I have not paid much attention to the rancorous debt ceiling debate. That’s not because I don’t care about federal spending. There are few aspects of government policy that don’t interest me at least somewhat, and, as a relatively young man, I’m constantly horrified by our government’s spendthrift ways because it’s my future income they are auctioning off in advance. It’s also not because I think the negative consequences of a default have been vastly oversold–though I do.
No, it’s because I can’t imagine that a government so hellbent on spending money would voluntarily limit itself with the much higher interest rates that would inevitably follow default. The Republicans would like fiscal hawks to believe that they are willing to accept such stringent limits, but their governing record would indicate the opposite. The GOP is far too wedded to perpetual war and middle-class entitlements such as Medicare to sincerely desire substantial spending cuts.
Neither party has given the slightest indication that they are serious about cutting spending, so it’s incomprehensible to me that this debate could be anything but a ruse by Republicans in Congress. Whatever deal emerges in the eleventh hour–and one will–the Republicans can fake reluctance in public and rejoice in private that the gravy trains to their districts will make all scheduled stops right on time.
Even if I’m wrong, and Congress does not vote to raise the debt ceiling by the August 2nd deadline, I don’t believe for a second that would stop the government from spending us into oblivion. Members of the government long ago dispensed with the need for Constitutional authorization for their activities, so why would mere statute stop them now? Politics is the art of the possible, and a few words in the legal code simply cannot stop the momentum of the $3.8 trillion behemoth known as the United States federal government.
LarryS 
bruce 
But why is the argument whether or not to go after social security or not? That strikes me as a false choice.
Here are just a few of the sacred cows that are both key in the bankrupting of this country as well as the savaging of the middle class and are not even mentioned in spending reduction talks. And that is precisely because at no time in our history has the Beltway been so totally bought and paid for by the mega-corporations.
1.) Despite the fact that the Founders never meant for us to be an empire we are currently supporting many hundreds of military bases worldwide. Why? Why are we still in Germany and Korea, 2 countries that have prospered because we paid the bill for their defense?
2.) The senseless wars in the Middle East bankrupt this country, make us LESS safe, benefit only the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about and the Islamic radicals by creating more terrorists. And I say this as a retired combat arms NCO with significant counter insurgency experience.
3.) In a time of record unemployment Congres gives tax breaks to companies who offshore jobs and alows them to import more and more foreign labor, from teachers to techies to pharmacists, to replace American workers. That is insanity personified.
Why are NONE of these sacred cows even mentioned in discussions to curtail spending?
Bring the troops home and stop rewarding companies who savage the middle class. The one nation on this earth in need of nation building is the US.