Guest Blog: Flawed Debt Ceiling Discussion Points to Draconian Results

This is a guest blog by Dr. William Stroud of Alamogordo, New Mexico. He was born in Arkansasas and was a United Methodist Clergyman in the USA and in Europe, as well as a college professor. He says he has been a Democrat for so many years that he cannot count them, turning up at the polls when his mother was a poll worker.

He was active in civil rights in Georgia, and was a member of the conference that sent a group of loyal democrats to Chicago to challenge the elected party leaders. He was a delegate to the Arkansas Democratic Convention. He says he wants to help give a voice to the people of New Mexico.

The contemporary political climate includes a strong measure of anti-intellectualism. The unwillingness to listen to the best scientific minds about several issues is dangerous for our future as a nation. We cannot turn our attention to discussing certain things as a part of the “belief” system, discussing only how that system measures up with other beliefs that we hold to be true. We cannot measure the testimony of a scientist in the same way that we measure the testimony of a theologian, because more is directly at stake here.

Freedom of religion allows us to balance one set of premises against another one and say, for example, “this belief fits me better than some other belief does.” While we are free to believe in our nation, the overwhelming evidence from science must be treated differently.

The testimony of economists across the spectrum say that the best and most trustworthy observations in regard to the discussion of the debt ceiling point to draconian results if the right answers are not offered. Default on our obligations might well trigger a depression. That depression will not have the safety net of the recession which began with the two unfunded wars and the unfunded extension of Medicare.

While we do not know what will happen, economists suggest that a default on the obligations of the country will include a termination of, among other things, Social Security payments, military pensions, military pay, Medicare reimbursements, pay for the troops in Afghanistan and in Iraq, among many programs. Even raising doubts about whether we will meet our obligations damages our credibility in the world as our credit scores as a nation are degraded.

The accumulation of evidence on the part of economists of all persuasions, and even among a growing number of CEOs, is that we cannot afford a loss of our ability to borrow. The issue of raising the debt ceiling is not a luxury we can afford, and must be separated now from the discussion of cutting spending.

Spending cuts must come, but they must not come at the expense of veterans, soldiers, families of soldiers, Social Security recipients, Medicare and Tri-Care recipients. After the debt ceiling is secured, we can deal with those issues. Given the anti-intellectual climate of our times, we must be very careful about some things, and understand that the evidence in the case of the environment, and in the case of the economy requires serious and immediate action. 

Ellen Wedum of Alamogordo reminds me that the extension of our debt ceiling has always been more of a formality, and that spending has increased in every administration since the Reagan days. Only at the end of the Clinton administration was there a surplus, which quickly disappeared after he left office, with the advent of two wars and Part D Medicare.

This is a guest blog by Dr. William Stroud. If you'd like to submit a piece for consideration as a guest blog, contact me by clicking on the Email Me link at the upper left-hand corner of the page.