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Global Finance Mag
"If a man had
twenty pounds a-year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen
shillings and sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he spent twenty pounds
one he would be miserable." – Mr. Micawber in Charles Dickens’ David
Copperfield.
At some point, hopefully before Connecticut and the nation are
driven to the poor house, woke Democrats will discover the causal connection
between getting and spending: The more you get in taxation, the more you spend;
the more you spend, without trimming expenses, the greater the necessity of 1)
raising taxes, 2) borrowing money, or 3) printing money, the chief producer of
inflation and, inflation’s uglier twin sister, recession.
Remaining out of debt was, scholars believe, the primary
motivator in Dickens’ life, even when he was well on his way to achieving
literary celebrity status. Dickens well understood the connection between
getting and spending and felt the debtors lash on his shoulders for much of his
life. His own father was tossed into a debtor’s prison.
Britain abolished debtor’s prisons in 1869, perhaps
understanding that no one can squeeze assets from an imprisoned debtor.
A speech given by President Joe Biden in Springfield,
Virginia – “his latest attempt to reframe the economic narrative away from the
rapid price increases that dogged much of his first two years in office,” the New York Times tells us –
graphically illustrates that the president has not yet perceived the connection
between getting and spending.
If 2023 were pre-1868 Britain and Biden the debtor or his
predecessors had been hauled into court for having amassed excessive
debt, Biden most certainly would be berthed in debtor’s prison for the
remainder of his dwindling years. Biden, possibly suffering from dementia, is
80 years young, and some important Democrats who can add and subtract hope he
will ditch his presidential ambitions before the upcoming elections on
There are, most economic scholars will acknowledge, a
limited number of options to reduce debt: 1) raise taxes, 2) cut spending, 3)
borrow or print money at the risk of increasing inflation and a possible
recession, 4) pass on the debt to yet unborn generations who are unable to
register their dissatisfaction at the polling booth with those who have saddled
them with debts they did not create.
Most recently, Biden and the Democrats, who control both the
presidency and the U.S. Senate, have refused to compromise with Republicans on
the matter of the U.S. Debt Limit. Even Saint Barack Obama reached a deal with
Republicans of his day to split the pain involved in raising the limit: For
every dollar spent in the Obama budget after the limit had been raised a dollar
would be cut in spending.
The “debt limit,” this writer noted in a recent Newsletter, “has been delimited by presidents and the U.S.
Congress no fewer than 78 times since 1960 - 49 times under
Republican presidents and 29 times under Democratic
presidents.
“Initially, the debt ceiling was ‘a fix that enabled bonds
to be issued without requiring repeated congressional approvals,’ according to
the Associated
Press. The debt ceiling, in other words, is a ‘workaround’ that
relieves the U.S. Congress of its constitutional oversight obligation to
control every dollar spent by the executive department.”
Without such compromises, the debt limit is abolished. Once
the workaround has been for all practical purposes repealed, we are left with
the status quo ante prior to the
establishment of the debt limit.
In a government of grownups, compromise – and, more
importantly, the recognition of economic realities – is a precondition of
liberty. If spending is not at some point brought in line with taxation, we
arrive together at the economic gibbet. You can only discharge debt for so long using
the tools in Biden’s economic tool kit – which are two: printing money that reduces
the purchasing power of the dollar, or sending the debt of incontinent spending
to children yet unborn who, hopefully, will have the courage to settle the debt
problem that bedeviled fictional characters and real relatives.
The realities of the free and unfree, highly regulated,
market are exactly the same: "If a
man had twenty pounds a-year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen
shillings and sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he spent twenty pounds
one he would be miserable."
Like God, reality will not be mocked, whatever the economic
geniuses of the left may say. If spending is not reduced, taxes must rise to
meet spending, and the notion that the rise in spending will be met by
squeezing millionaires, armed here in the United States by tax accountants and
obliging politicians dependent upon them for campaign donations, is a political
fable whose real consequences may be appreciated, by those who have eyes that
see and ears that hear, everywhere in the world where post Marxian socialism has
been tried and found wanting.
Millionaires can well afford the expense of workarounds; all
other must pay taxes.
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