Talk:Fiscal cliff

"Their opposition to the ACA was the catalyst to the crisis"
So, can we add more about that opposition to the ACA to the article, then? Otherwise, a random quote about socialized medicine looks goofy when little of the article actually talks about ACA being the catalyst. Noisemobile (talk) 09:47, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Tweak and Page Move?
Being gridlock is no longer a concern, this article might gain relevency in coming years if it were tweaked and retitled Debt ceiling.

The debt ceiling, which most other countries don't have, is the legacy of the gold standard. In America today, and for many many decades, a new Congress of the same party of a new president comes in and their first order of business before the new president is sworn in, is to raise the debt ceiling. This vote anticipates carrying out the program of the new president. It happened in 1980, 2000, 2008, and 2016. It anticipated Reagen's 30% proposed tax cut (which ultimately was only 25%, freeing funds for porkbarrel). It happened with Baby Bush, allowing for a reform of the tax code and prescription drug benefit yesrs before the actual legislstion was proposed and written. It allowed for Obamacare, with a $600 billion "down payment" on the cost. When Obamacare failed to pass the first year, this $600 billion was lying around unused and would have been squandered on other programs if the Democrats didn't pass it the second year.

So the vote to raise the debt ceiling reflects a "national concensus" to carry out a new president's proposals before the legislation is introduced or tweaked by compromise. It becomes a self-fulling prophecy. As noted, other countries don't do this. Just as in the down payment on Obamacare, Congress has already voted to fund Trump's trllion stimulus and border wall, despite misgivings and legislation itself not being introduced. And this is justified as a "national consensus" even after realities change and support for a border wall or Obamacare looses popular and Congressional support.

So as a legacy of the gold standard, where debts had to be repaid in the unchanging value of gold, the debt ceiling becomes an inflexible check on what supposedly is a national censensus, and commits the country for years and decades to obsolete campaign promises made in the heat of the moment of a campaign. This is why gridlock is common in divided government, the opposition party is not committed to those promises.

Let's look at the reality, for all the criticism of the GOP being irresponsible in shutting down government, why have the Democrats been banished by voters from operating any government at any level, outside of a few cities and not enough Electors in states to win the White House? And yet the GOP has confirmed this suicide pact for itself in raising the debt ceiling from $20 trillion to $29 trillion. nobs 06:59, 4 March 2017 (UTC)