President Barack Obama recently met with Republican congressional leaders to discuss solutions to the national debt crisis. The leaders of our government must decide whether to increase the maximum amount of debt that the United States government can accrue. Many Republican members of Congress believe that the national debt ceiling should not be increased under any circumstances. Raising the amount of debt that the government can owe will fail to instill discipline in federal spending and increase the amount of interest that must eventually be paid. Politics and money are rarely that simple. Many business owners and managers have written to members of Congress, asking them to raise the debt ceiling immediately. They fear that if the government defaults on Treasury notes, interest rates will rise significantly. If less money is available for borrowing, the cost of loans will increase. Perhaps that is why other Republican members of Congress may agree to raising the debt ceiling only if they can agree with the president and Democratic members of Congress on reductions in spending. They have emphasized that they mean actual reductions in spending, not just a reduction in the increase in spending.
However they vote on budget issues, current members of the United States Congress will probably make things more difficult for themselves when they run for re-election in 2012. If they vote against raising the limit on the national debt, their opponents will likely run ad campaigns that claim that the Senator or Representative voted against the interests of small business. They will claim that they voted to make it more expensive to raise money for expansion, killing jobs. If a Senator or Representative votes for raising the limit on the national debt, he or she will be accused of being unconcerned about the national debt. Such campaigns may feature images of babies being presented with huge tax bills, or foreigners being given the keys to the White House or the United States Capital.
Those who represent Americans in government face difficult choices. Raising the limit on the national debt will mean borrowing more money and paying more interest on that money. Current American politics is a matter of coming to an agreement what programs and services must be reduced to accomplish reducing the national debt. The president’s meeting with congressional leaders was an attempt to do so.
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