Posted on 10/04/2013 7:52:00 AM PDT by b4its2late
Lew Op-Ed: U.S. Failure to Pay Bills Hurts Everyone
10/3/2013
WASHINGTON – In an op-ed to be published in the October 4, 2013 edition of USA TODAY, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew discusses the importance of Congress raising the debt limit immediately to avoid self-inflicted wounds that could impede economic growth and create uncertainty for families and businesses.
The text of the piece follows:
U.S. failure to pay bills hurts everyone
If Congress does not raise the debt limit soon, seniors, veterans, kids, among others, are at risk.
By Jack Lew
It might be hard to believe, but there is a dangerous debate underway in Congress right now over whether the United States, the world's strongest economy, should pay all of its bills.
This is not a debate about reducing future spending or cutting the deficit. This is about making sure the United States can meet its existing obligations to our citizens, businesses and investors - and the stakes could not be higher.
If the United States cannot pay its bills in full and on time, each and every American will be affected, including seniors who rely on Social Security, veterans who depend on disability payments, children in need of food assistance, and doctors and hospitals who treat Medicare patients, among others.
The stock market, including investments in retirement accounts, could tumble, and it could become more expensive for Americans to buy a car, own a home and open a small business.
We cannot put our nation in the position of not paying its bills because Congress has refused to raise the country's debt limit. It is important to note that increasing the debt limit does not give the government the ability to spend more money.
An increase in the debt limit simply allows us to pay our bills. Without a debt limit increase, our government will - in a matter of days - not have the resources it needs to make good on its commitments.
Only Congress has the power to lift the debt limit. That means only Congress can clear the way for our government to meet all of its financial obligations.
The United States has met all its financial obligations for more than 200 years. We are a nation that keeps our word. We are a nation that stands behind our full faith and credit.
Some claim that the United States does not need to meet every one of its commitments. They argue that the government could pay certain bills and let others go unpaid without consequences.
The United States cannot be put in a position of having to choose which commitments it should meet. How could we possibly decide among supporting our veterans, maintaining food assistance for children in need, or sending Medicare payments to hospitals?
President Obama has made clear that he stands ready to find a sensible solution to curb spending and bring down our deficits.
He has already worked with Congress to shrink our deficits by more than half by the end of this year. And he has put forward a budget plan that contains spending cuts favored by Republicans because he is committed to making compromises to strengthen our economic future.
He has also made clear, however, that we will not negotiate over whether the United States pays its bills for past commitments. It is a solemn responsibility with which Congress has been entrusted. Congress has met that responsibility consistently throughout our history.
It must do it again now.
Jacob J. Lew is the secretary of the Treasury.
Mortgaging the children’s future is criminal.
Lew is a globalist moron who takes orders from...fill in the blank
Newsflash Lew: you don’t open a new credit card every year to pay your bills. You either increase your income to cover them or reduce your bills to match your income.
We take in about 2.6 or 2.7 trillion per year. That is more than enough income. Government spending needs to be reduced to be in line with that.
If the budget is balanced there is no need to borrow any money or issue bonds or accumulate more debt.
Oh yes..... blasphemous self-righteous pontification by a functionary of the administration that is creating electronic scrip each minute, nay second to buy ore T-bills, buy equities in the stock market to the tune of $85 billion per month for what looks like will be EIGHT
YEARS now... is just what our greedy individualistic consciences need. F@ck him and the horse he rode in on. He knows what the problem is, and it is he.
But the government can never spend enough, right?
When reducing debt, one needs to start with the smallest debt item and eliminate that, and work up the chain to the largest debt. Ramsey calls it snowballing.
So let’s get started with govt debt. First, we eliminate the EPA debt item. Then we eliminate the USDA debt item. Then Education, and on and on until all we have left is judicial and defense.
As Thomas Sowell and David Stockman have pointed out there is enough money flowing into the treasury every day to pay the interest on the debt plus other bills.
This entire shutdown is a sham.
Levin brought this up last night and I have posted part of this elsewhere.
obastard is doing his best to create panic over anything he can. Economy, markets, security... anything he can do to create the impression that only the government and more power by his government in particular can protect the fools that will believe that. Lew is setting the scene to declare that the debt ceiling must be raised even if Congress does not authorize it so that the honor of the United States can be upheld by honoring its rightful debts... no matter how high they are allowed to go.
obastard is guilty of Sedition, the very act he would like to charge any of us who challenge him with. Be careful of it. Find me the man and I will find the crime or charge for him.
In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order.
For his next act oblowhard intends to further trash the Constitution by using clause 4 of the 14th Amendment to ignore the debt ceiling set by Congress.
The Amendment was made, foolishly I think, to state that the debts of the Confederacy and the losses for slaves woudl not be paid by the Treasury. They could have left out the bit about “validity of the public debt of the United States...” It is the “authorized by law” part that leaves determination and authorization of the debt in the hands of Congress so far as I cam concerned.
oblowhard is going to use the terms “Appropriation” and “Authorization” to justify his SupraConstitutional and illegal actions. Congress “Authorizes” action and “Appropriates” money. oblowhard will stipulate that the authorization requires him to spend money and that it is Congress fault that he does not have the Authorization to spend and so he is bound by law to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling and spend money to save the nation from economic ruin evident in the panic he is now working so hard to create. If allowed to use this logic he can extend the Authorization actions by Congress to unilaterally taxing, spending and law making. He has already done this with the EPA.
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
I guess doing the thing that the government sets up special assistance office for the unwashed to do wouldn’t be appropriate - they all involve prioritizing expenditures, paring wasteful spending, and making a workable budget....
Hey Jack!
Welfare programs are not “bills”. Interest and principle payments ARE bills.
The fedgov collects 2.7 Trillion dollars a year and has a bill for P&I of 0.4Trillion dollars a year.
Seems as if the fedgov can pay their bills without increasing the debt ceiling......JACK!
My apologies to Silas Robertson.
If the US govt today decided to default on all its bonds and future financial obligations, it would instantly be in the best financial condition it’s been in in over a century.
Government bonds are literal bondage, chains weighing down the future of this country, reducing it to servitude to these lenders. When government sells a bond, what is is actually selling is its ability to extract that money from you or your children at some point in the future. Basically a T-bill is an outsourced right to profits from your government robbing you
What is it about the government’s fiscal situation that makes it a really good idea to borrow money just to pay the bills?
When Obama claims he has cut the deficit in half that is because he is counting the trillion dollars he bloated it to begin with.
Like a store that marks something that should sell for $1, marks it to $3 and then puts a big sign “SALE 50% off” and sells it for $1.50.
There is more than enough money to pay our debts once Obama stops handing out billions to illegals, moochers, labor unions and other communists, and countries that hate us.
He sure is.
For sure.
Definitely.
Obama (UN)affordable Health Care also hurts everyone.
It's debatable which one is worse.
I vote Husseincare would be worse.
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