BoatShoes;1367843 wrote:It's very simple. You can't cut your current expenditures without your wife's consent (president and democrats in Senate) even if you accept much of it is useless...they/she has come to the opposite conclusion.
Well, in real life, it's pretty easy to just cut up her cards when she's not looking. But I digress.
I'd suggest that there is a distinct problem if the default position is that of a ruinous trend. Why is the default to spend beyond the means? When the two disagree, why is that the de facto?
BoatShoes;1367843 wrote:In real life you can not listen to your wife but you can't under our Constitution.
I'd be hard-pressed to find the Constitutional (since you brought it up) viability to spend like we have been, or are currently.
Moreover, to be honest, I don't think this is a husband and wife issue. I think both of them are in agreement to keep spending like they are ... just on different items.
Kinda like a lot of marriages of people who dislike each other.
BoatShoes;1367843 wrote:It is impossible not to spend unless your wife consents.
Why? I'm trying to get at why you're saying this. Not necessarily saying anything about it otherwise.
BoatShoes;1367843 wrote:Consequently, you either borrow slightly above your income level at 1% or default.
Again, though, you're suggesting that the loan AND the wife's decision is foregone (again, I'd say the parallel would have both of the spouses spending too much, but one is paying lip services to responsibility). Why?
BoatShoes;1367843 wrote:You keep saying cutting is an option when clearly it isn't.
Quite the contrary. Just because people have, to date, refused to do it doesn't mean it's not an option. Just as easily as getting them to agree on raising the ceiling would it be to get them to agree on cutting spending, one would think (if the group that says they believe in cutting were actually serious about it).
But something is still an option whether or not someone is willing to choose it.
BoatShoes;1367843 wrote:If default has disastrous consequences (which it does)...it will wreck your finances while borrowing more at 1% after a couple debt reduction compromises will not...
In the short order, you're correct. However, when you finally do default (as the pattern we've had for decades would indicate is an eventuality), the deeper hole you've dug by continuing to enable yourself to borrow more won't have been helpful in the long run. If you don't build a framework that forces yourself to stop spending (and raising the ceiling is pretty much the opposite of such), you won't stop spending until outside forces make it impossible for you to continue, at which point, you default anyway ... only this time, you're substantially more in debt.
BoatShoes;1367843 wrote:... threatening to default unless spending cuts are extracted is inappropriate and the obvious answer is to simply do that which will not be disastrous.
Again, I'm not suggesting that we default. I'm not saying to either cut spending or default. I'm saying to cut spending ... period. Treat the difference between where we are and the ceiling like a checking account balance ... not by continuing spending and then not footing the bill, but by not spending anymore.
This defeatist mentality about the whole spending issue is a good portion of the problem. The notion that we have to up the debt ceiling stems from the notion that we can't cut spending ... that it's not an option. The problem is that such a notion ignores the fact that an unwillingness to choose an option doesn't prevent it from being one.
If I choose not to stop drinking a bottle of Scotch a night, does that mean that stopping is not an option? Of course not. It just means I may be refusing to choose it.
