Jimmy,
With respect, this is a rather simplistic analysis.  Lets remember that entitlements make up more than half our current budget; defence makes up almost 19% of the budget.  So already more than 70% of the budget is accounted for, and that is not even considering paying interest on the debt we already owe.  Really, I think it is unfair to say that people are talking about cutting entitlements and/or raising taxes to avoid talking about cutting into other programs.  Whats more, The percentage of the budget occupied by Social Security and Medicare will only grow as the Baby Boomers retire.  So ultimately, if we are going to get out of this mess by cutting spending, entitlements have to be talked about. 

Raising taxes (or letting the Bush era tax cuts expire) is, itself, not unjustified if, like in the 1990s under the first President Bush and President Clinton they are actually used to balance the budget and pay down the national debt.  The problem is that too many Republicans seem to think that taxes is a moral principle while defending life can be compromised.  Meanwhile, Democrats are looking for the next special interest group who they can hand money too in return for votes (though in fairness, the Republicans do the same thing, just for different groups and in different ways).

Oh and one final flaw in your analogy.  Part of your neighbor’s spending problems are because of all the stuff he has given to you.  Whenever people grouse about taxes, they forget the million and one things the government has provided them (not the least of which is the internet, reasonably stable currency and a system of laws that allow the economy to exist, education, etc.) meanwhile, whenever the government talks about cutting services, they are the first to offer reasons why their favourite services are essential and can’t be cut.

You could also tell your neighbor that he need not be spending so much on defending his home, especially since he’s been saying for months that those operations will come to an end, and then welching on that. You could remind him of his own words on the subject, and though his home may certainly *feel* threatened, it was robbed ten years ago, and he cannot possibly afford to keep spending so much on booby traps that invariably catch the neighborhood pets when a simple security system would do the trick.

Do you mean that the government might have to scrimp, save, and (gasp) sacrifice like most of the rest of the country?  Surely that can’t be true…...can’t we print more money?

The question arises as to the purpose of having a “debt ceiling” other than to pretend that the concept of government spending (and the costs of expansion of government itself) has some sort of boundary to its own excesses. 
There is so much waste and fraud in Medicare, for instance, that has never been addressed.  The problem with the government “providing” things is that it is often ill equipped to do so economically and merely serves to add great subsidiary costs that ultimately must be born by taxpayers. 
The Department of Energy was founded and tasked with reduction of American “dependence on foreign oil.”  The opposite result exists and we are spending 53 billion a year on an agency which fails to perform its basic function. 
Currently over 40% to 50% of Americans pay no income tax at all and that is the likely fertile field where government will go next to graze.  Any time soon, the beneficiaries of government contracts will be chattering about how “everyone is going to have to shoulder the costs” of government blessings, in particular those most likely to need them. 
By 2021, the interest on the national debt will consume over 100% of the nation’s gross national product.  Forget about raising the debt ceiling, let’s get serious and lower the waste/spending/government expansion ceiling instead.

Start a plan to eliminate all entitlement programs on the national level.  Sorry Gen X ers you are going to have to pay social security taxes but you will not get a dime out of it.  Just know that your parents, grandparents, and great grandparents hung this around your neck and spent it all.

I have never believed that forced charity belongs in government.  I think it is done here because Americans are too lazy to do it themselves.  We see a problem and then just expect to hand it off to the government and let them solve or handle it; and they will, in the most inefficient self serving way they can!  If we want to do this, it should be done at the local level.

Eliminate the retirement pensions.  Government employees should be on a standard 401K program just like the rest of us and they can buy into medicare also just like the rest of us.

Corruption and abuse are the biggest problems.  Pass a law that states a minimum of 10 years imprisonment without parole for anyone that steals from the American people.  Get caught 3 times and you never get out.  Companies have managers that hide and steal from us.  GE, GM, Haliburton, and all the others major companies have executives making tens of millions of dollars in salaries off of our backs.  Stop this practice!

I could go on and on but I won’t.  One thing I think we should consider is imposing a tax on campaign contributions at the same rate as the highest income tax rate paid in our country.  So if the president spends one hundred million dollars on his election, then at least 30 million dollars of it goes into the government bank account.  If they can get companies to donate this kind of money to help them keep a job, then why not raise it to help our government stay solvent?

Go to http://dirtyspendingsecrets.com/ to see some of the ridiculous ways your neighbor wastes money.  Rand Paul has been outspoken on this issue saying repeatedly that the federal gov’t HAS THE MONEY to service its debt, if it would only do that first.  There is no reason to default.  That whole “our credit rating is in jeopardy if we don’t raise the ceiling” argument is bunk.  What puts our rating in jeopardy is when we don’t look like we are going to actually change anything in order to get our fiscal house in order.  And I love how this administration keeps saying “everything must be on the table”—but of course he doesn’t mean that giant bloated disaster Obamacare—“everything on the table” is just code speech for “we must raise taxes”.

Very good discussion, Jimmy.  MarylandBill—I do not want to offend you but your points do not significantly change the analysis. Rather than clarifying the situation you are making it unnecessarily complex, you are obfuscating as so many in the political class are doing.  Get real.  Do you really want to go down that path just so “the gubment checks” keep coming in?

I have some questions:

The question on whether or not to raise the debt ceiling seems to me to reduce to whether or not we should borrow more money.  This presupposes that there is someone from whom to borrow the money we need, and that he is willing and prepared to lend it to us.  What if he isn’t? 

