Senate puts grandkids farther into debt

Breaking: in another Senate vote, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was confirmed for another term by a 70-30 vote. Both Maryland Senators supported Bernanke, but Delaware’s Senators split as Ted Kaufman voted against reconfirmation while Tom Carper voted in favor. No nominee for Federal Reserve Chairman has ever received that many negative votes.

It’s not surprising or even shocking anymore, but on a strict party-line 60-39 vote the Senate today increased the nation’s debt limit for the second time in two months. The new debt limit is $14.29 trillion.

Bill Wilson and Americans for Limited Government were understandably angry over this. I, on the other hand was resigned to it.

Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today condemned the U.S. Senate for voting to increase the national debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion which would bring the national debt limit to $14.294 trillion if passed by the House. 

“Not even 24 hours after Barack Obama called for a ‘freeze’ to bring spending under control, the Senate has voted to increase the national debt by almost $2 trillion,” Wilson said.  “Is this some kind of sick joke on the American people?”

“By increasing the national debt to $14.29 trillion, the Senate has voted to set the debt ceiling to be greater than the nation’s entire Gross Domestic Product,” Wilson added.  The current GDP is $14.242 trillion, based on third-quarter data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The vote in the Senate was 60-39.  Not a single Senate Republican voted for it.  In December, Congress voted to increase the debt ceiling by $290 billion to $12.394 trillion.

“The national debt is increasing so fast that it is going to bury the U.S. dollar and wreck the economy, leaving nothing but a trail of inflation, unemployment, and a pile of worthless paper,” Wilson said, adding, “We’re going to default.”

There’s more to the release, but the part I quoted is pretty much depressing enough. Wilson and ALG did point out that the current $202 billion required simply to service the debt would balloon up to $700 billion by 2019. By way of comparison, the final number for the Department of Defense in the FY2010 budget was $680 billion – which includes “overseas contingency operations.” (Those operations could easily be paid for with the interest we’re paying on the debt now, as that total for the War on Terror is presumably about $130 billion over the original appropriation.)

I would guess that statements on this will be upcoming from the men running to unseat Senator Barbara Mikulski, who was one of the Democrat puppets who reflexively voted to place our nation even farther into debt.

And President Obama is already working on spending his newly authorized debt. The National Taxpayers Union estimated that the promises made in Obama’s State of the Union address will cost taxpayers an additional $70 billion. But that’s chump change anymore in this day and age.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.