The strict rules that once limited tax cuts and entitlement spending increases lapsed two years ago. Limits on spending lost their teeth. This year, Congress failed to pass a budget altogether.

Last night, with the federal government warning that it was on the verge of defaulting on its debts, the House rejected efforts to reimpose restrictions on tax cuts and spending, then joined the Senate to raise the federal debt limit by $800 billion, to $8.18 trillion.

The collapse of statutory restraints on the growing budget deficit has alarmed Wall Street, befuddled the Treasury Department and elicited calls for a rethinking of the way the government handles its authority to tax its citizens and spend those proceeds.

"The fact is, very little [budgetary restraint] is left in any real form or substance," said Robert D. Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, now president of the Urban Institute.

With last night's passage of the debt ceiling increase, the government's borrowing limit has climbed by $2.23 trillion since President Bush took office: by $450 billion in 2002, by a record $984 billion in 2003 and by $800 billion this year. Just the increase in the debt ceiling over the past three years is nearly 2 1/2 times the entire federal debt accumulated between 1776 and 1980. [emphasis added]

Posted by: Jonathan Singer / 7:48 PM | Basie! Home