Michael Ramirez: Hoping for a Safe Landing
From America's Premier Editorial Cartoonist
HOPING FOR A SAFE LANDING The Debt Ceiling brinkmanship finger-pointing begins… by Michael Ramirez, May 28, 2023
I was watching the news the other day and every network had coverage of some nut opening the emergency exit door of an Asiana Airliner in mid-air, as it was landing at Daegu International Airport in South Korea.
For some reason, the debt ceiling debate immediately came to mind.
Explosive decompression did not happen because the plane was already at a low enough altitude to be able to open the door. As it turns out, it is impossible to open an emergency exit door when the plane is at a high altitude because of the internal cabin pressure. The plane was at an altitude of around 700 feet when he pulled the door open.
Now, I’m a big believer in Darwinian Theory, and having some jerk sucked out of a plane seemed like a reasonable consequence of his own stupidity, as long as it didn’t harm the other passengers or the ability to fly the plane…or affect the person, building, vehicle or animal on the ground that he might have landed on.
In the movies, rapid decompression usually takes out the guy, the three people in the aisle next to him, along with the rows in front and back of him, jeopardizing the safety of all the other passengers, and the people on the ground, as the pilot tries to safely navigate what is left of the plane to the nearest airfield.
That scenario reminds me of the debt ceiling debate, but instead of one jerk, it’s a dozen jerks, on both sides of the aisle, threatening to open all the exit doors and windows, jeopardizing the safety of the entire plane, and the cities below, with a Captain at the helm who is barely cognizant to fly.
As we approach yet another debt ceiling deadline, the president and politicians are once again pushing our nation’s economy and creditworthiness to the brink.
The question is, what damage will a default, or even the threat of a default do? Is it worth the return on investment if markets fall and our economy tanks? The end result would erode the stability and credibility of the US Treasury to the point that the cost to borrow money would explode as it undermines the dollar’s role as the preeminent global currency.
Our national debt is almost $31.5 trillion. Republicans, well anyone that can do simple math, should be alarmed by the fiscal irresponsibility of our nation’s leaders. Our statutory debt limit is $31.38 trillion. To put that in perspective, the entire gross domestic product of the United States in 2023, the sum of all final goods and services produced in our country, was about $25.5 trillion.
Congress just raised the debt limit by $2.5 trillion just a little under a year and a half ago.
Democrats like to blame our deficits on “tax cuts for the rich.” But those tax cuts have been enriching our federal treasury by record amounts. In FY 2023, the estimated projected tax revenue for the U.S. is an astonishing $4.71 trillion. According to the Tax Foundation, our federal tax collections as a share of GDP are at a multi-decade high, up from 17.9% last fiscal year, to 19.6% in FY 2022. Federal revenue in FY 2001 was $1.9 trillion.
From the Tax Foundation report:
“There are only two other years in U.S. history when federal tax collections exceeded this year’s level, both during World War II: in 1943, federal tax collections reached 20.5 percent of GDP before falling to 19.9 percent in 1944. Compared to average federal tax collections in the post-war era of 17.2 percent of GDP, this year’s collections are set to exceed that level by 2.4 percentage points.”
The problem with our debt is SPENDING.
Again, from the Tax Foundation Report:
“Regarding spending in FY 2022, the CBO reports that despite the surge in tax collections, federal outlays far exceeded that amount. Total outlays were $6.3 trillion, resulting in a deficit of $1.4 trillion. Thus, spending was about 25.1 percent of GDP—a level only exceeded during the height of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, and during World War II from $316 billion to $356 billion.”
Now Democrats are not the only ones responsible for profligate spending. Both parties have participated in the federal shopping spree. The worst of it began with the Obama administration, then continued and accelerated during the Trump administration. The Biden administration has gone hypersonic, spending $10 trillion in just over two years.
And government is the most inefficient bureaucracy, which is normal when you spend other people’s money. Government produces very little except an abundance of red tape and waste.
Estimates of COVID Relief fraud will probably surpass the $576 billion of federal funds allocated for Biden’s colossal ten-year infrastructure plan.
That being said, playing chicken with our nation’s credit and economy is not the best option. The threat of a credit downgrade is already on the table. Any further negative effect on the economy will mean the amount of federal revenue will significantly decrease while the cost of our debt will dramatically increase, making the solution and the debt problem even worse.
I was talking with a friend of mine who puts together economic projections for a defense industry giant and he said, a default would have disastrous consequences, that we might not just be talking about a recession, but maybe even a depression. Now, granted, he also told one of the executives at the Discovery Channel that a show about a bunch of crab fishermen would never sell, so his judgment is questionable…
News stories tonight have claimed that Speaker McCarthy and President Biden have reached a deal. Let’s hope they can keep the nuts away from the exit rows and keep everyone seated with their seat belts fastened… It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Remember to honor those who gave their lives in the name of liberty and thank our military men and women for their service! Hope you have a wonderful Memorial Day.
Have a great week.
Best,
-m
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