FACT FOR THOUGHT (Thanks to Lori for the info):
Debt increase by presidents:
R Reagan - 186%
G HW Bush - 54%
B Clinton - 41%
G W Bush - 72%
B Obama - 23%
Source: Congressional Budget Office
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With all the hourly updates, edge of your seats news graphics, crawls, and theme music, and legislators like Boehner using words like "Get your asses in line" - one really could easily think the sky is falling.
Sky, of course, being the devastating duo of words: debt ceiling.
It would be easy to get all caught up in the posturing, scare tactics, and hubris from all sides. Easy if you don't do any research. Don't know any history.
Alas, that covers the lion's share of this nation's citizens.
We are, sadly, a country of Chicken Littles, frightened into pooping our metaphorical pants again (think Bailouts) by those whose aim is truly only political gain - not proper, protective, proactive governance.
We are less than 18 months from another election, so what better time than now for those who want power to begin pointing every finger they have at the current occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Not that finger pointing has suddenly struck them as a new idea. Quite frankly, since Janury 20, 2009, I'm surprised there aren't legions of GOP, Teabaggers, and other pants-in-a-wad right wing conservatives on disability with crippling cases of carpal tunnel.
This latest "debt ceiling crisis" is just another in a blatant (if you have your eyes open and actually educate yourself) attempt to make everything this administration does or faces seem new! History making! Catastrophic!
Here's a fun fact I would wager the majority of this country does not know: The debt ceiling - yes, that same thing being Octagon-battled over now - has been raised SEVENTY FIVE TIMES SINCE THE 60s.
75 TIMES. Hmmm, seems to me that span would encompass BOTH Republican AND Democratic presidents, would it not?
Saint Ronnie - the poster child in the GOP's fantasmagorical game of revisionist history - raised it 18 TIMES! (Not to mention tripling the debt.)
These are HIS words to the Senate:
The full consequences of a default or even the serious prospect of default by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. [...] The risks, the cost, the disruptions, and the incalculable damage lead me to but one conclusion: the Senate must pass this legislation before the Congress adjourns. I want to thank you for your immediate attention to this urgent problem and for your assistance in passing an extension of the debt ceiling.
And during the Bush scera, he signed SEVEN debt ceiling increases into law (along with doubling the national debt, but who's counting?) So what is the difference now?
Here's a sweet graphic to put all this into perspective, from a posturing standpoint, at least:
Hmmm, a little curious, huh?
Seems raising the debt ceiling was okey dokey, SOP, hell, practically en vogue, until President Obama took office.
There is absolutely no argument that this country wastes a lot of money and resources. We do. It's part of our bred in the bone American pigtriotism. We consume, we squander, we waste with not much on the balance sheets to show we realize there are eventual consequences.
We need to analyze every penny taken in, and weigh every penny going out. Changes need to be made, departments combined, and the Pentagon needs to start shopping at Home Depot for its hammers and toilet seats.
But right now, defaulting - although a common practice these days by our citizens who have been pushed to the brink of financial ruin without any debt ceiling increase being floated as an option for them - is not something to be toyed with.
And quite frankly, neither are our citizens.
But until those in power actually begin dealing in truth, honesty, and true governance of, by, and for the people - we are nothing more than what they treat us like: A nation of ignorant Chicken Littles.
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