Also, it seems to me that if we have accumulated a 14 trillion dollar debt, then there must be some inexhaustible money source out there somewhere in the world. I understand that we didn’t borrow 14 trillion all at once, but still, we got 14 trillion dollars from someone, somewhere, however long it took. If there’s an inexhaustible money source out there somewhere, then what’s the problem, really? 

If there is not an inexhaustible money source out there somewhere, then, yeah, we’ll have to do something to take care of this problem.

If the U.S. defaults in its loan(s) then, according to economists, a global economic collapse will shortly ensue. Because we can’t pay our creditors, they won’t be able to pay their debts, and this will domino across the globe, and then everyone will be broke.  If everyone’s broke, then doesn’t that kind of level the playing field?  Couldn’t we all, at that point, just call it even and start over?

Very simplistic, I know, but still.  It’s difficult to believe that there is no possible solution to this problem.  I think people are looking for some kind of Armageddon. 

I think there’s a little Harold Camping in all (or many) of us.

I am not an economist (and I don’t play one on TV), but as I understand the analogy, it isn’t that the neighbor (and let’s face it, the analogy to the neighbor is really not accurate - the government is us) needs a new credit card, it is that the neighbor needs to borrow money in order to make the minimum payments on the credit cards he already has.  In other words, raising the debt ceiling isn’t about spending money in the future.  It is about paying the debts we have already incurred.  Yes, the government (we) should have been more prudent , but that damage has already been done.  And I agree with MarylandBill, it is easy for us to forget that much of that debt was incurred to give all of us things we generally take for granted without thinking about the fact that the government is providing it.

Um,is it just me, but, exactly where are we seeing any effort from the neighbor to be frugal.  At the same time he wants his credit card raised, he’s advertising online that he wants to give scholarships, money to fix your house, he’ll pay you to trash a perfectly running car if you, then, go into debt to buy a big brand new one.  He will take vacations, make policy that insures your own bills will double while at the same time make your employer seek to locate his business in another country.  Our government has gone wild.  Period.  Somebody, stop this!

Bubbles are so pretty…than they burst….but in who’s time???

I like the domino idea.  It’s like the Year of Jubilee from the OT when all debts were cleared, indentured slaves freed, etc.  It might be simplistic and it might hurt, but then every country would have an opportunity to start over and do it right.  What is right?  Learning to take care of your own before you help out everyone else is one place.  How about Congress being paid during their term of service (which should be limited to about 12 years) and then it’s terminated just like it is for anyone else who has to go find a new job.  And I think most would agree that if the Congress, etc. were required to have the same retirement and health care options as the rest of us, they would find solutions a whole lot faster.

I do note, however, that we do have to realize that the gov’t does pay for a lot of things, such as roads, bridges, etc.  However, for what reason does it need to be in farming, healthcare, charity work, etc.?  Those things should be the concern of each state to decide, not at the Federal level.  BTW, just to clarify, Social Security and a number of other programs were not put in place due to laziness on the part of the American people.  FDR used them to try to pull us out of the Depression.  How did we get into the Depression?  Same thing that’s getting us there now—greed, imprudence, personal debt on the part of the the people, and debt on a national level.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Not enough ants and too many grasshoppers. Americans have very little personal savings. We spent it all on stuff that looks nice but we don’t need. Compare Japan that has a high amount of debt, but they owe it all to their own citizens who have a good habit of saving. Our government seems to reflect too many of our citizens’ values for spend/borrow now and pay as late as you can. The ants are going to have to hold the line on this one.

Don’t appreciate that slam about sending mom a monthly check ‘cause I’m one of those moms, and my children tell me not to feel guilty cause they are all working and paying SS taxes to afford me many times over.

Many don’t know that when my husband was working the retirement amounts (defined benefits) were calculated by INCLUDING THE BENEFITS a person would receive from Social Security, so the amount received from his employer (a bank) was decreased accordingly.

Also, we had saved and saved but when he lost his job, it all went.

Your analogy is confused. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling is not getting a new credit card, it’s refusing to pay your outstanding debts on the one you have. In American terms, our debt is paid by Treasury bonds. Refusing the raise the debt ceiling means, simply, that the USA would be begin to default on these bonds. As half US treasuries are in foreign hands, and have been considered the safest liquid investment in the world since 1945, a refusal to pay interest would shake the international markets. (If you have a bond fund, you’re in with the big boys here.) This would tell investors, foreign and domestic, that investing elsewhere would be a good idea. This would drive up interest rates. It would also mock the idea of the “full faith and credit” of the United States as defaulting is really a kind of theft. If you think this stuff is funny money, check out what’s happening this minute in Greece and Portugal (and maybe Spain & Italy).

The debt crisis is real enough but absolutely no economist not working for Grover Norquist thinks it can be dealt with by spending cuts alone. Obama’s idea of taxing the rich (only in Obamaland is a $200,000 yearly income “middle class” and thus protected from government deprivaation) won’t come near to doing the job either. Ironically Obama’s own debt advisory commission (Simpson & Bowles) shocked everybody in the White House by coming to a spending cut / tax cut mix that would bring the problem under control within a generation.

