Ezra Klein Has A Magic Solution to the Debt Ceiling “Crisis”, but the Politics Make Him Sad.

You may think you have plumbed the depths of idiocy in the debt ceiling debate, but you have not. I warn you, if you continue to read this post, you will come across an idea so stupid that it may well blast large parts of knowledge from your brain that you may not be able to recover.  Dare you read on?

Well, okay, but in 20 minutes, when you suddenly realize you can no longer tie your shoes by yourself, don’t come whining to me. Or if you do, wear slip-ons so that you don’t trip over your loose shoelaces and hurt yourself.

Ezra Klein, professional JournoListy blogger employed by the Washington Post, has hit on what he believes is a workable way to raise the debt ceiling in a way that lets his Democratic bosses friends spend our money by the container ship-load without so much as a pause to reflect on the crippling debt we’re handing our children and grandchildren.

Here’s the rough outline of Klein’s scheme. We have laws that limit how much paper money we can circulate and how much coinage we can mint that is made from gold, silver, and copper. However, there is another law that allows the Treasury to mint platinum coins in any number and assign any value to them the Secretary of the Treasury sees fit. He needs no permission from anyone but the President, his boss, to do that. So, the plan would be to mint two platinum coins over which Tim Geithner would wave his Magic Wand of Treasuriness after which they would be worth one trillion dollars each. The Federal Reserve would give the coins to the Treasury, who would deposit them in their accounts and — hey presto! — we’ll have two trillion dollars to spend right away. No need to raise the debt limit, because this “money” wouldn’t be debt. It would be “real money” that the Obama administration could plow into more successful programs like the Vote Buying Act Stimulus Bill, Cash for Clunkers, or the auto maker bailouts.

Now, this would be completely legal but, as I’m sure you’re thinking as you attempt to keep sections of your brain from leaking out of your ears, there are a couple teeny tiny problems with this plan. Not to worry, though. Klein anticipated your concern.

The interesting thing about the platinum option, as it turns out, is that it actually seems to be on a firmer legal footing than the 14th Amendment approach. The law very clearly states that the Treasury Secretary can mint these platinum coins. He could even adorn them with the face of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) if he fancied. The trouble, of course, is the politics. Does Obama stage a press conference where he holds up the two large coins and announces what he’s doing? It’d be hard to see how he could do that with a straight face. [Emphasis mine]

Yeah. Politics. That’s the trouble with this plan. There’s no way in the world our creditors might look a little bit askance at the creation of $2 trillion out of thin air and progressive unicorn dreams. The world couldn’t possibly notice that our President injected $2 trillion worth of pure, uncut inflation and devalued currency into our country rather than deal with a political problem that, at its heart, woulnd’t be difficult to resolve if he’d just do his job. The very notion that such a radical and dangerous maneuver taken to avoid real work might have a serious deleterious effect on our stock market is utterly unthinkable to Klein. Nope. The problem here is “the politics”.

But wait! That’s not the only problem Klein foresees. In addition to the “trouble” of selling the entire world on the sort of accounting trick that would make the Enron scandal look like a couple of kids swiping gum from the corner store, there’s one other wrinkle. Here’s Klein again.

There’s also another headache that comes with all of these unorthodox debt-ceiling solutions. Back in March, recall, Congress passed a continuing resolution that essentially keeps the government funded until Sept. 30. Once September rolls around, it’ll be time for yet another fight over appropriations.

What Klein does not tell you is that this “fight” exists only because his Democratic pals in the Senate have not passed a budget for over 815 days and, so far as we can tell, have no intention of passing one ever again. If Democrats had done their jobs, the “headache” in September would be essentially the same budget battle we have every year. Republicans and Democrats would squabble over how much bigger the government will get and, after an appropriate amount of posturing and preening, they’d settle on a figure somewhere between “a lot” and “a whole lot”.

That it, folks. That’s the other “headache” Klein envisions from a plan that would gut shoot our already moribund economy and shake a world financial market that’s still trying to figure out how it’ll stop the entire continent of Europe from going into hock.

Just remember, folks, the Washington Post is paying Ezra Klein an awful lot of money to write drivel like that. If there’s any justice in the world, he’ll soon find himself unemployed and in need of one of the jobs he and his left-wing buddies have destroyed by the millions over the past three years.

UPDATE: Dan Collins wants to see Hobbitses!!

Other Posts of Interest:

• Who Said Raising Debt Limit in 2006 Was “A Sign of Leadership Failure”?
• Oh What a Feeling, Dancing Around the Debt Ceiling.
• Cut, Cap, and Compromise

Tags: Big Government, Economics, Ezra Klein, Media Bias

Category: Oh, THAT liberal media., Progressives, The Economy and Your Money