▪️This is a common, but flawed rationalization. Of course raising the debt ceiling increases federal debt, that’s its entire purpose! If it wasn’t increased the federal debt couldn’t be raised and the government would be confined within current tax revenue.
▪️Raising it doesn’t necessitate increasing spending, but in practice it does. No one ever says, “we’re going to raise the debt ceiling one more time to pay the bills, but that’s it! Then we’ll live within our means and cut spending.” They just trot out the same line every time the limit is reached.
▪️The fact that they admit the government would default if the limit isn’t raised is an admission that spending will never be cut. They are saying if they are faced with default or cutting spending, they will choose default. Eventually, holders of US Treasuries will take note of that.
It’s funny to see the left use the same conspiratorial rhetoric as the right did a year ago regarding the jobs numbers being downwardly revised. So many on the right, who knew nothing of how the jobs numbers are calculated or why they revise them, were convinced the downward revisions were a conspiracy to help Biden win.
If people want to have a debate about the birth death model or the survey methods, ok, but that’s not what’s happening here. Most people are under the delusion that the BLS report is the govt reporting every job created and lost, and are thus easily swayed it’s rigged when it suits their political ends.
This is almost laughingly misleading, as it leaves out everything before the letter.
▪️After being repeatedly lampooned by the Smothers Brothers over Vietnam, Johnson finally had enough. One night at 3 am he called the head of CBS William Paley, demanding that he “get those bastards off my back.”
▪️Paley then asked the heads of CBS entertainment to get them to back off of LBJ. However, instead of backing off the Smothers Brothers doubled down, booking a folk musician performing “Waist Deep,” an anti-war song about a soldier being stuck in the mud while “the big fool says to push on,” clearly a dig at LBJ.
▪️At the last minute, CBS cut the song from the pre-taped show to the outrage of the Smothers. They continued to push the boundaries off and on for the rest of his presidency, with CBS sometimes cutting segments that they thought went too far. Basically, it was a soft form of censorship.
▪️It wasn’t until Johnson made his surprise announcement not to run in 1968 ...
