When I hear the phrase “debt limit” I think, “the limit at which spending stops.”  But yet again, the politicians are trying to redefine the English language.  Instead of acting like adults and abiding by the rules we ourselves have put in place, we don’t really mean what we said we really meant.

When your average, smart family starts reaching the limits of their income, they either stop spending or re-prioritize their spending.  If you’re short on the mortgage by $50, you stop going out to eat or drop cable.  Or, if you don’t want to drop cable you find somewhere else to cut.  But you still reprioritize and make cuts as needed so you stay within your budget. 

But not Congress.  They look at the debt limit as something to argue about every few years to score political points.  And we are sick of it.

My plan to solve this manufactured crisis – call their bluff.  Do not raise the limit – instead immediately set about re-prioritizing existing spending.  All spending that is not essential AND not Constitutional should immediately be cut.  We don’t need research into cow flatulence or the penis size of gay men or any of the other insanely stupid things that liberals spend our money on.

We prioritize on commitments.  We make our debt payment, we pay our military, we send out the social security checks.  We also look at eliminating fraud in social security and Medicare.  And then we cut like we’ve never cut before – starting with Congress.  Before 1884, Congressman had no staff.  They started out with one clerk at taxpayer expense but in the last 120 years that has been raised to 18 staff for Representatives and even more for Senators, depending on the size of their state.  We could start by cutting their staff in half.  I’m sure they would cry and bawl on TV how this was going to make their jobs harder, but then they would see what it’s like for the rest of America when we have to make cuts in our business and home budgets.  And then we start cutting whole departments and agencies.

If we did this, and proved that we are serious about cutting spending, there would be no catastrophe, no crisis.  The problem is that everyone knows that it’s politics as usual. We will end up cut spending a token amount and raise the debt limit.  But over the next year or two, we as people will remain discontented and still increase government spending again and again and again and we’ll have to go through this whole dog and pony show all over again.  At some point, the national loan is going to be called and with no real budget and no real adults running the show, it is going to all come crashing down.