Freedom Line Blog

Since a majority of the smart people in Washington, D.C., agree that the nation’s astronomically high $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, chattering class consensus says all the “sane” members of Congress will stand together and once again extend America’s line of credit.  With that in mind, GOP budget cutters are proposing to get deep spending cuts in return for raising the debt ceiling.

Not so fast, says Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.  Playing his faux apolitical persona to the hilt yesterday, Bernanke said House Republicans should “not play around” with the debt ceiling vote to extract any spending concessions.  That would make a fiscal issue too political.  Instead, they should treat spending and tax issues separately; exactly the unconditional debt raising approach espoused by the Obama Administration.

But the logic of the Republicans’ negotiating tactic is clear: get spending cuts now so that the debt limit becomes a true ceiling once more instead of a temporary marker.  Having a limit on one’s credit card does not require the user to treat it as a goal.  It’s an emergency option, not a default.  Because fiscally conservative House and Senate members are the only public officials actually trying to get control of the budget, demanding concessions from the debt ceiling vote may be the only way to make progress in a fractured government.

If Bernanke is too partisan to see that, he should at least recognize that politics isn’t just an exercise in means; it’s the attainment of principled ends as well.