Washington, D.C., March 8 –- The infamous “Debt Ceiling” is not only capturing all the headlines, it has precipitated a rare consensus on Capitol Hill.
The Democrats had long anticipated a push by Republicans to raise the Debt Ceiling. “The Republicans better scrounge up some votes,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said yesterday. “We’re not going to give them a pass on this.”
But the Republicans had a surprise waiting for Reid.
“Sheesh, Harry must be drunk again,” sighed Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. “We’re way ahead of him on this. The House and Senate Republicans are unanimous: $8.2 trillion debt is enough already. This must stop, and it must stop now. The only question left on our side of the aisle is whether the Democrats will join us to turn this into bicameral bipartisan unanimity.”
The Democrats at that point had no choice but to join the Republicans.
Then, just to double-check the number before passing the new law unanimously, both sides examined the Federal Reserve’s latest Funds Flow statement. Click to enlarge.
“Yep, there it is, right there in that big red circle,” said a member of the Democrats' Blue Dog Coalition (a member who preferred to remain anonymous). “Eight-point-two trillion dollars of debt. That would stretch to the moon and back a billion times. Hells bells, we could turn that much cash into ethanol and be free of foreign oil for a century. It’s $27,000 for every man, woman, child, dog, cat, and goldfish in the whole USA, and it’s about dang time we did something about it. Makes me wanna get John Q. Public down in a headlock, knock on his head, and holler 'Hello, McFly? Anybody home? You can't AFFORD a mortgage—can you HEAR ME McFly? Just the interest payments ALONE are gonna send you to the POORHOUSE, McFly, you knucklehead.'”
Everyone else on Capitol Hill, without exception, concurred with that sentiment, but preferred to remain anonymous. As a result, it is now unanimous:
Mortgage borrowing and lending will become illegal in the USA within a few days, as soon as the President signs the bill into law.
In short: No more borrowing or lending for houses; $8.2 trillion is where it all stops. Anyone who doesn’t have the financial assets to pay for a house outright—regardless of any future income prospects—will just have to tighten their belt and do without a house until they can balance their cash inflows with their cash outlays. It has a simple name: fiscal responsibility—and, just like charity, it begins at home.
Journalists nationwide are wondering why it took the dunderheads in Washington so long to grow a backbone and pass just such a fiscal responsibility bill—one that will really make a difference. One of many headlines now being prepared: "At last, a Debt Ceiling with some real teeth in it."
Elsewhere, in a somewhat related story just now breaking: A large and rapidly growing coalition of mortgage lenders and would-be homeowners will soon begin pushing for a new amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. Although they say the wording still needs some work, here it is in its present form:
"Article XXVIII: Anyone who talks or writes about the nation’s raw dollars of debt, raw dollars of deficit, or raw dollars of interest payments, instead of debt as % GDP, deficit as % GDP, or interest as % of tax receipts, will have his ________ or her ________ chopped off in the town square within twenty-four hours after conviction of the crime. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation, except the President shall have the duty to enforce this article when the violator is a member of the Congress."
The coalition cited this recent weblog article as the inspiration for their proposed amendment, and welcomes suggestions on how to fill in the two blanks that remain in the wording. Also, the coalition strongly suggests that if you support their grassroots effort, go to this web page, key in your zipcode, then call or email your three representatives on Capitol Hill to tell them about your support for this new amendment.
