In Debt Limit Debate, Higher Taxes Aren’t the Answer

Republican congressional leaders will meet in the White House today with their Democratic counterparts and President Obama in an effort to reach an agreement on the debt ceiling. Reports are sketchy as to whether they will succumb to arm-twisting by the White House, amplified in the media, to cut a deal in which “everyone has to give a little”—or fill your preferred cliché. It is thus an appropriate time to remind everyone that Americans have already given all they can, especially to the IRS, and, no, it isn’t time to raise taxes—on the contrary, it’s time for politicians to curb their spending habits.

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But just in case dire warnings about defaulting on the debt don’t work and the Republican leadership holds its ground today, a small team of Treasury officials along with friends of the White House are carving out a Plan B ploy to borrow more money on its own authority. It is based, to be charitable to its originators, on a dangerously flawed reading of the 14th Amendment. The core issue that has Washington in a deadlock is the $14.3 trillion federal debt ceiling—Congress either has to borrow more money to pay its bills, cut spending, or raise taxes—the last option being so unpopular that even its liberal proponents call it by another name: “revenue enhancements.” President Barack Obama would have you believe that the problem is one of priorities, that Republicans are fighting for “tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, or for hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners, or for oil and gas companies pulling in huge profits without our help,” while he’s fighting for things like college scholarships, Medicare for seniors and cancer research. Full article