This, from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, is still very wrong:
McConnell said the budget plan Senate Democrats presented Friday – calling for $10 billion in cuts – represented only one-sixth of the cuts outlined in a bill passed by House Republicans and backed by Senate GOP leaders. Earlier on the show, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) dismissed the GOP proposal as “reckless.” […]
“What’s reckless … is the $1.6 trillion deficit we’re running this year. What’s reckless is the $3 trillion we’ve added to our national debt,” McConnell said. “Our national debt is now the size of our economy. We’re beginning to look a lot like Greece.” [Emphasis mine]
I've said this before, but it bears repeating: the United States is far and away from looking like Greece. To ape a little from Dean Baker's explanation, there are three big reasons for why this isn't the case. First, unlike Greece, we have our own currency — should push come to shove, we can buy our own debt and avoid insolvency (at the cost of some inflation). Moreover, as I noted in earlier, investors are still willing to buy our debt at historically low interest rates, and there isn't any demand for bonds that mature upon U.S default. Our fiscal health isn't in great shape, but we're certainly not facing default. Finally, federal taxes are at a 60-year low. With few adjustments, we could raise plenty of revenue and go a long way toward closing our short-term fiscal gap. Indeed, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, we could easily stabilize the medium-term debt by simply ending the Bush tax cuts.
Insofar that the United States has a short-term fiscal problem, it's entirely due to the Republican Party's theological devotion to low tax rates on rich people. As long as the GOP refuses to consider tax increases — and opposes all attempts to control health care spending — there really isn't a path to lower deficits and table debt. If there's anyone irresponsible in this debate, it's McConnell and his ilk.
