Debt Ceiling Intransigence: Unintended Consequences...
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Fiscal discipline should never be written off as too much trouble. It is easier to spend money irresponsibly if the money can be borrowed, as many American consumers have learned. One should not denigrate Republicans for wanting to control the growth of the public debt, especially when the debt is consistently growing faster than the GDP.
The reason Republicans are intransigent is that they see in the “debt ceiling crisis” the opportunity to return the country to a moral basis by curtailing welfare, handouts, and “Ponzi schemes like Social Security.”
I pointed out that House Speaker Tip O’Neil and the Senate Democrats were prepared to pass the Reagan tax rate reduction and that there were enough House and Senate Republicans and Democrats to carry the vote. But the White House Chief-of-Staff would have none of it. He wanted a Republican “victory” over the Democrats. Thus, a necessary economic policy was misrepresented as a crusade against “big government.”
July 25, 2011
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25776