The truth is that everyone today is what we used to call Republicans. When leaders like JFK and LBJ were around, “liberals” accepted the necessity of taxation for defense, robust public education and a social safety net. (Ironically, the US economy was much stronger in the 60’s and 90’s when we were paying higher taxes but also paying our bills than it is today.) Demos still like the sound of these things but they don’t want to pay for them, so celebrate being Democrat by proudly supporting infanticide and homosexual chic. (We used to call it “sex, drugs and rock and roll.” It doesn’t work.) Republicans are intoxicated with the Libertarian eyewash peddled by lunatics like Ayn Rand. America is becoming a nation of taxpayers, not citizens. If this does not change, continued decline is certain and ruin likely.

I don’t like the drift of “Vatican friendly” US Catholics into the arms of the Republican Party. It’s true that the GOP is finally trying (30 years after Reagan first promised to do so) to move against abortion in the states. But too many of them want a Darwinian economic system that would exalt in people’s right to fail. If you’ve read the writings of the last two Popes on social issues, you will find there is no friendly audience for a return to 19th century capitalism coming from the Vatican. The best thing to do is to keep mum for the moment and support the candidacy of a genuine pro-life economic moderate like McCain if one surfaces. We should at least try to find a road to a civilized capitalism and today’s Tea Party zealots aren’t going to get us there.

Catholic were conned into believing the lies of Capitalism and Capitalism is in its death throes trying to do what it has always done -  grab and steal as much as it can - before it expires.

There is a great expose of how Capitalism targeted its chief enemy, the Catholic Church, in the latest issue of “Culture Wars,”  entitled, “The Cold War as World War Against Catholicism.”

It is a great read that exposes how Henry Luce (Time, Sports Illustrated,Fortune, Life),  the CIA, and the LSD -dropping John Courtney Murray, and “The American Proposition” (sadly, accepted by most nominal Catholics) has undermined the Catholic view of life.

America was doomed to fail because it was anchored in error, especially the error of Calvinism and its corrupt and heretical Capitalism.

Basta.

Pray that the Bishops of Holy Mother Church will cast-out all homosexual prelates and priests and reject the lies of Capitalism, and return to the principles of Catholic Economics as explicated by Fr Heinrich Pesch, S.J. and Amintore Fanfani, “Catholicism, Protestantism and Capitalism.”

Politicians want to spend because it gets them re-elected.  Debt spending is fine because they assume future inflated dollars will pay it off cheaper.  They run the printing presses churning out new money, getting the greatest value out of each buck with government spending before it goes into circulation and causes inflation.  We are so screwed.

How are your Russian Tsarist bonds doing? Your Confederate paper money? Your Weimar Republic marks? The French Revolutionary government believed that the answer was simply to print more assignats. The floor of the treasury collapsed under the weight.
We are depositing checks into an account on which the checks are drawn. The U.S. is not longer a secure economy. There is no money left in the drawer.

@ MarylandBill “Whenever people grouse about taxes, they forget the million and one things the government has provided them (not the least of which is the internet, reasonably stable currency and a system of laws that allow the economy to exist, education, etc.)”

1) The government gave me internet? Could you clarify? Right now I pay a private company to give me internet. How is it from the government?
2) A stable currency system?  How does borrowing money from the Federal Reserve bank (it’s a PRIVATE bank… the government doesn’t print it’s own currency since it gave up that right in 1916) at an interest rate creates stable currency (so far it’s only deflated the value of the dollar).
3) Federal deregulation of the investment banks/Wall Street (e.g. deregulation of derivative investments) is what caused our current recession. The government has done nothing but destabilize our economy, not the other way around.

@Bob - the federal gov’t takes in PLENTY of money to service the debt without raising the debt ceiling.  This whole argument about defaulting or not defaulting is just crazy.  Just pay the debt obligaionts FIRST, just like the rest of us have to do.

