GOP vs. raising debt ceiling by Don Frost

By Don Frost

            President Biden and the Democratic Party are trying to pass two bills totaling $4.5 trillion. They call one “infrastructure investment,” and the other “social spending,” but, not surprising, both are loaded with Socialistic earmarks intended to appease the Socialist wing of the party.

            That aside, Biden swears no one making less than $400,000 a year will see his taxes rise; that this spending spree will be paid for by raising taxes on corporations and “the rich.” These two bills are in addition to ongoing federal expenditures: Upkeep on the White House; salaries of all federal employees from the president on down to the guy who sweeps out FBI offices after hours; the military; Medicare; Medicaid, Obamacare; Social Security; Amtrak; the Postal Service; an alphabet soup of other federal welfare programs; and on and on.

            Biden also wants to raise the national debt ceiling, which begs the question: If “the rich” and corporations are going to pay for these two bills, why is it necessary to raise the debt ceiling? Is he planning to propose yet another unbalanced federal budget?

            Of course the GOP won’t vote to extend or increase the debt limit despite the fact that past presidents and congresses, under the banner of the Grand Old Party, have had a hand in increasing it to its present unconscionable level of $18 trillion. (Some sources say it’s $27 trillion, but when you’re dealing in trillions, what difference does $9 trillion more or less make?)

            The party’s objections are rooted in principle and perhaps their spokesmen, mainly Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, have articulated them, but you can’t count on today’s “liberal” press to fairly report their opposition.

            The media prefers to give GOP objections a seven-second sound bite on TV and a one-paragraph quote buried deep in their print coverage. Democrat spokesmen blast Republican objections with 60-second sound bites on TV and five and six paragraphs up high in their print coverage: “The Republicans won’t vote to increase the debt limit because they’re a collection of fat cats dedicated to increasing their wealth at the expense of the poor and hard-working Americans.”

            The simple truth is that Republicans realize the debt limit will eventually be increased regardless of what they do. But for now they just want to force Congressional Democrats to increase it pointedly without GOP support because it is Biden and the Democrats – not Republicans – that want to spend an extra $4.5 trillion (one bill for $1 trillion, another for $3.5 trillion).

            Democrats desperately want Republican support. If even one Republican votes for it and it later is exposed as a bad idea, they’ll throw up their hands and say, “Don’t blame us. It had bipartisan support.” As things stand now two courageous Democratic senators won’t vote for the bills, preventing their party from using its 51-50 majority to pass them without Republican support. (50 Democrats plus Vice President Harrises’ guaranteed tie-breaking vote.)

            If/when the debt ceiling is raised, Biden will borrow (from China?) so he can claim he kept his promise not to raise taxes on the middle class. This is a debt that will be passed on to the next generation, then the next, then the one after that, and then the one after that, and then . . .  Anybody with two brain cells to rub together knows that boosting taxes on corporations and “the rich” hasn’t a prayer of paying for these two massive spending bills. And borrowing – an inevitable offshoot of raising the debt limit – will inevitably lead to boosting taxes on the middle class. Meanwhile, corporations will pay their increased taxes by simply raising the prices of their goods or services to the lower, middle, and upper classes.