Wednesday, October 30, 2013

The Debt Ceiling Dilemma

By Elli Ramlow


            The debt ceiling is one of the many economic reasons the government shut down a few weeks ago. While the government is now reopened and the debt ceiling has been raised it is still a pertinent and significant issue. The government’s debt ceiling is the amount the government is allowed to be in debt—the total amount of money they owe other countries. Because the government is very close to reaching the ceiling price, a solution must be derived. As of now the solution has been to raise the debt ceiling, allowing the government to continue spending money they don’t have, however this is a short run solution and does virtually no benefit in the long run economy. A common misconception is that if the price ceiling is not raised, our government will be forced to declare bankruptcy. However, “the U.S. Constitution forbids defaulting on the debt” (2) per the 14th amendment section 4. This means that once the government reaches the debt ceiling price they will have to budget their money, or find funds elsewhere to continue spending at the rate they are. However we now that the solution has already been decided and that it is to raise the price ceiling.
            While both sides are at blame for this issue, the Republican Party has been the recipient of the majority of blame by the American people as “an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found a 22-point difference between those inclined to blame Republicans in Congress for their handling of budget negotiations and those blaming the president” (2). The blame, however, should be placed on the entire government system and their coherent inability to properly budget. Each year the government spends ridiculous amounts of money frivolously, that they simply do not have. The fact that they are raising a debt ceiling that is already in the trillions of dollars is preposterous. Furthermore, they are blind to the fact that this will not solve the problem in the long run. It is a short run economics solution that is not sustainable. It is not reasonable to continuously raise a ceiling because that obliterates the purpose of the original ceiling and its function.  Instead of spiraling further into debt the government should look to “reform entitlements because that is where about three-quarters of the spending goes; principally to social security, Medicare, and Medicaid” (1).  This would be a long run solution because it increases the income of the government indirectly by reducing spending therefore allotting more funds to be spent elsewhere. It is a sustainable and realistic long run solution unlike raising the price ceiling.
            To put things into perspective let us take a look at the amount of money the government is currently spending; “before the debt ceiling was raised this month, it stood at $16.69 trillion” (3). A country that is over $16 trillion in debt should be looking to alleviate this debt through budgeting, not increase it. Another key issue is the fact that “the current US debt to GDP ratio is roughly 106.8 percent, meaning that the amount the federal government owes to its creditors exceeds its GDP” (3). This is extremely concerning because it means that although we have a thriving economy, our debt still outweighs it. 
            In turn, our debt hurts the global economy because the money we owe is mostly owed to other countries. Therefore allowing our debt to grow has negative consequences on not only the American economy but also the global economy.  Therefore it is the government’s duty to lessen their current debt instead of raising the debt ceiling because of its overall effect. While raising the ceiling is an effective solution in the short run it proves to become a negative consequence to the long run. The government must reevaluate their spending and create a realistic budget that can provide relief from this immense debt. 

The Debt Limit Explained: http://youtu.be/KIbkoop4AYE

Works Cited:


6 comments:

  1. The US economy being so big, the world economy is highly dependent on it – its actions and inactions. The world is so linked to the US economy that any adverse economic change or lack of certainty that happens in America will bring some negative effects on other countries. Its therefore a huge issue, and needs to be solved

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  2. I completely agree with Elli. It seems like our government could spend money in a much more efficient and debt conscious way. It's not like this debt ceiling snuck up on us, it has been an issue for years, so why are we still so dependent on raising the debt ceiling? We've spent so much money on war and so much money on aiding other countries when we are not even stable ourselves. I know it is important to maintain strong relationships with other countries the government should be able to balance a little better. Great topic and great article!:)

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  3. The government spends money because they have the time and resources to without having a conscious thought about how they spend it. The debt ceiling is rising and rising with no turn for better but rather for worst. That was one of the main reasons of the government shutdown was because we could not come to a compromise of how much more to spend on government and raise the debt ceiling. We do spend much money on other countries such as aid and war yet we as a country are not stable yet. The marginal benefit of helping other countries and spending much money is less than the marginal cost of our own country. Our government needs to take a step back and find a plan to reduce the national debt before we can move forward.

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  4. Raising the debt ceiling is indeed an effective solution to this issue of the United States now having enough money. However, as they are already so far in debt, it isn't adequate to raise the debt ceiling even further so they can spend more money that they don't have. What you said about the medicare and medicaid, as well as social security, I believe that those aspects are at risk for society's future, including us high schoolers and college students. Will any of that even be offered in the future because of this whole situation? Because those services will probably develop high operating costs that they will no longer be affective. This country's methods of handling a situation like this are so discombobulated and the outcome of them are not making the future any better. The government needs a plan - a real plan to budget, and not find ways to spend more money.

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  5. After doing some research, I found that the government puts about $50 Billion into foreign aid every year. I know it's not much looking at the big picture, but it seems a little bit ridiculous considering that we don't have any money of our own. But I realize it is necessary to put money into some of the countries that we get most of our oil from to keep them happy. But they are going to have to find places to cut a lot of funding because we cannot simply keep piling up the debt.

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  6. Here is a website that monitors U.S debt, http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/. You can see that debt is constantly rising at a fast rate. Raising the debt sealing is a good solution for the United States but a problem also arises with it. If the sealing is higher, the U.S will just keep spending and spending more money, making them even further in debt.

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