Debt Ceiling Debate Plunges Into the Absurd

You can begin to comprehend the desperation level of a particular party or ideological persuasion when the arguments that are posited leave the realm of logic and plunge into the abyss of absurdity. 

It is more than self-evident that our government has insatiable spending addiction that threatens the core of our republic, yet politicians like DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz proclaim “Republicans are acting like spoiled children” because they refuse to raise taxes.  Please, what resembles childlike behavior more, a Democrat controlled Congress which failed to pass a budget last year or this year, or Republican Congressman Paul Ryan, who offered a bold solution to fix our nation’s potentially catastrophic debt crisis? 

While many like me believe that his budget does not cut spending enough in the short term and balances the budget to far off into the future, the fact remains that Rep. Ryan presented an actual budget and propelled himself into the cross hairs of a political onslaught led by class warfare warriors, while it is unseen what Shultz has proposed.

The Democrat controlled Senate, which still is yet to offer even the semblance of a budget, followed President Obama’s talking points and derisively chides Republicans as the protectorate of “millionaires and billionaires,” “hedge fund managers,” “corporate jet owners” and any other focus group tested straw man.  The Senate has been nothing close to the deliberate body it was envisioned to be and this is an obvious manifestation of the stewardship of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whose “adult” behavior entails pleading for increased cowboy poetry funding in the midst of a debt crisis.

At least President Obama has proposed a budget.  The problem is that it was patently unserious and was unceremoniously dismissed by a vote of 97-0 in the Senate.  Still, the president attempted a mulligan on his initial budget by delivering a speech riddled with demagogic rhetoric and tendentious attacks on Republicans, including Paul Ryan who was seated in the front row.

Included in the speech were $4 trillion in “cuts” but the specifics must have been suspended in mid air, as when CBO Director Doug Elmendorf was questioned on Capitol Hill about Obama’s budget he remarked “we don’t estimate speeches”.  Now after “leading from behind” on controlling spending the president says we need to “eat our peas” and swallow tax hikes while in the grips of a crippling recession.  How absurd.

Frederic Bastiat said “the state is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else”.   While this debt ceiling charade proves Bastiat’s statement to be even more profound, one thing is for sure, many arguments emanating from representatives of the state are rooted in sophistry and fiction.