Our Stork Dance

"Just like storks do on occasion, in Washington we preen, we strut, we argue, and then we cave. And the spending goes on and on and on..."

Here we go again. Ten working days and counting. I know many people are getting very tired of this movie. I sure am. What is it? Our debt ceiling. We are bumping up against our debt ceiling. Again. And again. And again.

November 3rd is the day that Jack Lew has determined to be "D-Day". Call it "D" for debt. That is when we will have spent everything we had in the bank. Plus, maxed out all our credit cards. So Congress needs to authorize more debt. Increase our "open to buy" on our credit cards. If they do not, the obligations we have incurred cannot be paid for. I guess that would constitute somewhat of a default.

So in reality, how bad is it? Is this entire process just for show, or do we have a debt problem? As much as I would like to hang this around Obama's neck, I can't. Incurring debt has been an equal opportunity activity. And we as a country, have become very good at it. 

Many in the country are doing a collective yawn at this debt issue. "So what? It is just money we owe ourselves!" Not really. It is money we owe foreign lenders. Our children. Our grandchildren and so on. Sooner or later, you must pay for the party. Pay the piper so to speak. 

Here is the issue in very simple terms. Our debt is over $18 trillion and headed to $19 trillion. Our interest rate used to service our debt is ridiculously low - 2.5%. Even with that, with the enormous size of our debt, we are paying almost 1/2 trillion dollars to service the debt every year. Now, let us suppose our interest rates are allowed to go up to 5%. Still a very low rate. The cost to service our debt would be $1 trillion dollars every year. That is a trillion dollars less than we would have to spend on anything else.

This is insane! Why can't we stop this madness? Why? Because we are addicts. All of us (or most of us) are. We can't stop spending more than we take in. Just like alcoholics or drug abusers, we don't have a "stop" button. Even though we have been warned about the dangers of a debt this high, we just ignore the warnings. We will worry about it later. Kick the can down the street. Come up with something to get us past November 3rd. Please!

So in the next two + weeks, the stork dance will continue. All arguments used in the past will be used again - by both sides. Nobody wants their ox gored, so all pet rocks will be protected and spared. In the end, the debt limit will be raised and we will know the approximate date for the next debt limit expiration. Blah, blah, blah.

It is too bad we no longer have debtor's prison. When our representatives authorize more spending than revenue, we could sentence them to do some time. How much time? Unknown. All I know is this - with a debt this size our time is almost up. Move over Greece.