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June 4, 2023 Editor, The News-Gazette: I love my hometown paper, but in the May 31 editorial, “A Reasonable Bipartisan Compromise,” they are wrong. When some one or some country is $31.4 trillion in debt, a decision to increase that amount to $34.4 trillion over two more years is unreasonable at best and just plain dumb at worst.
The whole problem with this discussion is in our phrasing. Our politicians and press have said that defaulting on the debt is “bad” and increasing the debt ceiling is “good.” Since one always should choose “good” over “bad,” the decision becomes easy in theory.
In reality, default (along with the economic chaos that would ensue) is “bad” and perpetually increasing the debt (with the accompanying expansion of the money supply) is also “bad.” Our choice isn’t between good and bad, but rather between bad and bad. Stating it in terms of bad and bad does not make the decision easier, but it does force us to acknowledge that either road heads us in the wrong direction and that maybe, just maybe, we should actually do something to solve the problem rather than kick it down the road two years to when it will be a bigger problem.
The editorial also expresses the reasonableness of $60 billion in spending reductions over the next year. That amount is less than 1 percent of our 2023 federal expenditures. Until we start talking about spending cuts or tax increases, or a combination of the two, that total $600 billion (10% of expenditures) we are not talking about anything of significance. Also, since the 2023 federal deficit is expected to be $1.4 trillion, we are going to need two and a half of those $600 billion discussions. STEVE HART Kerrs Creek