This is one of the most bizarre economic crisis and potential constitutional crisis to come down the pike. Here we are faced with a classic ideological confrontation battled out by a few hand-picked “experts” along with the expected constitutionally elected political leaders ... and damn few of them seem willing to recognize that there are far more important things to consider than what their political faces are going to look like on August 3rd, or whenever the day after this mess is supposed to be settled.
  Can at least the people paying attention to the Register’s commentary threads stop and acknowledge that the Social Security program is NOT the budget-killer of them all? In fact it’s very solvent, quite popular and notwithstanding all the concocted lies and badmouthing by the usually ide ologically driven opponents of the program saying it’s a “Ponzi scheme” etc., has not added a penny to the nation’s deficit.
  I could go on and on just about the sleazy drumbeat ideological campaign our economist version of neocons (remember those brilliant armchair military strategists who came up with the “slam dunk” in Iraq): ... but the next time you hear their mantras, just ask the repeaters of this drivel, if the program’s so damn poorly managed and such a “loser,” why are so many of our economis neocons on Wall and K-Streets so eager to get their greedy paws on it?
  Or, you could ask them who would make good your losses if some newly (albeit gradually) privatized SS, if the market tanked again without sufficient regulatory firewall protections, etc., designed to protect individuals from losing not just their shirts, but just about everything short of their skivvies.
  I’m a “baby boomer,” but trust me, it gives me absolutely no pleasure in admitting this. After all, when we consider what our parents did to overcome what unbridled greed on Wall St. caused in ‘29 to their parents’ generation, followed by WWII and went on to create the most prosperous boom times in world history (with many thanks to a more visionary set of leaders from FDR to LBJ); I’m simply too ashamed to admit the age bracket I was born into insofar as the topic economic justice is concerned. I’m also worried, hopefully not too worried. But we should all start wondering where our national streak of economic selfishness is leading us to. Don’t take my word for it, try Zbigniew Brezinski’s comments he offered yesterday on MSNBC: http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/07/ex-national-security-advisor-warns-inequality-could-lead-to-unrest/
  When a former national security advisor, and a Polish Catholic immigrant who knows well how things can spiral out of control due to socian inequality starts giving warning signs for this country, it pays to stop and pay heed to what he has to say.
  It was my generation that gave the word “entitlement” its bad name. Social Security, along with Medicare/Medicaid and the developing Obamacare have all been tarred by the talking heads as some kind of “gimmie” welfare programs when they know better. But when it came to the other kind of government welfare, boy, have and do the oinkers still come rushing to the trough.
  In fact, one of them, a certain prominent political leader of the GOP, hailing from a Virginian district not only keeps his district well-fed from the trough, he even bet against it while supposedly “negotiating in good faith” to prevent the trough from going dry. Not only that, when he squealed and wiggled his way out of the meeting the very moment it was suggested that his meal and those of his very well-fattened fellow oinkers would cost them something, the same politician even stood to gain from his betting against the very farm providing the trough for his several kinds of constituents. Just as some businessmen keep two sets of books, there are some pols who represent two kinds of “constituents,” the actual people whose votes send them to Washington or their state legislatures to represent them; or, there’s those “consituents” in the “military industrial defense complex” Ike warned against 50 years ago and of course, Big Pharma, Big ‘Bacca, Big Health Insurance, Big Stockbrokers, Big, Big, Big. As for lil ‘ol you and I, well, tough leftovers.
  But, in fairness to this national legislator, who’s not going to budge an inch on making the fattened porkers pay an extra dime for their nearly free meals ... that are already plunked on our tabs ... WHERE DID HE LEARN HIS TRICKS O’TH TRADE? There had to be a generation to teach this smooth operator nearly a full generation behind me in age.
  He learned well from his Baby Boomer teachers, maybe parents, and political mentors how to play the fast and ambitious game of hyper-partisan politics so that the blessed economically stayed that way and the rest, well, God’ll take care of them. Right? Sure. After all, it’s so American. (Well, of course that’s rubbish, because despite what today’s contemporary conservative mentors are teaching the young ‘ums, we were never so damn selfish until recently. Never. There were pockets, but not like the kind we’re seeing now and may suffer gravely because of it.)
  Sadly, this pol and his pals, learned all too well from the generation that pathetically began to believe it was also God’s “entitled generation.” But unlike meeting the strict requirements to become genuinely entitled to receive SS, SSDI, SSI benefits ... members of my Entitled Generation only had to be born into it.
  Too bad we didn’t believe we also had to learn what our parents were trying to teach us besides the “Hey, I want you to have what we didn’t” and be willing to continue sharing these blessings with future generations without burdening them with freebies for billionaires and millionaires so that their future children will have to forever stand in line behind those who’ll really feel entitled to believe they were BOUND, BLESS’D N’ HIGHLY FAVORED to be born between 3rd and home with no catcher guarding the plate.

I believe there seems to be some confusion of what conservatism believes and that it and capitalism are anti-Catholic; Heres how I believe it is; Capitalism and Conservatism believes in the right of the INDIVIDUAL to strive to acomplish all they can with the talents and abilities God gave them; Both believe that government should intervene only for the welfare of the general population; Both believe that help should be given to the helpless NOT to the clueless(sometimes being allowed to fail is the surest path to suceeding); True conservatives and honest capitalists will tell you how apalled they are with the behavior of the well known[thanks to the press] shady CEO’s. I firmly believe 98% of the CEO’s in this country are not like this, not that the New York Times would ever admit it. How much of this is counter to Catholicism?

Plaudits to you are deserved.  What an entertaining analogy you presented.
Gee whiz! Has anybody seen the HBO production “Too Big to fail?” Thank you for your humorous presentation of a very serious problem in our government and economy.

Living outside the United States, what worries me most are the countries that see the United States economy as too shaky and are considering exchanging reserves of dollars for some other currency, thus sending the United States into further decline. Already the Western European countries have better quality of life than Americans. American industry has moved beyond the borders of the country. It is a shame that the last twenty years have been spent exploiting Latin America instead of developing it. If New York ceases to be the financial center of the world, what will the United States have left? My understanding of economics is not very good, so I might be saying something stupid, but I think a mishandling of the current crisis could mark the end of any United States prestige in the world. Not necessarily a bad thing, but a shame for any patriot. Still, maybe if the United States loses its sense of being the greatest country in the World, and the ridiculous idea of being the hope of the World, maybe it will be able to see that the rest of the World is not a second-rate entity but rather holds many values and much wisdom that could enrich American lives in a way money has proven unable to.

