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Home→'Puter's Always Right→‘Puter Does The Debt Ceiling, Part The First: A Primer

‘Puter Does The Debt Ceiling, Part The First: A Primer

The Gormogons Posted on by
Like Hypnotoad (AGTH),* President
Obama, Democrats and the media expect
us to unthinkingly believe them.

‘Puter’s sick and tired of know-nothings in the media – and even worse in government – spouting off about the debt limit, a subject which experience shows they do not understand. So, as a public service, ‘Puter’s decided to run a multi-part discussion of the debt limit, utilizing helpful examples, irrefutable facts and pesky laws to excoriate liberal misapprehensions concerning the debt limit.

Are you ready? Let’s begin.

The national debt is the total amount of money the United States has borrowed and has not yet repaid. It’s as simple as that.  The debt limit is a legislative cap on the ability of the Treasury to borrow money in excess of a certain amount for any reason. That’s it.

The methods by which the United States incurs debt and how such debt is repaid is phenomenally complex and varied, but it’s unnecessary to know anything about bonds, notes, bills, etc. for purposes of this discussion.

Here is how President Obama’s Treasury Department chooses to define the debt limit: 

The debt limit does not authorize new spending commitments. It simply allows the government to finance existing legal obligations that Congresses and presidents of both parties have made in the past.

Here is how the oxymoronically named Government Accountability Office puts it (much more thoroughly than the political hacks at Treasury):

Congress and the President have enacted laws to establish a limit on the amount of federal debt that can be outstanding at one time. The gross debt excluding some minor adjustments, is the measure that is subject to the federal debt limit. The debt limit does not restrict Congress’ ability to enact spending and revenue legislation that affect the level of debt or otherwise constrain fiscal policy; rather, the debt limit restricts the Department of the Treasury’s authority to borrow to finance the decisions enacted by the Congress and the President. (emphasis added)

‘Puter loves him some added emphasis.
 
Please note what the far-more-political Treasury Department chooses to omit from its definition of debt limit.  The debt limit does not prevent Congress and Obama from enacting laws that promise the moon.  The debt limit merely prevents the Obama (the Executive Branch) from borrowing in excess of the debt limit to provide citizens the promised moon.
 
The debt limit is simply a statute imposing a hard borrowing cap on the Treasury Department. It is intended to prevent the Executive Branch (Obama) from borrowing more money than the Legislative Branch (Congress) believes is prudent.
 
The debt limit was legislated by Congress pursuant to its Appropriations Power, signed by the president (the current iteration by President Obama) and thereby enacted into law.  The debt limit is codified at 31 U.S.C. §3101, where you can read it yourself.
 
The debt limit is so statutorily proper, so completely cromulent, some even refer to it as “the law of the land,” a hallowed term normally reserved for extra-special, super-dee-duper laws like ObamaCare the Inviolate.
 
To sum up, the debt limit itself is not complicated, despite the media intentionally unleashing its sound and fury to obfuscate the truth: government is prevented by law from borrowing more money than the debt limit statute permits.
 
In demagoguing the debt limit, Democrats, liberals and their media enablers (but then ‘Puter repeats himself) try to trip up the average citizen by conflating all revenue with borrowing, which is subject to the debt limit.  That is, liberals pretend the Treasury Department’s ability to borrow is the only possible source of revenue available to fund government’s voracious and ever-growing demand for money.
 
Here’s a hint for you: borrowing isn’t the only way for the government to raise revenue.
 
Next up, Congress’s Appropriations Power.
 
 
Posted in 'Puter's Always Right, Barack Obama, Congress, Media Bias, National Debt, Stupid Politicians, Suck It Czar, U.S. Constitution permalink

About 'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this. ’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies. The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig. His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred. He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently. Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet. 'Puter suggests the Czar suck it.

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