The new news pundit talking point regarding the debt ceiling is to say that raising the debt ceiling isn’t about spending, it’s about paying off our debts. So we raise the debt ceiling so we can pay off our debts (or, as they say: “pay our bills”). But that makes questionable sense to me, because when I pay off my debts, I don’t owe more, I owe less. So if we’re paying off our bills, then how come our debt keeps growing, rather than shrinking? As you can see, it doesn’t actually make sense mathematically, or any other way either, really.
Or are they saying we’re “paying our debts” by putting it all on a big credit card? Because that doesn’t “pay” what we owe, it just charges it up into, you guessed it: more debt. And we still owe that. So we haven’t paid for anything, really. So as it turns out, it really is just about racking up more and more debt, not “paying our bills”. Isn’t it?
