What follows may be a revelation to some, but should be understood by anyone elected to represent us in Washington.

If not, those office holders are either willfully ignorant or overtly subversive, and we are remiss in having voted them in.

An analogy: A family contracts work from a landscape company. When the bill comes later the family realizes they don’t have enough savings and will need to take out a loan. They then get annoyed for some reason and decide they don’t want to take on the debt and instead tell the landscapers they’re just not going to pay. Thereafter, they’re taken to court, fined and damage their credit rating. Ta -Dahh.

Our government raises our “debt ceiling” in order to pay expenses it has already incurred. Everyone needs to understand that.

And if we do not want to continue this course our real job is to cut costs, raise revenues and start paying down the old debt — after we pay what we currently owe.

The above is an overly simple rendering, but I hope it makes an essential point about the “debt ceiling.” Our way of life involves many calculated financial debts — mortgages, student loans, car loans and more. It’s how we’re able to live as we do. Debt itself is not the problem. There’s an ocean of money out there. The job is to move it around (known as “creating an economy”).

And do remember that people with neither job nor income cannot generate revenue, and believing as we do we can hardly leave the sick, the poor and the elderly on the streets to die.

 

Abbott Meader

Oakland