Congress handles money like a degenerate gambler

Congress finally reached a last-minute deal to keep the federal government operating. Hardly deserving of a round of applause. But now we are told that the nation’s debt ceiling needs to be raised. Quickly. Congress is being told that by two weeks from today the debt ceiling must be raised to allow the United States to pay its debt obligations. And if it doesn’t, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warns, the U.S. will face a financial crisis. If it is not raised, the U.S. would default on its loans for the first time in history. Yellen says a default would lead to a financial crisis, and a calamity. So just how did things get so dire? Quite simply, the federal government has borrowed too much money. Why is it that when faced with the prospect of a default in the past, the answer was simply to raise the debt ceiling? Imagine if that is how we handled our finances. We overextend ourselves so much that we can’t make all our debt payments, so we simply allow ourselves to borrow even more. That sounds like the strategy of a degenerate gambler. Our government should practice more fiscal restraint, get our debt under control, and not authorize new spending until it has a way to pay for it. You know, just like the rest of us.