Maureen Dowd, "The Man Who Said ‘Nay’": Free fall, Not "Skyfall"

None other than Paul (Spend! Spend! Spend!) Krugman recently told us (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/opinion/krugman-that-terrible-trillion.html?_r=0) that the ratio of debt to G.D.P. is "the best measure of our debt position." Well, those "fools" at the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office also recently warned that "U.S. debt is on track to be nearly twice the size of the U.S. economy by 2037" (http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/230901-cbo-warns-of-grim-long-term-debt-outlook).

Did Obama and the US Congress actually avoid driving the US over the fiscal cliff? Not really. Higher taxes for those making more than $400,000 each year amounts to a Band-Aid, when the US federal government, with more than $16 trillion in debt, is hemorrhaging blood. The US economy, unbeknownst to most of its trusting citizens, is in free fall, not "Skyfall," which, although not nearly as compelling as Daniel Craig's "Casino Royale," has nevertheless grossed more than a billion dollars in ticket sales.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Man Who Said ‘Nay’" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/opinion/dowd-the-man-who-said-nay.html), Maureen Dowd brings to our attention Michael Bennet, "one of only three Democratic senators and eight senators total to vote against President Obama’s fiscal deal."  Dowd quotes the junior senator from Colorado:

“The burden of proof has to shift from the people who want to change the system to the people who want to keep it the same,” he said. “I think if we can get people focused to do what we need to do to keep our kids from being stuck with this debt that they didn’t accrue, you might be surprised at how far we can move this conversation.

“Washington politics no longer follows the example of our parents and our grandparents who saw as their first job creating more opportunity, not less, for the people who came after. My mother’s parents were refugees from Warsaw who came here after World War II because they could rebuild their shattered lives. But the political debate now is a zero-sum game that creates more problems than solutions.”

Bennet goes on to tell Dowd:

“I know this country is not going to allow itself to go bankrupt. It’s challenging, though, because in this town there are all kinds of people whose job it is to obfuscate the facts.”

The US is not going to allow itself to go bankrupt? Well, here I take issue with this bold naysayer. Indeed, the US will never go bankrupt, because it can always print more money, but the reality is that unless there are immediate, painful spending cuts, the US economy will collide with the ground within our own lifetimes and not those of our children.