@Samilou: Excellent points you brought up! Unfortunately the conservative movement of WFBJr, Russell Kirk, George Nash, Pat Buchanan et al, has long been bypassed and ignored by so many economic armchair strategists much akin to the notorious neocon imperialists who never spent a moment, much less a day or a few minutes strapping up any combat boots, much less even march in ROTC workout/marching formation sessions. How many of today’s fawning acolytes of Ayn Rand and scribblers of that ilk ever ran or started up a real business providing actual goods n’ services before they got into the more lucrative act of trading in their doctorates and other papers, particularly clippings of old columns and position papers selectively placed in the media for publication?
  Although I detest the man’s political beliefs, I’ll give Paul Ryan (R-WI) credit for at least working in his family’s business for some time before getting elected to Congress. It’s just a mystifying shame that this businessman who came from a very successful Catholic family couldn’t find better reading material than Ayn Rand’s pulp nonsense, esp. Atlas Shrugged to read and worse, strongly recommend to his Congressional staff to read as well. If that’s not a red flag warniing of economic cafeteria Catholicism, I don’t know what is; unless he’s also pushing Austrian (dog-eat-dog) School of Economics material for his staff and fellow travellers in the GOP to read as well.
  Alas, today’s conservative “leaders” and “movers n’ shakers” are just too busy drinking up this Kool Aid of full-throttle free enterprise and rugged individualism, and “I’ve got mine, sorry Mac” attitude to notice what it’s doing to themselves and in turn, what they, under its influence are doing to our economy as they take it to the brink and for what? Making life even easier for people who already do their house hunting in those magazines featuring nothing but huge mega-mansions; not to mention also luxury vehicles valued at blue book prices representing at at least one, not two years income for most middle and lower income working stiff(ed) Americans.
  I suspect you’re correct, Samilou, that most CEOs of most companies are not like the greedy so and so’s of Wall Street; but why aren’t we hearing more and more about the good ones in our media, save for CBS’ very good “Undercover Boss” series, (for one example)? Your guess is as good as mine or anybody else’s on this, but the media “white out” on this subject merits some attention.
@Richard Powell: Excellent points and I think Jimmy banged out a good piece as well. But after watching a (re-run) of Frontline’s story about the Big Three, Alan (aka “Ayn”) Greenspan, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, and the way they “handled” the growing threat—back in the 90’s!—posed by bank deregulations and especially Brooksly Born, who blew the whistle on this cowboy derivative markets ... I’m not sure it’d be a healthy thing to watch “Too Big to Fail.” LOL. Watching Eli Wallach’s character in the sequel “Wall Street” was spooky enough, esp. when he pulled his tweet tweet to show the insanity of the big boys’ schemes back in 2008.
@Fr. Coogan: We’ve not only exploited the daylights and everything else we could out of Latin America, Father, somehow our big economic gurus, neocon economic imperialists, outsourcers, you name ‘em ... what they’ve also succeeded in pulling off was the Third Worldization of the American poor and now they’re zeroing in on the middle class. I’m sure you’ve seen in local parish food pantries, the many “banana boxes” used to bring the food to the pantries and used by the qualified recipients—many working stiffs, and I don’t use that word “stiffs” in any derogative manner, to bring those food items home.
  If anybody wanted a perfect display of “deconstionist irony” ... they need only watch families in today’s American middle class taking home their foodstuffs in BANANA BOXES straight up from one of the “Banana Republics” formerly owned lock stock n’ gun barrel by Chiquita. Dole, etc.
  By the way, what you said wasn’t stupid, nor was it “unpatriotic,” but rather fitting for somebody like yourself who’s seen the ill-effects of our social addictiveness to a form of materialistic entitlement that we, as Americans, deserve simply because we are Americans, and that’s all that needs to be said. But really? Even our forefathers and as recently, the Greatest Generation would never buy that kind of chilish arrogance as “acceptable.”
  However, I do disagree in the sense that it wouldn’t be the worst thing if only for the fact that as sorry as our situation is now, how much worse would the entire planets’ be if our economic elite were able to pull off their coup de-selfishness-par-excellance of letting the economy tank for the sole purpose of weakening Barack Obama’s chances of reelection so any of the little mice challenging him from the PACyderm party could somehow squeek by him.
  The Presidident has his faults and record of whoppers, like any man before him and any man or woman who’ll one day follow him. But to deliberately bring about more economic misery than already exists for the sole purpose of getting back into power so they pull very much the same nonsense that got us into hot water before, but only worse because there’ll be no banking regulations, no protections against health insurance turndowns for preexisting conditions or failure to even pay for non-experimental procedures, nor even any realistic restrictions on “termination of pregnancy procedures” if the private sector is paying for them and Wall Street sees money in abortiom…nothing but a return to union-busting, massive outsourcing, privatization of the public sector, increased use of slave labor sweetheart contracts with private prison companies and for profit industries like Starbucks and Victoria’s Secret, another others ... for what reason? ... to instill fear in the few “regular” manufacturing workers who’ll then be working for less than minimum “chump-change” wages, etc. It’ll be Cowboynomics, but this time on steroids, no thanks to the Tea Party and their backers, the brothers Koch, and the high priest of lies when it comes to spreading the uber-capitalist line against the Church’s Social/Economic teachings, none other than Glenn Beck. (He’ll come back, like a bad nightmare and Dracula, guys like him always have a way of coming back.)
  The world needs our prestige Father in only for the fact that the other nations however well situated they are, still lack the REAL economic potential this nation still possesses and only needs to wake up to how well it can best serve the world if it gets its act together and uses our wealth to enhance the common good for all. One of our problems, besides the untapped funds awaiting some form of resolution on this debt ceiling crisis created by the GOP/TP for purely selfish reasons, can be traced to something you touched on: our relative quality of life compared to what the Europeans and some Latin American societies enjoy. Look at our stingy attitudes towards awarding vacation time. Why on earth do most of the American working people put up with this ridiculous social system of sorts that dictates we must live to work instead of working to live?
  Are the Germans, English, Scandanavians, Russians, Poles, Czechs and French any worse off than we are? Are the Italians, the Spanish? Are most Brazilians, Argentinians and so forth? How about the Canadians with their single payer health system.
  We’re not YET a Third World nation, Father. And that’s why with what remaining prestige we have, we have to pick ourselves up and step forward, not backwards towards the 19th Century of Herbert Spencer’s dream devil-take-the-hindmost kind of capitalist society. And if we don’t take this step and take it soon, how much more will the rest of the world, including our one time solid allies in Europe learn to LOVE TO HATE US even more for having lost it all by letting our pseudo-wealth-creators get away with their big juvenile “I’m gonna scream bloody murder if I don’t get all the toys in the toy store today” act of budgetary pouting.
  Pray Father, that our nation is guided by adults so our kids will have a better place to live in; and one they can be TRULY PROUD OF all the time…not just when it’s time to unfurl and raise the flags and shout USA USA USA USA USA.

