And regarding polls, I've seen earlier polls that indicated that a majority of Americans did not want the debt ceiling raised. In the same polls, a majority of Americans admitted to not having a basic understanding of interest rates too, or even what the debt ceiling was. Moral of the story...The voting public is stupid. You won't find many credible economists who would suggest that the most powerful nation on earth shouldn't be able to issue debt. Corporations issue debt to leverage their earnings potential. Families take on debt to invest in their future (mortgages, cars, etc.) Debt is not an evil thing. And the absurdity of "capping" spending at a percentage of GDP completely ignores demographic trends. We have a boom of retirees flooding the system; this marks a major demographic shift from our past history and in the coming decades will necessitate a higher amount of spending as a percentage of GDP to pay the benefits to these retirees. This demographic shift has spending implications. Those that support capping spending ignore the demographics-- what they are essentially saying is that we are going to renege on the promises we've made to seniors.
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