How Congressional Republicans And Fox News Displayed Their Profound Debt Ceiling Ignorance

[Enthusiast]

By Jeff Spross on Nov 30, 2012 at 6:00 pm
Think Progress

One of the key pieces of the package President Obama put forward yesterday to deal with the so-called “fiscal cliff” is a permanent end to the debt ceiling. It would make increases in the ceiling effectively automatic, subject to a veto by two-thirds of Congress.

This proposal did not just prompt howls of protestations from conservatives — it also produced a remarkable failure amongst politicians and journalists alike to understand the basics of government financing and the Constitution’s separation of powers.

In the Washington Post yesterday, Lori Montgomery called the idea “an effective end to congressional control over the size of the national debt.” Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) railed against it as “a blank check.” Timothy Carney, a journalist for The Washington Examiner, lamented the legislature ceding power to the executive, effectively “castrating” Congress.

But the worst example of the theme arrived this afternoon, when Fox News host Megyn Kelly asked Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) about the White House’s debt ceiling proposal:

MEGYN KELLY: What do you make of request to cut the Congress out of the process when it comes to raising the debt limit? He wants a blank check now to just raise it when he needs to. Your thoughts on that?

SEN. JOHN CORNYN: Well it’s outrageous. It’s like saying we’ve maxed out our credit card, so I’m gonna get a new credit card with no limit so I can keep spending. There needs to be some accountability here. So far were spending 42 cents out of every dollar in Washington in borrowed money. And that’s money that our kids and grandkids are gonna have to pay back. It’s profoundly irresponsible. So that’s a crazy idea, and I’m amazed that Secretary Geithner had the, uh, courage to float that yesterday.

Cont...http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/11/30/1267331/debt-ceiling-ignorance/

[No Elephants]

1. True, Congress has to approve the budget, but, doesn't the President send them the budget to begin

with? And then the President signs it.

So, it is not as clear cut as Congress writing checks the President cannot cash, as the article says.

Still, if Congress and the President have both approved the budget, it's silly to hold the country's ability to borrow to pay hostage.

I don't think I am 100% of Cheney' view that "deficits don't matter," though. For one thing, I don't like paying interest. For another, I don't think it's fair to the next generation.

As for people displaying their ignorance, I am not always able to tell when people are displaying their own ignorance or just trying to fool as many people as they can get away with fooling.

The Big Lie bit.

And, apparently, our minds work in ways that help liars.

I read about a study that shows that believe believe what they hear or read first(something I had long suspected).

What I did not realize is that a correction later only seems to reinforce what people heard first. So, say, getting a newspaper to print a retraction may actually be counter-productive.

IOW, once the lie is out there, it almost gets written in stone for people who heard it and did not already know better.