Letter to the Editor: Boehner's Titanic
BY Stan Robertson, Broken Arrow
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
1/16/13 at 7:42 AM
Only about a third of the federal budget is discretionary spending subject to control of the present Congress. Tax revenues are not sufficient to pay for the two thirds of the budget that is mandatory spending. This includes Social Security, Medicare and interest on the national debt. Social Security holds a large sum in IOUs, and ought to be well-funded.
Unfortunately, about 40 percent of the money to redeem those IOUs is now being borrowed. There is no way to curb deficit spending without either reducing spending on Social Security and Medicare or raising taxes rather dramatically.
Democrats don't want to reduce entitlement spending and Republicans don't want to raise taxes. But the Republicans have the larger problem. The leverage that they think that they have in a fight over raising the debt ceiling doesn't really exist. Democrats will be protected from adverse consequences of raising taxes because the Republican House will block tax increases. But if Republicans fail to raise the debt ceiling, they will be sent home in 2014. If they cut entitlement spending they will be sent home in 2014.
Welcome to the Titanic, Mr. Boehner.
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