It’s déjà vu all over again, and again and again, do we need a debt ceiling?

Below is my column as submitted from the December, 2013 Sturbridge Times Magazine, Page 22. It's something odd from moi, showing love to a politician I never voted for.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend

The words of Polonius to his son, Laertes, resonated with me almost before I ever heard them.  Raised by a mother who embodied thrift, debt was to be avoided and feared. 

Polonius might not be the most apt guide.  He also said, “brevity is the soul of wit” but was quite the windbag.  Mom, however, I cannot gainsay.  She would quote the Danish courtier always and my experience with loans and mortgages only reinforced caution. *

Sadly, as evidenced by the latest fiscal contretemps, not too many congressmen and presidents had similar maternal experiences.  To characterize our government’s addiction in borrowing to finance its largesse as spending like a drunken sailor is to slander the relative natural frugality of the men who go down to the sea in ships three sheets to the wind.

Was it ever thus?  The United States has almost always had a national debt, and managed it with more or less hands on congressional oversight.  In 1917 we entered a world war and who knew what that would necessitate?  So in the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917 discretion was granted to the government to spend as it would.  That bill, however, set a limit.  Federal shopping could not exceed a set amount.  The debt ceiling was born.

Since then, through thick and thin and with admirable discipline, our nation has never exceeded the debt ceiling.  The admirable discipline does not mean reining in spending, but making sure the legislative ceremony of raising the limit has been observed steadfastly.  Still, our financial house did not seem horribly out of order.

Raising the debt ceiling is sort of like when the credit card company sends out a letter telling you they have raised your credit limit.  It comes with one of those “you’ve been so good about paying us, you deserve it” notes.  What it really means is “you’ve been so good about paying us, now, we’d like to see you pay us more.”  I do hope no one in this country is under the impression that the issuer is doing this because they want to help anyone but themselves.

The question is begged, however, if they always raise it, why even bother with a debt ceiling?  The word “ceiling” implies there is a point at which you stop. 

So is the bickering over the debt ceiling just much ado about nothing, as it defies gravity no matter what?  Is it time to just abandon it?  Obviously, this is a case for the Long Hill Institute for Economic Policy.  After a miniscule amount of deliberation, an opinion was rendered.  They referenced the story of an ill run railroad.  The trains never left or arrived on time.  Though mostly tardy, occasionally a train would leave ahead of when it was supposed to.  Complaints abounded and as it was a monopoly, users had no alternative.

Finally, the president of the line deigned to speak with the riders.   He was condescending when one angry questioner asked him why the railroad even bothered to publish a timetable when no train ever arrived or departed on time?  The president replied that that was proof of its tremendous value.  “Why,” he thundered, “How would you, my riders, ever know the train was late if we did not publish a schedule?”

The Long Hill Institute uses this parable to make the point that having to observe the ritual tethers us to reality.  

The late Senator Dirksen said in the sixties that billions of dollars added up to real money.  We are in trillions zone.  Some might say there is no problem.  In Dirksen’s time we collected much less in taxes then we do now, so it’s covered.  People who take that argument have a point, but is this a function of inflation?  After all, taxes collected are in money that is worth less.  Inflation is a whole other question that keeps economists’ minds from suffering idleness.

At what point is it too much?  Better we should have to at least look at the question periodically rather than sweep it under the rug, or maybe a national debt of 100 septillion dollars is the sign of a healthy economy?  That would certainly be the logic of those who view not raising the debt as fiscally irresponsible.

*Hamlet was not the only Shakespeare she referenced.  Oft the words of Lear, “Sharper than a serpent’s tongue an ungrateful child” were directed at me.

Say it ain't so, Mike!

Below is my column as submitted from the March, 2014 Sturbridge Times Magazine, Page 18. It's something odd from moi, showing love to a politician I never voted for.

There is only one thing worse in life than to have one’s heroes exposed as less than noble.  It is a personal disaster to hear that someone you never felt warm and fuzzy about does something that forces a reappraisal.

