{"id":8567,"date":"2011-02-04T14:11:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-04T19:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=8567"},"modified":"2011-02-04T14:11:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-04T19:11:00","slug":"fed%e2%80%99s-bernanke-tells-gop-hands-off-debt-ceiling-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/8567\/fed%e2%80%99s-bernanke-tells-gop-hands-off-debt-ceiling-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Fed\u2019s Bernanke Tells GOP &#8216;Hands-Off- Debt Ceiling Vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since a majority of the smart people in Washington, D.C., agree that the nation\u2019s astronomically high $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, chattering class consensus says all the <a href=\"http:\/\/swampland.blogs.time.com\/2011\/02\/04\/ben-bernanke-vs-the-tea-party\/ \" target=\"_blank\">\u201csane\u201d<\/a> members of Congress will stand together and once again extend America\u2019s line of credit.\u00a0 With that in mind, GOP budget cutters are proposing to get deep spending cuts in return for raising the debt ceiling.<\/p>\n<p>Not so fast, says Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.\u00a0 Playing his faux apolitical persona to the hilt yesterday, Bernanke said House Republicans should <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/02\/04\/business\/economy\/04fed.html?_r=1&amp;scp=1&amp;sq=bernanke%20debt%20limit&amp;st=cse\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cnot play around\u201d<\/a> with the debt ceiling vote to extract any spending concessions.\u00a0 That would make a fiscal issue too political.\u00a0 Instead, they should treat spending and tax issues separately; exactly the unconditional debt raising approach espoused by the Obama Administration.<\/p>\n<p>But the logic of the Republicans\u2019 negotiating tactic is clear: get spending cuts now so that the debt limit becomes a true ceiling once more instead of a temporary marker.\u00a0 Having a limit on one\u2019s credit card does not require the user to treat it as a goal.\u00a0 It\u2019s an emergency option, not a default.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n<p>If Bernanke is too partisan to see that, he should at least recognize that politics isn\u2019t just an exercise in means; it\u2019s the attainment of principled ends as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since a majority of the smart people in Washington, D.C., agree that the nation\u2019s astronomically high $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, chattering class consensus says all the \u201csane\u201d members of Congress will stand together and once again extend America\u2019s line of credit.\u00a0 With that in mind, GOP budget cutters are proposing to get deep spending cuts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[581,70,2232,59,544,1097,790,61,71],"class_list":["post-8567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-ben-bernanke","tag-budget","tag-debt-ceiling","tag-deficit","tag-federal-reserve","tag-fiscal-conservative","tag-house-republicans","tag-spending","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8568,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8567\/revisions\/8568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}