from $14.3 trillion to $16 trillion or some other such impossible- to-fathom number, it is doing one thing and one thing only — passing the buck.

Indeed, when Congress raised the debt ceiling from $12.4 trillion to $14.3 trillion in February 2010, it wasn’t saving the country; it was saving its own butt — moving the final decision about how to stop runaway spending until after the 2010 elections.

If we let Congress once again take itself off the hook by delaying accountability until after the 2012 elections, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

The Obama administration is sounding the alarm that failure to raise the debt ceiling would send the United States into default on its obligations, and result in a catastrophic downward spiral.

Not so fast.

Ultimately the “debt ceiling” is a congressional invention that authorizes the United States to borrow money to pay for spending it can’t afford.

It’s time to re-shape the argument. Let’s just do away with the debt ceiling. It’s not a real ceiling anyway if it can be raised whenever it suits Congress to do so.

Congress needs to authorize the U.S. Treasury to continue to pay our national debt obligations. Period. End of story. That will do away with any scary talk about default.

But at the same time, Congress must somehow confess its fiscal sins. It won’t do anymore to blame the American people for their voracious appetite for federal largess. Everyone knows that American business, the American people and our state governments all have an addiction problem — but it is time to start to wean them off the federal dollar.

Since Congress has the power of the purse, it is up to the Republican leadership in the House and the Democratic leadership in the Senate to show some leadership. Congress’ new mantra must be “We feel your pain, America, BUT ... you need to go through the agony of withdrawal in order to end your terrible dependency problem.”

Call it tough love, but whatever you call it, something needs to be done to stop the madness. And it IS madness:

Since 1940, the debt ceiling has been raised 53 times. During that same period, it has been lowered only five times, once under President Truman, and twice under both Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. In 1940, the debt ceiling was $49 billion. At the end of World War II, it was $300 billion. When President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, 18 years later, it was just $309 billion.

The reason government debt did not have to increase during those two decades is because the American economy was based on manufacturing and innovation. It was based on private-sector jobs and know-how.

In the next 40 years, American prosperity more and more became an illusion based on increased government spending. By 2003, the debt ceiling had reached the staggering amount of $7.4 trillion. But what is even more staggering is that we are now poised to double that gargantuan number to more than $15 trillion in just eight years.

Don’t just pretend the problem will go away. It won’t. It will only get worse. The bottom line is that Congress must stop spending money it does not have. And it should not view tax increases as some kind of magic solution. The American people do not have unlimited patience with having their pockets picked.