Letter to the Editor: Looming debt-limit cause for concern

To the victor go the spoils!

A hard, poorly fought battle is finally over! I think most of us would have preferred to have heard more positive comments and ideas about how we are going to climb out of this bottomless pit. However, President Obama ran ads on the east coast that we were not worthy of hearing and Mr. Romney and Ryan decided to drop down to that level of campaigning. What ever happened to “planks” that the parties built their platforms on during the conventions?

The treasurey announced on 10-31-12 that we will reach our $16.4 trillion borrowing limit by the end of the year. That is the time that the automatic tax increases and the large spending cuts are scheduled to kick in.

The government accountability office estimated recently that the delay in getting a debt-limit deal when our credit rating dropped from AAA to AA+ cost us an additional $1.3 billion in borrowing costs for the fiscal year that ended 9-30-12.

We taxpayers must get involved by contacting our legislators and letting them know that their past behavior is unacceptable, and it will not be tolerated in the future.

Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, have warned about the negative ramifications for the U.S. and world economies if the debt limit is not raised.

Congress should be expecting e-mails as the last session was the least productive since the 1940s.

Gerald W. Ray

Spokane