[kabar]

The notion of “we’ll raise your debt ceiling if you agree to spending cuts” is about the stupidest trade-off I can imagine.

The debt ceiling will have to raised at some point. We can't balance the budget in one year or five years. The first thing that needs to be done is to change the trajectory of spending, which will be difficult because the entitlement programs costs are increasing every year due to the fact that 10,000 people a day are retiring and will do so for the next 20 years. By 2030 one in five Americans will be 65 or older and there will be just two workers for every retiree.

The dirty little secret is that we cannot pay SS and Medicare benefits without borrowing the money.

[Truth29]

"The debt ceiling will have to raised at some point. We can't balance the budget in one year or five years. The first thing that needs to be done is to change the trajectory of spending, which will be difficult because the entitlement programs costs are increasing every year due to the fact that 10,000 people a day are retiring and will do so for the next 20 years. By 2030 one in five Americans will be 65 or older and there will be just two workers for every retiree."

And that is an optimistic viewpoint. Another would be after the US collapses and goes Road Warrior, the wolves will harvest the sheep and then each other and a much smaller population will survive in a Hollywood post apocalyptic future movie set.

[ClearCase_guy]

The debt ceiling will have to raised at some point.

Republicans just sound like Democrats "We have to raise the debt ceiling."

And Mitt Romney is the most electable Republican ...

I'm tired of that crap from the GOP. We have too much debt. Deal with it. Don't raise the debt ceiling. You do not "have to". What you need to do is make hard choices on spending. Yeah: that means entitlements.