Go to PDF Version | Go to Recent Issues
To save time in the future, you may select one of the preferences below. You may update your eIBD preferences at any time by going into My IBD and selecting Update Your eIBD Preferences.
Set Web-Based Version as Default Set PDF Version as Default Set Recent Issues as Default
Get QuoteSearch Site
Daily Graphs Online
National Debt: Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner say the sky will fall if the debt ceiling isn't raised on Monday. The American people say: Cut the Chicken Little spending.
Fed Chairman Bernanke warned on Thursday of "extremely dire consequences" if Congress did not raise the debt ceiling by Monday, and claimed "using the debt limit as a bargaining chip" to reduce government spending "is quite risky."
In the same alarmist vein, Treasury Secretary Geithner used the release of the Social Security and Medicare Trustee reports Friday to warn Congress "to move as quickly as possible, so that all Americans will remain confident that the United States will meet all of its obligations," including "our commitments to our seniors."
But the latest IBD/TIPP Poll finds Americans have hit a ceiling of their own, this one on patience with a government that's run up an inconceivable $14.3 trillion debt. They want spending restraint.
Asked to what extent they support or oppose legislation raising the debt ceiling, 40% of 917 adults surveyed May 1 to 6 were strongly against increasing the debt limit, while another 23% opposed it somewhat. Only 18% said they "support somewhat" raising the ceiling, while just 10% strongly support doing so.
Even "if Congress promises not to increase federal government spending as a precondition," anti-debt increase fervor remained. Some 51% were still opposed to raising the debt ceiling — including 30% strongly opposed. Only 40% supporting raising the limit, including just 13% strongly in support.
Most of those polled see through Bernanke's and Geithner's hysterics. As Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., told MSNBC on Wednesday, "If we were never to raise the debt limit at all, the Treasury would still take in 70% of all the money they planned to spend in the form of tax revenue," which is "more than 10 times the revenue needed to avoid a default."
Toomey explained that while a partial government shutdown would occur if the debt ceiling were not raised, the catastrophe of a default wouldn't take place.
The Medicare and Social Security Trustee reports warn that both entitlement programs will go broke much sooner than expected. Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office reported that — oops! — its baseline forecast of $5.6 trillion surplus for 2002 to 2011 was off a tad — $11.8 trillion to be exact.
America is headed at warp speed toward a fiscal supernova. Instead of spreading disinformation about the debt ceiling, the White House should use its ongoing budget negotiations with Congress to save us from the real economic danger that's just around the corner.
Democracy: How is it that this White House can make a big hullabaloo over what it called a coup in Honduras in 2009, yet ignore last week's news of death squads in Venezuela? Dictatorships and double standards, anyone? To hear President Obama's top Latin American policymaker tell it, all's ...
Fiscal Policy: A survey finds that young New Yorkers are planning to leave the state. Meanwhile, a group agitates for a state millionaires tax. Is it possible these items are linked? According to a Marist College poll, 36% of New Yorkers under 30 have plans to quit the state within the next ...
Unless things change, the man (or woman) elected in 2012 will be the last American president to preside over the world's leading economy. If things get really bad, he will find himself presiding over the early stages of American collapse. Not "decline" but "collapse." "Decline" is what happens when ...
When House Speaker John Boehner calls for trillions of dollars of spending cuts, the message is clear. Any deal to raise the federal debt ceiling must include significant savings in Social Security and Medicare benefits. Subsidizing the elderly is the biggest piece of federal spending (more than ...
Osama bin Laden is dead. The Middle East is in chaos. And radical Islam is floundering. For a time after 9/11, bin Laden was riding high. Destroying 16 acres in Manhattan and hitting the Pentagon won al-Qaida even more admiration from the Arab Street, hidden cash donations from sympathetic ...
Posted By: MavenDog(1115) on 5/14/2011 | 6:04 AM ET
To avoid any default on debt, the first point of saving should be the pay of Congress and the President. After all, they are the ones who created this mess in the first place.
Flag as Inappropriate
Posted By: PA_Coug(65) on 5/14/2011 | 12:44 AM ET
There is a certain four letter word that I'm pretty sure I can't use here in IBD comments. It begins with the letter "f." So I'm just going to say "frog." FROG Timmy Geithner.
Flag as Inappropriate
Posted By: Gary Evans(5) on 5/13/2011 | 11:13 PM ET
I believe that the bond market would look very favorably to a delay in increasing the debt and repaying the bonds under a few conditions. If the US government made it clear that all maturing prin***l would be paid at todays rates plus 1/2% on the delinquent portion of the bonds, plus all interest beyond maturity would be paid once a budget was resolved and trading of the bonds after maturity was legal and protected, I believe the bond market would look favorably upon such discipline.
Flag as Inappropriate
Posted By: Fargo Vortac(1175) on 5/13/2011 | 10:46 PM ET
"But," asks the 0, "how will any of this help me get re-elected?"
Flag as Inappropriate
To participate in Community areas, please Sign In or Register
Register
Contrarian indicators are often tricky to use
Get QuoteSearch Site
Read Full Article »
