…and I think I’ve got a spin on it that no one has brought up before. From http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/10/11/rand-pauls-claim-that-there-is-no-reason-for-us-to-default/:
The debt ceiling is set at $16.699 trillion, for both publicly traded bonds and intergovernmental obligations such as Social Security, and the United States actually hit it back in the middle of May. But the Treasury has juggled money around in an effort to keep from going over the debt limit.
I think what we should do is impeach Obama right now. What is happening is happening precisely because he didn’t cut any government spending back in May when the “real” debt limit was reached. What should have happened then, in my opinion, is Obama report to Congress that the debt limit was reached and that he was having to reduce spending effective immediately. He should have prioritized spending at that time to:
1) pay the debt interest
2) federally mandated spending (basically, everything that isn’t shut down now)
3) taken any and all surpluses and hold them back to extend the options to do 1 and 2 until Congress could (or would) raise the debt ceiling.
Instead of taking the fiscally responsible path, Pres. Obama continued the reckless spending and using accounting gimmicks (sort of like a family moving money from savings into checking). He didn’t try to reign in spending or address the issue back then. I think that means the ball is firmly in Pres. Obama’s court now.
Image from images of money via flickr