Media mouthpieces for the Obama regime are trying like mad to convince people that the downgrading of federal debt is not because the establishment intends to continue borrowing and spending like mad for years, but because some of us insist that the fiscal booze binge end. One of them is the Washington Post’s clueless Eugene Robinson. Don Boudreaux demolishes his feeble argument here:
Editor, Washington Post
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071
Dear Editor:
Eugene Robinson blames the S&P's downgrading of Uncle Sam's credit on the
protracted refusal (until the very end) by Uncle Sam - a licentious borrower -
to borrow even more ("A downgrade’s GOP fingerprints," August 9). Mr. Robinson
scolds, "If you threaten not to pay your bills, people will - and should - take
you seriously."
Why is the first remotely serious effort in ages to oblige government not to
borrow beyond a certain limit portrayed as fiscal imprudence?
Asked differently, why would creditors be spooked by a debtor's 'threat' to
honor his vow to keep his debt from growing? Creditors, it seems, would APPLAUD
the keeping of such a vow.
The downgrade is far more plausibly a consequence of Uncle Sam breaking that vow
- and doing so in a way that reveals his cowardly refusal, at the end of the
day, to address his addiction to spending greater and greater sums of money now
and passing the bills on to taxpayers later.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
