It drives interest rates, making mortgages unaffordable and crushing job-creation. “It drives inflation, eating away at savings and raising the cost of everything. “The exploding national debt is a major threat to all Americans,” he writes in an email. The Club for Growth’s president, David McIntosh, lays out the stakes if we don’t get those drunken sailors some black coffee and fast. “embers of leadership are talking about the debt as a huge threat to our nation, so I think there’s a readiness to act.” Success would require spinal transplants for the Republicans, but it’s the right idea. “There’s a long history of excessive spending during both Democrat and GOP administrations,” he said. The Republican in line to take over as House Budget Committee chairman, Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania, told Fox News that his party will confront the problem should they win a majority in November. On this front, there is at least some hope. Despite President Biden’s false boasts about having reduced the debt, we’re facing stagnation. First is President Kennedy’s classic idea to grow the economy by cutting taxes, summarized as “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Yet instead of expanding the economy, we have just suffered two quarters of negative growth. We do, of course, because it requires more of those devalued greenbacks to settle up with the bartender at the end of the night.Įxcessive spending has already brought on inflation, which the Fed has tried to counter by hiking rates, meaning the price paid to borrow money increases, too - and, as with a Visa card’s interest rate payments, that cash isn’t going to buy anything you want or to pay down the principal. With the gold standard also a distant memory, there’s nothing to rein in the binge-spending, and Washington pays no price for keeping the money printing presses whirring. A few backbenchers make noise about respecting it, but Democrats and Republicans always join hands to up the limit. The debt ceiling is a relic of an earlier era, when we weren’t so quick to mortgage our tomorrows for today, but it’s been reduced to a prop in our political theater. In the years since, even as the numbers rolled over at a faster and faster clip, the Debt Clock has been moved to one and then another less conspicuous location. When the National Debt Clock first appeared in Times Square in 1989, it warned about less than $3 trillion of red ink. With deficit hawks an endangered species on Capitol Hill, who will protect our nest eggs from the reckoning that looms should we continue down our current path? Garret Graves of Louisiana reportedly waited to shave a burly beard until McCarthy was elected speaker of the House in January, a process that took four days and 15 ballots.America’s national debt passed a new milestone Tuesday, hitting $31 trillion - a figure one-quarter larger than America’s annual GDP of around $25 trillion. He sees the gun-shaped pin as a way to remind people of the Second Amendment.Īnd Republican Rep. “I hear that this little pin … has been triggering some of my Democratic colleagues,” he said in a video posted to Twitter this month. Andrew Clyde of Georgia has been handing out assault rifle pins on the House floor. Republicans and Democrats alike criticized Ocasio-Cortez over the outfit. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, attracted attention when she wore a white Brother Vellies ivory wool jacket dress with the phrase “Tax the Rich” emblazoned across the back to the 2021 ball. The jacket was donated to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in October.Īnother New Yorker and Met Gala attendee, Democratic Rep. Maloney wore the jacket to speeches, events and the Met Gala before Congress passed the legislation. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, pledged to wear a custom-made fireman’s jacket until the federal government fully funded an effort to aid 9/11 responders. Massie is not the first lawmaker to make some sartorial choice - or alter his or her physical appearance - to make a political point. “He said we should all wear one to the State of Union.”ĭespite Santos’ urging, it’s unlikely that other Republicans will start appearing in the halls of Congress with similar debt clocks. “Say what you will about him, but George Santos had a good idea,” Massie said of his embattled Republican colleague from New York. On Tuesday, Massie will don the provocative accessory at the State of the Union address. It’s been the subject of dozens of tweets and a handful of news stories. Since Massie, who has voiced reservations about hiking the debt ceiling, debuted the device in late January, he’s worn it around the halls of Congress, to votes and at an event in his home district. Thomas Massie’s lapel is a debt clock, tracking the country’s debt in real time using a complicated algorithm of the Kentucky Republican’s design - and raising eyebrows in the process. It’s not a doomsday clock or a pedometer, though it’s been confused for both.
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