This just goes to show how politicized and removed, both conceptually and intellectually, from the actual debt issue most Americans really are. It's scary! Maybe, instead, the debate needs to be brought to them in different terms. ...
The current debt talks around tweaking (raising) an artificial limit on National Debt (graphic a). Analogously, the real problem isn't one of the artificial debt ceiling which was imposed conceptually, just like a hard-deck, for safety and responsibility. The real problem is the underlying trajectory, which is coupled to structural spending problems that have become horrendously bad over the last two administrations (graphic b). The problem is raising the cap is a short-term solution, in a dangerous game where an increase in interest rates can lead toward a disruptive jump in borrowing costs that will put us right back at the brink. "That's right! Ice... man. I am dangerous."
In a perfect world, with competent leadership, the most ideal solution would be to not raise the debt ceiling, but to correct the problem by matching outlays with revenue -- the precise methodology to do this: cuts to spending, tax structure, etc are orthogonal to what I'm saying. We'd see the US debt limit held static and the outstanding debt lowered, perhaps under a proposed plan to iteratively lower or cap the limit as well (graphic c). The economic benefit of this could be significant, Robert Rubin, Clinton's Treasury Secretary has claimed such stability to have been a key characteristic in the 1990s economy.
Yet, instead, this issue has been framed by those in DC as a game of ever increasing spending in which the only solution is to increase the debt limit. To even ponder doing the right thing, to correct the actual problem, is ridiculed by people like the above posters as stupid, silly, or unreasonable!! How very sad.
Eventually, there really is a hard limit on the US debt. And when we hit it, the ramifications will be much worse for many people and families than face planting into the ground at 800mph.