Sadly, Michael Stanley Dukakis has done that to me.  I could never warm to the man.    It’s part of my class warrior persona.  You always got the feeling that the Duke was talking down to you and telling you that you had to take the bad tasting medicine because it was good for you.

The Duke, on his rise seemed over promoted.  There was the No Fault Auto Insurance that he successfully steered through the General Court.  Was that the panacea as promised?  For all one knows, it might be the best of all possible worlds.  We do still pay a lot for car insurance here.

In his successful run for governor, the bumper stickers read, “Mike Dukakis Should Be Governor.”  The tone of the campaign was that the messiah would relieve us from the scourge of the usual hacks.  The man was almost too good for us.

In his first term, he was celebrated for taking the MBTA to the Corner Office.  If it was an attempt to connect with the common man by an uncommon man, it did not work.  An electorate that had not forgot his broken “lead pipe guarantee” of no tax increase put him on hiatus for a term.

Back in office, he would tout the short-lived improvement in the state economy as the “Massachusetts Miracle.”  He hoped it would get him across the Potomac, but his presidential candidacy in a literal sense “tanked.”

There would be another call for new taxes as he entered the lame duck zone.  The governor would promote the still controversial Big Dig and would leave a bad taste in our region for supporting a prison in New Braintree that smelled of a sweetheart deal.

His ambition was immense, but so was his desire to make a difference.  A controversial English politician who experienced it said, “All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.” True enough, Mike left office unloved and unlamented.

His post-electoral life is sweet.  Few remember that he could not get elected dogcatcher after his last term.  The Duke has his academic sinecure and enjoys the plaudits of his class.

Contrast Dukakis with another Massachusetts pol, the late Congressman John Joseph Moakley.  You remember him.  Well, you probably don't.  He was not flashy and though he had a long career, his congressional accomplishments escape my mind.  His constituents probably don't remember them either.

His big claim to fame was that he defeated Louise Day Hicks.  If you remember her, you are either a politics nerd or you are giving away your age.  She had opposed forced busing when chairwoman of the Boston School Committee.  Louise was crazy enough to think that the idea of putting kids on buses and shipping them off to neighborhoods not their own in an ethnically fractious city was absurd.  She was delusional enough to believe that her opposition could lead to a successful political career.

All the great and good got behind Joe to defeat Hicks' congressional re-election bid.  Joe said nothing.  It was better for him not to.  He won and went on to an extended tenure as a mediocrity in the nation's capital.

I was reminded that he was still alive shortly before his death.  A new federal courthouse was to be named after him.  On WBZ news one morning, I heard it mentioned and one of the solon's flacks was asked about it.  I can never forget his comment, “Joe, in his own humble way, this was the only building he wanted named after him.” 

The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse is an ornate architectural monstrosity.  Maybe it's not on the scale of the pyramids, but Joe was no Amenhotep.  When looking at it, one would not say this is the memorial to a humble man.

On January 31 The Boston Globe reported that it was proposed that South Station be named The Governor Michael S. Dukakis Transportation Center at South Station.  No news there.  As noted above, structures are named after public figures.  Usually a man who, in the words of Macbeth,  “struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.”  There may be a couple of geezers left who remember Maurice Tobin of Tobin Bridge fame, but who the heck is Leonard Zakim of the Zakim Bridge?*

It was Michael Stanley's reaction that shocked me.  He said No.  Had I a pacemaker, the battery would have shorted.  This may not be unprecedented, but who has years to research it?  One should not cavil at the act.  Even if his reasoning might not be mine, it's still a noble sentiment and it pains me to say, a humble gesture.

So Governor Duke, you have my admiration, but I will never forgive you for making me give up my resentment.

*I looked him up once and completely forgot who he was a minute later.  All I remember is that he was, in the words of the late Jerry Williams, “not a bad guy.”