Steven; I need a definition of “economic Cafeteria Capitalism”....
Another point;the mystery of why there is so little known of ethical businessmen can be solved by asking who has any thing to LOOSE by reporting this truth; answer those who want to destroy our financial system and our American spirit. I’m self-employed and I’ve run a small business for years and I don’t believe that the “old” Conservatism is as dead as you think, here where the peasants live! I’ve not seen “Too Big to Fail”, but speaking personally, I’ve seen and lived the truth of what I’ve said. In my opinion, anyone or entity who is considered “too big to fail” is dilusional and/or egotistical, thus failure is the best attitude adjustment. I agree people who have viewed the world only from an acedemic viewpoint are incapable of seeing the whole picture. Question; How many of the people in the present government have EVER even so much as run a hotdog stand?

@Samilou, I confess! It’s one I made up as I went along. (Uh oh, I know I’m going to “get it” from the more conservative commentary contributors for using this term. LOL. Nothing new! But always best to take in stride with a grin.) When I came up with it, I was thinking of all cafeteria Catholics picking and choosing which moral doctrine they were going to support and which they’ll chuck, and applied it to how a lot of (contemporary) conservative Catholics are approaching economic issues. In many respects, they’re a lot more Calvinist than Catholic, and I’m including some of our more prominent convert pundits, particularly Laura Ingraham and Larry Kudlow. The late Bob Novak never came around to see and promote the Church’s more traditionally rounded teachings about economics and social systems, i.e. capitalism, and socialism. To everybody’s credit, they all agree with the Magisterium’s warnings against the worst systems, fascism and communism. But I’ve yet to see any nudging from today’s conservative movers n’ shakers even close to acknowldedging Rome’s delicate task of promoting a free economic system without also giving the proverbial wink n’ nod to deregulate everything under the sun as what happened no thanks to the likes of our banking and other private sector deregulating piracy advocates.
  Thanks for pointing out that traditional conservative values haven’t left the marketplace of ideas and practice (in most of the country.) Unfortunately, Main St. is dependent on what Wall and K-Streets do in NY and Washington, respectively. And the big guns in those two realms are calling most of the shots, leaving us with the damage they’ve caused for the past three decades ever since the unholy alliance of the fast-rising services industries, banking, and other de-regulatory steps all taken by a very tight-knit elite group of like-minded thinkers who bought into this nightmarish dog-eat-dog mentality.
  You’re so right about them not being able to run a simple hot-dog stand. But the phrase “too big to fail” reflects their deepest fears of another Lehman Brothers collapse, which was totally avoidable since I believe Lehman Bros. was deliberately sacrificed by the butchers of Goldman Sachs and AIG who wanted it out of the way. And what a shabby end to a firm that bankrolled the Union Army during the Civil War among other major threats to our nation’s existence.
  I can see where you’re coming from as well, and in my innermost feelings of disgust for what happened almost three years ago, yes, I feel like saying, “Let ‘em all crumble” On the other hand, I can’t help coming back to wonder, if the rest fell, what would be left and who’d put the pieces back together at a time when Main Street so desperately need the enormous sums of available cash that the Biggies, such as those I’ve mentioned already plus Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Wells-Fargo/Wachovia could “lose” all over again.
  Keep your eyes peeled on how the GOP dominated banking committees on the Hill treat Elizabeth Warren. They actually fear her fiscal acumen and brains so much that it’d be no sweat for most of these newer “full-throttle free-market capitalism” devotees if she ran against Scott Brown (R-MA) and beat him next year. She scares them far more in her present position, albeit tenuous and temporary, as the acting head of the government’s new Wall St. investor consumer protection agency than she ever will as a freshman senator from a state they’d just as soon hand over to Canada or Sweden than pay any attention to any member of its Congressional delegation. Warren’s appearance before NC Republican Patrick McHenry’s banking subcommittee (which he chairs, incredibly enough!) was very rocky and she was treated disgracefully by McHenry whose ideological biases have taken on a very nasty personal tone as well. http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/05/24/6710663-warrens-testy-day-on-capitol-hill
  By the way, McHenry, a graduate of Belmont Abbey, is a Catholic; leaving me to wonder what their economics department teaches there or what he’d long forgotten in his ambition-fueled rise among GOP ranks on the Hill and within today’s “I’ve got mine, tough luck for you” mentality that’s long gripped the GOP since Reagan uttered the ultimate LIE of all lies: GOVERNMENT ISN’T THE SOLUTION, GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM. (Funny how Dutch used it as a convenient whipping boy for himself and his minions to make a nice life for themselves. Like the Democrats who move to DC, the Republicans who go there to “change” the town, also become just as “native,” if not moreso than the Democrats.)
  As for prepping any hotdog, I’ll bet these snobbish clowns who’ll choose Grey Poupon instead of plain grocery store mustard the rest of us can only afford, probably, couldn’t tell you Fenway Frank from a German knockwurst.

