Eleven days to partial default

Today is July 22.

Congress has just 11 days to do something about the fact that the U.S. Treasury soon will not have enough money to pay all our nation's bills. That's because Aug. 2 is the date when we hit the congressionally mandated debt limit of $14.3 trillion.

For those who like big numbers, that limit, spelled out, is $14,300,000,000,000. Who could possibly look at such a figure and think we don't have enough debt?

A debt limit is a good idea, in principle. If earlier limits had been heeded, we would not today be paying hundreds of billions of dollars in interest on so massive a debt. But the debt limit doesn't limit debt! Every time we have approached a previous, lower debt limit, a majority of the members of Congress have not stopped excessive spending. Instead, they have voted for a higher limit.

Well, here we are again, at the crisis point. And again, Democrats in Congress are playing on unfounded fears that our troops and Americans on Social Security won't get their pay or benefits, in order to pass another debt limit increase without dealing with our spending problem. In all likelihood, we will borrow more money, and there will not be significant cuts in spending to prevent the next debt limit crisis. There may even be higher taxes, to make it all worse.

Meanwhile, interest on the bigger debt that results will consume an ever-increasing share of our economic output, causing our already weak economy to weaken further.

And you can be sure that when that happens, Democrats will insist yet again that the problem is that Washington just isn't spending enough -- as if the wasted $862 billion stimulus and annual deficits in the $1.4 trillion range aren't proof that we're already spending far too much.

Could the current reckless course in Washington provide any greater proof that we need new leadership?

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