Michael Ramirez: Hoping for a Safe Landing 05-28-23
From America's Premier Editorial Cartoonist
The Debt Ceiling brinkmanship finger-pointing begins—Michael
HOPING FOR A SAFE LANDING
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 in 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 in 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 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.
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