Federal spending needs defined limits
The ceiling in my room is the physical upper limit of the room. I can stack things up as much as I want until I get to the ceiling, then I can stack no higher. Because two objects cannot occupy the same space it is not physically possible for me to stack any higher. The ceiling is a barrier that I cannot cross. If I want to move the ceiling up higher, I can call an architect and home developers and pay tens of thousands of dollars and wait several months for it to be raised.
The flight ceiling of an airplane is the mechanical upper limit of its altitude. A pilot can fly as high as he would like until he gets to the flight ceiling, then he can fly no higher. Because the air is so thin it is not mechanically possible for him to fly any higher. The flight ceiling is a barrier that he cannot cross. If he wants to move the flight ceiling up higher, he can call engineers and mechanics and pay tens of millions of dollars and wait several years for it to be raised.
The debt ceiling of the federal budget is supposed to be the legal upper limit of its total debt. A country can deficit spend as much as it would like until it gets to the debt ceiling, then it is not supposed to be able to deficit spend any more. Because the law is supposed to prevent the total amount of debt from getting any higher it is supposed to be legally impossible for that country to deficit spend any more. The debt ceiling is supposed to be a barrier that a country cannot cross. If a country wants to move the debt ceiling up higher, it is supposed to engage in meaningful discussions about why it reached the debt ceiling in the first place, come to some agreement to prevent reaching that ceiling again and temporarily raise the ceiling until the changes from that agreement can be seen. But not in America.
In America, calling our debt limit a “ceiling” would be a bit of a misnomer, to say the least. While most of USC was enjoying their snow day on Wednesday, Congress raised our debt “ceiling” for a 43rd time since 1980. If we raise the “ceiling” an average of more than once a year, it’s really more of a “budget” than a “ceiling.” There’s certainly nothing wrong with having a budget (in fact, we’re supposed to have one of those too. However, Congress hasn’t been able to pass a budget since 2010. After all, passing a budget first requires agreement on what goes into that budget), but that’s not what our “ceiling” is intended to be used as. A true debt ceiling, as described above, would be a set amount of debt beyond which we as a country never ever want to go past.
We as a nation have spent decades taking out loans to pay for things which we cannot afford. “Spending money we don’t have” seems to be perhaps the most bipartisan issue in all of politics: our total debt had been falling since it spiked to pay for World War II, but President Ronald Reagan was the first president to leave office with the country in more debt than when he started since Roosevelt.
In fact, under Reagan (who is so often cited as the face of Republican economic conservatism) our total debt as a percentage of GDP (that is, how much we owe as a percent of how much we make) increased from 32 percent to 52 percent, or an almost 170 percent increase — the most of any peacetime president so far.
I say “so far” because it would appear the Democrats under President Obama are trying their best to take that trophy from Reagan and his Republicans. When President Obama took office, our total debt was at 74 percent of GDP. At the end of 2013, our total debt was almost exactly 100 percent of GDP. That’s a 142 percent increase, and President Obama is only slightly more than halfway done.
As Democrats and Republicans run hand-in-hand up debt mountain, it is especially important for our generation to pay attention to those actions and demand a true debt ceiling, one that we won’t go over. After all, these $17 trillion in loans aren’t in our parents’ names — they’ll be retired before the debts are due. If you like student loan debt, you’ll love federal debt — $150,000 and counting, owed per taxpayer.