I’d forget Mr. Chen and help Mom.

Sometimes half the pleasure of spending is the wanting…so buy the wants but spread out the purchases over a period of several months not weeks…and certainly not days.

We wouldn’t be in this mess if the Federal Government operated within the boundaries of the law - the US Constitution. I consider raising the debt ceiling to be an act of treason. Even if Congress votes to make it “legal”, like abortion, it is certainly not moral. Instead of doing the ethical thing, the Feds will once again hold Americans at gunpoint and threaten to “lock you in a hallway closet” if you don’t comply. Have you ever considered that less than 600 people (Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branch) are pulling off this crime? I guess there are a few of the 535 in Congress, such as Ron Paul, that have called this out.

@garymf: I agree with you about abortion and shudder to think of the actual toll of abortion not only in terms of what was done to the children…that’s to be said first and upfront without question. But we’ve also set ourselves up with a huge fiscal, socioeconomic nightmare of a trainwreck coming down the tracks thanks to the sheer numbers of abortions performed during the nearly forty years since Roe.
  Unquestionably, this nation allowed itself to carve a huge demographic hole right where its heart should’ve been. Not only in terms of all the lost innocents, but those lost innocents would’ve been working people, contributing their payroll taxes needed to keep our safety nets stronger, not to mention society in general stronger. I’m a baby boomer, and while I’m loath to pass blanket judgments on whole generations, there’s this gnawing and inescable belief that ours became the msot selfish generation in American history in 1968 when all the wheels began falling off both politically and morally speaking. And for “American Catholics” ... the low point came with their huge pout at Pope Paul VI that eventually settled into a 40 filibuster that accomplished zilch and caused so much damage to our social fabric in more ways than present-day generations are capable of rendering historical review. Just as it usually takes a couple of decades and a generationally-separated writer to give a truly objective review on a war, be it our Civil War of 150 years ago or our generational filibuster of selfishness, will have to wait more decades to come.
  I understand your frustration over the debt ceiling fracas, but everybody I’ve and talked to, including my son who graduated from a top notch business school with a b.a. in financial management, are all saying, the ceiling has to be raised. Mdme Lagrande, the new IMF chief, was quite blunt on ABC yesterday and she’s frightened and for good reason with now Italy getting ready to pull the core of the Eurozone down with it.  (Hmmm, I always thought Italy was permanently in the tank no thanks to its Lire. LOL, but now things are taking on a new hue since it went on the Euro.)
  If we play with fire and ruin our unsullied reputation for never having to claim “Belly up!” who’s going to step in? There’s our bankers to the East. Hmmm, that sure doesn’t look appealing. They’ll still be the People’s Republic of China while we’ll be transformed into the People’s Colony of of China/Wal-Mart. This is one trainwreck we don’t need to risk, especially over what’s coming down to a sliver of a tax break for the uber wealthy top 1 or two percent folks who own more than the combined wealth of half our population. In the meantime, so much will suffer, including and especially services commerce regularly relies on. It’s not worth it. They should think of the Romanovs and Bourbons before sticking with their own pout that’s sending the rest of us to our medicine or “likker cabinets,” respectively, looking for ibuprophen or stronger, but better tasting liquids for “medicinal purposes.”

“I understand your frustration over the debt ceiling fracas, but everybody I’ve and talked to…”

Yes, just TRUST the experts, since their record is so good. We are living out a societal dream we cannot afford, and all people can talk about is to keep fueling it.

“the federal gov’t takes in PLENTY of money to service the debt without raising the debt ceiling.  This whole argument about defaulting or not defaulting is just crazy.  Just pay the debt obligations FIRST, just like the rest of us have to do.”

E-X-A-C-T-L-Y.

All the other talk is smoke and mirrors. Anyone familiar with the labyrinth of federal spending, conferences, etc know is is true.

