By Jesse Liebman --
February 4, 2010
The House on Thursday voted to allow the government to go $1.9 trillion deeper into debt - approximately $6,000 more for every citizen.
The vote, approved 217-212, would raise the ceiling on federal borrowing to $14.3 trillion, but that number may increase after the November election.
The already accumulated debt equates to roughly $40,000 per person. Much of the debt is also held by foreign nations such as China.
Passage of the bill would send it to President Barack Obama, who would sign it to prevent the first-ever default on U.S. obligations.
The bill struggled out of the gate as it made its way through the Senate last week after a unanimous "no" vote from the GOP.
To help win passage, Democrats are also adopting -- in a
vote later Thursday afternoon -- budget rules intended to limit a spiraling
upward annual deficit -- projected by Obama to hit a record $1.56 trillion for
the budget year ending Sept. 30. The new rules would require future spending
increases or tax cuts to be paid for with either cuts to other programs or
equivalent tax increases.
If the rules are broken, the White House budget office would force automatic cuts to programs like Medicare, farm subsidies and unemployment insurance. Current rules lack such teeth and have commonly been waived over the past few years at a cost of almost $1 trillion.
Recent public opinion polls have found that the US public is
angry at what it views as overspending by Washington at a time when many
American families have been forced to tighten their belts.
Democrats and many economists say government spending is never more needed than during a recession in order to prime the economic pump.
"We don't have a choice," said Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn. "We are on an unsustainable march toward a fiscal Armageddon."
Obama's budget anticipates the government's debt doubling to $26 trillion over the next ten years. It provides few alternatives for seriously shortening the gap other than promising to appoint a bipartisan commission to come up with a plan to address the situation.
