It's been a major news story the past few weeks. The US government again has reached its borrowing limit, its time to raise the debt ceiling again. Failure to do so before the government completely uses up its borrowing money will result in a default on debt and hurt the nation's borrowing credit. It's a common procedure that has been done many times before, the debt ceiling was raised 18 times during the Reagan Presidency alone, and raised seven times under our last President George Bush. Raising the debt ceiling is necessary to allow the government to pay its bills and keep its high value credit. To do this Congress and the White House must agree on how much to raise the debt ceiling and agree on a way to cut government spending to decrease the overall national debt. Congress then passes the budget and raise on the debt ceiling and the President sighs it. While this has been done many times in this nations history this time it looks as if there is a serious risk of our government going into default. The reason for this is that the government runs out of money on August 2 and despite the weeks of negotiations between the Democrats led by President Obama and the Republicans led by Speaker Boehner no deal has been reached on how to curb the debt. One week from today if no bill has been passed the US will for the first time in history go into default on it's debt, possibly having major negative impacts on the global economy. Many people are concerned about this risk to are economic health and angry that their leaders have been unable to reach an agreement even as the deadline draws closer. I saw on the news last night several regular people had been asked what they thought of the deadlocked negotiations, a couple said it made them embarrassed to be an American. The world was watching as our our leaders fought themselves to a stalemate over something that has to be done for the good of all people. One may said he couldn't understand how the leaders of the country could not negotiate a budget when every American family does.
Here is the thing I don't understand, why people think this is so freaking simple! their 1 president 100 senators and 435 congressmen and women who have agree on a budget of trillions of dollars! This isn't a freak in family of five with two loving parents living together trying to decide if they can afford a new plasma screen TV and pay for Timmy's basketball fees! And if your so embarrassed to be an American cause your government is taking some time to negotiate a budget then MOVE! If you think its that easy and you could do better then run for Congress! I will proudly campaign for your opponent.
Here is what I don't understand, why do people get so worked up about it? The government will never go into default, our nations leaders our too rational and to smart to let that happen. Secondly, nothing is as simple as it may appear. This is nothing like planning a family budget. There are trillions of dollars at stake and each member of Congress and the President want to use the money in the way that they believe will best benefit everyone. They are all passionate about what they believe in, but believe in different things. I am proud to have leaders that are so committed and so passionate about what they believe is right that they are willing to withstand outside pressure and voice their opinions. And I think other people should be too. I'm proud to be am American because of our form of government, a government where all opinions matter. Our government does have it's arguments and name calling, its loud, its slow, it's smells funny, but all those things mean democracy is working. Its what the founding fathers intended. They new having a government run by many different people, from different backgrounds, with different experiences would lead to heated arguments and debates. While at times our government might be faltering, it is important to remember that the system has worked for over 200 years and i have no doubt in my mind that it will not fail within the next week
No comments:
Post a Comment