Thursday, January 6, 2011

A Significant Deadline

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said, in a letter to Harry Reid, that the Treasury debt ceiling of $14.3 trillion may be hit as early as March 31st, and will be hit before May 16th.

Normally, this bump-up would be a mere housekeeping measure. As "John Galt" wrote in the book Dreams Come Due, the real debt ceiling is infinity. There is, however, a new party in charge of the House. Already, there's talk of the Republican majority withholding authorization for yet another increase until President Obama plays ball with some of their agenda.


Say what you will about the Republicans, they're not the politicians that Democrats are. None of them seem to have thought of using the same technique to repeal Obamacare that's used for earmarks and Democrat pet projects: sticking it in an omnibus bill that the President is all but obliged to sign, and some opposition senators are all-but-obliged to vote for. It's up to you to decide whether this differential makes the Republicans more principled or less professional than the Democrats.

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