Letter: Politics surrounding debt ceiling ‘misguided’

Politics surrounding debt ceiling 'misguided'

Doomsday alarms sounded in this newspaper about the federal debt are misguided at best.

The simple fact is that the largest spending items total 73% of the federal budget: defense, 13%; Social Security, 21%; Medicare, Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance and the Affordable Care Act, a combined 25%; veterans and federal employees, 7%; and interest, 7%. There is no way to significantly reduce the deficits that increase the debt without either cutting these programs, which are popular and widely supported, or substantially raising taxes, which would be even more unpopular and unlikely.

As long as the dollar is the world's principal transaction currency while central banks around the world hold U. S. bonds as their main reserves, and everyone continues to buy those bonds, the deficit and debt have been, and can continue to be financed. Not raising the federal debt ceiling in order to pay our bills would produce a default that irrevocably undermines the dollar's standing and our ability to sell government bonds. It would also violate Article 4 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that states: "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law ... shall not be questioned."

The result of a debt default would be catastrophic for the U.S. and the world's economies, harming all Americans and hundreds of millions around the globe. Threatening to set off this economic hydrogen bomb by not raising the debt ceiling is an unconscionable political ploy. Actually doing it would be a betrayal of America's fundamental interests that only benefits our Chinese and Russian adversaries.

Paul Metzger.

Spotsylvania.