Given current discussions about the debt ceiling, it is high time to think seriously about that debt.
The accumulated national debt should not be confused with the deficit — the difference between what the government takes in and what it spends in one year.
The debt is currently about $32 trillion dollars, roughly $94,600 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. In 2022 interest expense for this debt cost taxpayers $475 billion.
Paying off this debt would cause a financial meltdown by eliminating what has been the safest place in the world for investors to save money.
But don't worry!
Congress would never pay off the debt. Voters prefer politicians who support government services but don't enact enough taxes to pay for them.
There are good arguments for reducing the annual deficits. But that does not justify threatening to blow up the world economy if previous congressional decisions about spending and taxing are not reversed.
For Republican politicians to threaten not to increase the national debt ceiling takes nerve, given the large increase in the national debt caused by their major tax reductions during the Trump administration.
Decreasing the budget for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), as Republicans demand, would not even save money, but would increase annual deficits by allowing wealthy taxpayers to continue to avoid paying taxes they owe under current law.
Republicans won't identify the specific spending cuts they demand before they'll support increasing the debt ceiling.
But their demand to hold total spending down to what it was in 2022 is unreasonable, given the recent 8% inflation and the military spending increase they supported.
President Biden should not allow Republicans to get away with this maneuver. He should announce that the debt ceiling is unconstitutional, conflicting with common sense and with the Fourteenth Amendment's proviso that " the validity of the public debt of the United States . . . shall not be questioned." Laurence Tribe, Harvard's leading constitutional expert, has urged Biden to do this.
During the Trump presidency, Republicans cheerfully voted to increase the debt limit three times. Trump himself then said that "I can't imagine anybody ever even thinking of using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge. . . .That's a very very sacred thing in our country,the debt ceiling. We can never play with it."
Despite this, at his recent town hall meeting, the former president said that he would endorse a default on the debt if the Biden administration does not agree to huge budget cuts.
When the moderator pointed out that he had denounced using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge when he was president, Trump replied that circumstances had changed.
"Because now I'm not president." Exactly!
Stanford Law professor Michael W. McConnell argues that the opening clauses of the Constitution give Congress sole power to "borrow money on the credit of the United States." Therefore, he says, President Biden must not rely on a "far-fetched interpretation . . . of the 14th Amendment."
He must capitulate to the Republican demands.
But Congress has already implicitly exercised its power to borrow money when it appropriated money that exceeded what its tax legislation can pay for.
Additional legislation to increase the debt is not needed and can only be the basis for continual partisan mischief.
Knuckling under to these Republican demands would undermine the legislative authority of Congress itself.
Until now, decisons by Congress about spending and taxing were the last word.
Allowing the finality of these decisions to be undermined later would throw our public affairs into even more confusion than already exists.
Of course previous decisions about spending and taxing can be altered by Congress.
But it must do so by regular legislation supported by majorities in both houses, not by this kind of attack while previous spending and tax legislation remains on the books.
Paul F. deLespinasse is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Computer Science at Adrian College. Read Professor Paul F. deLespinasse's Reports — More Here.
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