By Steve Hynd
"Paying on the never-never" means running up massive credit card bills you've no hope of ever paying back. It's always a bad idea, and doubly so when governments do it.
Legislation to increase the federal debt limit got a boost on Thursday when House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that it would be combined with a must-pass military spending bill.
"We need to have a vehicle so that the Senate can vote on it, and it is our intention to have something on the Department of Defense bill next week," Pelosi told a news conference.
According to Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND), we're talking about a $1.5 trillion increase to the current debt limit of $12.1 trillion, just to keep the government going through 2010.
There's supposedly a possibility of a Republican revolt.
it could alienate Republicans who usually line up behind military spending.
Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee, which oversees the military spending bill, wrote to Pelosi that they would vote against it if it included the debt-limit increase.
I recall Republican catcalls when Dems threatened not to vote for "supporting the troops" whenever Bush larded defense bills with extras, and recall that Dems always ended up voting for those bills anyway. I don't expect this time, with the shoe on the other foot, to go any differently.
I expect both sides to keep playing dumb political games instead of getting real about controlling national debt or asking the American people to make actual sacrifices if they're to continue backing inflicting those dumb domestic political games on foreigners under the guise of "foreign policy".
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