If you’re serving on active duty or rely on social security, would you be willing to take this chance or recommend somebody who’s close to you to do likewise; especially if they lived in a state where banking regulations and banks haven’t been all that supportive of our uniformed military and senior citizens, disabled, et al, citizens when their mortgage due dates roll around?
  If the spectre of what might happen if Aug. 2nd comes and the nation defaults for the first time in its history doesn’t scare the living bejeezus out of our more fair-minded folks, take a look at this link, straight from one of Satan’s favorite rightwing hactchetmen, Andrew Breitbart, and read what a columnist writing in this website has to say. It’s very informative and instructive because it practically lays out what’s been the Right Wing’s long-term strategy for completely taking over the country and forever reshaping its demographics.
  And what a coincidence that our ever so smart Righties just happen to be doing all they can to undermine the President’s authority and ability to lead the nation out of our economic mire he inherited after the biggest 8-year-long drunken pirate spending binge in U.S. history. They simply want to tank the economy so badly that the voters will be so upset at Pres. Obama and toss him and all the Democrats out of office so they finish off what used to be a free nation for all of us, left, center, right, rich, middle class, poor, union or non-union, pubilc or private sector employees ... and claim it all for themselves.
  They’ve forgotten something. Who’ll they blame when they can’t get their locomotive going because there’s no money to toss in the locomotive’s boiler? Oh, and where did all that money go to? Well, if you’ve got the time and enough money yourself, just book a flight to the Caymans. Good luck, though getting off the ground safely no thanks to the lack of any flight controllers, save for those a “privatized” company consisting of former FAA controllers, let go, but rehired at a couple of bucks over min wage.
  Want cheap? You’ll get cheap. You could also die cheaply, too.
  In the meantime, oh am I grateful to Breitbart and this writer, Wayne Allyn Root for this beaut of a screed on behalf of Ayn Rand and the ugly world they can’t wait to usher in. http://biggovernment.com/waroot/2011/06/21/ayn-rand-was-right-wealthy-are-on-strike-against-obama/
  Ladies and Gentlemen of the Register’s Commentary Jury, I’ll rest and allow this self-incriminating evidence to speak (er, boast) for itslf.

Lets see back in 1950 the Government [including all Federal, State, Local and Social Security taxes] took a whopping 4% of the gross median family income; for those of you who went to Post-Modern Notre Dame and majored in Political Science that’s 4 cents on every dollar earned. Today the government take is 10 times what it did in 1950; a whopping 42% of the gross median family income; that’s 42 cents on every dollar earned and yet we are Trillions in debt. But like every pig that has had it’s fill it wants more. What truly God fearing person out there would place their hand on the Testaments and swear on pain of loss of heaven that there is NO waste and that there is NO room for real cuts in each and every Government program including grossly mismanaged entitlements. One would have to have sold their soul or suffer from diminished capacity to take such an oath. Oh wait; I know who would make such an assertion it would be the likes of Gov. Brown, Leahy, Kucinich, Drinan, Durbin, Casey Jr., Mitchell, Sebelius, Cuomo’s (father & son), Kennedy, Kerry et alia

“Even if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling, the U.S. is not going to default on its debt payments. That’s not a hope. Not positive thinking. It’s a mathematical fact. The U.S. government takes in $2.6 trillion a year and its debt payments are $400 billion. That’s like a household that brings in $260,000 having to make a $40,000 payment.”

http://www.daveramsey.com/article/3-guarantees-about-the-debt-ceiling-debate/lifeandmoney_economy/text1/

Let’s see now, within less than a week after the nation almost went into default, no thanks whatesoever to the Tea Party and their GOP puppeteers, the Kochs and other oligharchic families like Amway’s van Andel/DeVos, Fed boss Ben Bernanke decides to keep the interest rates at 2%. Could it also be a coincidence that this decision also came in the wake of the recent disclosures about the Fed’s very generous habit of doling out a lot of American taxpayers dollars sans any Congressional approval?
  As Senator Bernie Sanders, (I-VT)puts it: “As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world,” said Sanders. “This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else.” (Source, Sen. Sanders press ofc. http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3) He co-sponsored an amendment with Sen. Jim DeMint,(R/TP-SC) to push the GAO to get hopping on an original bill demanding an audit that was co-filed by Ron Paul, R-TX and (former) Rep. Alan Grayson,(D-FL). Source, (an individual’s blog: http://www.unelected.org/audit-of-the-federal-reserve-reveals-16-trillion-in-secret-bailouts .
  JUST THINK OF ALL THE UNNECESSARY STURM UND DRANG THAT COULD’VE BEEN AVOIDED. Dave Ramsey made a very valid point. I wouldn’t be totally surprised to learn he wasn’t aware of this development. Imagine what he would’ve said. What continues to amaze me is how little ink this GAO report has received thus far.
  Should it surprise anybody that it hadn’t received much ink when the majority of today’s political reporters and pundits would rather focus on the horse-race and beauty queen aspect of politics. More play has been given to that awful photo of Michele Bachmann plastered on the front of the latest Newsweek. (I’m no fan of Bachmann…not by a Vermont country mile, but ... that was low.)
  I just wish a lot of today’s political reporters and talking heads would do their jobs and pay less attention to what overblown and often manufactured-by-the-press-insta-controversies used to turn most heads towards the boob tube ... and start paying attention to so many ignored yet valuable alliances formed to work on behalf of everybody, not just this group, that region or some industry, etc.
  We’d have a lot more people informed about what their government’s really doing and they’d be a lot less turned off by the political process.
  What’s the alternative? Oligharchy, a dictatorship of, by and for the wealthy ... with sham elections bought and totally controlled by them to suit their purposes.

MarylandBill,
I think you are implying that there are certain basic necessities (leaving aside the question of what they are).  Fair.  But these are not gifts from Uncle Sam, they are expected, so I’m not going to prostrate myself in gratitude just for that.
As for the rest, many of these “gifts” are things I do not need, never asked for, do not really want, and could do without (or support on my own).  Unlike with a real friend, I’m not too polite to say so.
I’m also curious about the internet comment.  I thought I got my service from Comcast, and the towers or cables or whatever they use are their property.  The feds may have something to do with it but they’re hardly alone, and if it doesn’t actually cost the ISP $50 a month to serve me then I think it’s fair to say that for-profit companies have a lot to do with it.