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BY ROZELLA HARDIN
Editorial Director
rozella.hardin@elizabethton.com
Rep. Kevin McCarthy after finally being elected speaker promised that the U.S. House under Republican leadership would protect the national economy, saying that the party was committed to “stop wasteful Washington spending, to lower the price of groceries, gas, cars, housing, and stop the rising debt.”
But there is more to sound economic stewardship than controlling future spending. The government must also pay the bills Congress has run up in the past, even if that means borrowing. McCarthy and his fellow Republicans need to recognize that reality and stop politicizing the issue. Responsible stewards don’t increase their debit, but, they do pay the bills they’ve already made.
The Treasury Department recently announced that the U.S. had hit a congressionally mandated limit on how much the federal government could borrow to satisfy its financial obligations — the so-called debt ceiling. Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen is taking “extraordinary measures” that are likely to forestall a crisis until June. But Congress needs quickly to raise the debt ceiling to make it clear that payments — including to Social Security recipients — will be made.
Perhaps instead of withholding Social Security payments, Congress should withhold its pay as many in the nation have suggested.
House Republicans are essentially threatening to hold an increase in the debt limit hostage to concessions on future spending from the Biden administration and congressional Democrats. Never mind that Republicans don’t seem to agree on what sort of cuts they want to make, with some eyeing potentially politically perilous changes in Social Security and Medicare.
If that is done, we suggest some cuts to the pensions of Washington lawmakers, who draw more retirement pay than some people who work make. And, that just don’t add up.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, sometimes the Republican adult in the room, seems reluctant to play an active role in resolving the impasse. This week McConnell unhelpfully said that any solution to the debt ceiling crisis “will have to come out of the House” and that it was “entirely reasonable for the new speaker and his team to put spending reduction on the table.”
It is worth noting that McConnell’s home state of Kentucky receives more federal funds than it pays back to the federal government according to a 2020 report by the Rockefeller Institute of Government. Also, according to a recent study from WalletHub, Republican-leaning states tend to be more reliant on federal funding than blue states.
We must remember that the income tax is not the only tax collected by the federal government. Excise taxes, corporate income taxes, tariffs, Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid all have separate ways in which they bring money to the federal government coffers.
The money comes in, but politicians determine how it is spent, and oftentimes it goes back to pet projects in their states.
Both Republicans and Democrats in the House are free to advocate policies designed to address what they consider wasteful spending. But politicizing the raising of the debt ceiling is dangerous. It is money that has already been spent and most of it was borrowed money that went to pet projects in states of lawmakers.
Raising the federal debt limit should be a routine, obligatory act by Congress to discharge the government’s basic duty to pay its bills. But at a minimum Congress must raise the limit periodically to ensure that the government can borrow what it needs to meet its obligations. It should be nation above party and we have an obligation to pay the bills.