OPINION:
The fight is spending. The time is now.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has scheduled a meeting with President Biden this week at the White House to discuss whether and how to go about raising the so-called debt ceiling in order to manage the mountain of debts that politicians in Washington have piled up over the past few decades.
Today, future generations of Americans yet unborn will stagger under more than $30 trillion in debts these weasels have already burned through. Just imagine dying and leaving in your will a credit card bill for over $85,000 to each of your children.
It is immoral, dishonest, reprehensible and unimaginable.
Yet that is precisely what these people have done. They have blown through more than $85,000 in debt for every man, woman and child in America. And they’re not even sorry about it.
In fact, anyone concerned about it is some kind of right-wing extremist MAGA fascist. According to Mr. Biden, anyway.
But while we’re looking for scapegoats, let’s consider the biggest goat in Washington, Mr. Biden himself. When he first came to Washington, the national debt stood at $398 billion, which horrified people back then. Our debt was 35% of our gross domestic product.
In the intervening half century that Mr. Biden has been spending your money, he has racked up more than $29 trillion — every bit of it on your children’s credit card. And you thought Hunter Biden could blow through money on hookers, crack and hotels.
Today, Mr. Biden’s national debt is 123% of our nation’s gross domestic product.
Finally, Republicans in Congress want to stage a spending intervention. The credit card bill has arrived, and it’s maxed out. Again.
Mr. McCarthy wants to work with Mr. Biden to find a sensible way forward. But Mr. Biden — like a hopeless junkie — demands that Mr. McCarthy give him another credit card. Or else.
The White House is “not going to be negotiating over the debt ceiling,” his press secretary says. The debt ceiling will be lifted “without conditions.” The debt ceiling, she added, “should not be a political football.”
The dishonesty, recklessness, arrogance and stupidity is almost as staggering as the debt itself.
Congress and Congress alone decides what money the federal government collects and Congress alone decides how that money gets spent. (Remember: Mr. Biden has racked up more than $29 trillion since he joined the Senate 50 years ago.)
As president today, Mr. Biden’s only spending authority is to veto spending bills.
But that doesn’t stop stupid Democratic cheerleaders in the media from encouraging Mr. Biden to trash the Constitution.
“Serious question,” pondered Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post. “What if the Biden administration ignored the debt ceiling and just kept paying bills if it’s not raised? That’s presumably a violation of the law, but what are the consequences? A lawsuit by House Republicans that takes years to litigate?
“Something else?”
This from the official “fact-checker” at what was once the paper of record in Washington.
Indeed, Democracy dies in darkness. And stupidity.
Not only does the president have zero spending authority, Mr. McCarthy has more spending authority than anyone in Washington. That’s because the House of Representatives — the chamber closest to the taxpayers — is charged with originating any and all legislation that raises taxes or spends taxpayers’ money.
You can “fact-check” that, Mr. Kessler.
Mr. Biden — delusional as ever — is having none of it.
“The very notion that we would default on the safest, most respected debt in the world is mind-boggling,” he said last week. “I’m not going to get into the reckless threats that take the economy hostage in order to force an agenda that’s going to only limit American workers and weaken us internationally. I won’t let it happen.”
This from the guy who killed 15,000 pipeline jobs the day he took office and single-handedly destroyed the U.S. energy production industry.
“I will not,” Mr. Biden added, “let anyone use the full faith and credit of the United States as a bargaining chip.”
Well, Mr. President, maybe you should have thought about that before you went on a $29 trillion drunken power binge, you sick spending junkie.
• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor of The Washington Times.
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