A small group has gathered in a meeting room that smells of bad coffee and stale cigarette smoke. Half of the fluorescent bulbs are burned out…..and a number of the remaining bulbs flicker in that annoying way that makes you feel somewhere between dizzy and nauseous. I step to the podium….clear my throat and gather my nerve to speak. Then, before I can stop myself.....my mouth opens and the words “Hello, my name is David…and I’m a used car dealer” come rolling out. The group offers a friendly, but monotone response of…...”Hi David”. The hardest part is over…..and thus begins another typical meeting of “Used Car Dealers Anonymous” (UCDA) .
Actually, I made that up, mainly because I just wanted to start off with something different. (Although….I really am a used car dealer) While the main thrust of my business is that of selling pre-owned cars (or "pre-enjoyed" as we like to say)…..we also do some of the financing of those cars. For example; A customer comes in, finds a car that they like....then for whatever reason they don’t want to pay cash….or go get a loan on their own…..we will sometimes finance the car “in-house”. That means that I am loaning them my money to buy my car. Since it’s my car…..and my money….I want to make sure that they are credit worthy, and have the ability to make the payments. If they don't make the payments….then I could lose my car (unless I can hunt them down in order to retrieve it) It seems that no matter how hard I try to qualify the buyer/borrower…..there are times when it all goes bad. That usually means a loss for me….even if I repossess the car. With that said…..when I loan money…..I try to make sure if I am going to put my money and my car out “on the street” that the risk is as small as possible.
Believe it or not, I have had people who I have had to chase down in an attempt to get either my money or my car……who (when I finally catch up to them) have asked me the following question…..”Can I trade my car for something else that's a little newer or nicer?”. Unless you are a liberal Democrat, you can probably imagine my response.
Let me put it another way………
Let’s pretend that you own a bank and you have given a person a credit card. Over the course of time, they have managed to max that credit card out to its limit….and most of the time they are only paying the interest on the balance and the principle is continuing to grow. Then one day you get the following letter……..
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Dear President of “Then Again That’s Just Me Readers” Bank,
I am writing this letter to ask you to raise the credit limit on the credit card that I have with your bank. I assure you that I wouldn’t do this if it weren’t for the fact that all of my other credit cards are maxed out as well, and I am past due on the one from your bank…..so you can see that I really need it. Here is an update of my current status, so that you can make a more informed decision. I currently have no source of income other than what I can steal from other people…..and its obvious that my bills exceed that by quite a bit. I don’t plan on making any changes in my spending habits….although I do plan on trying to take more from the people that I am currently stealing from in order to be able to spend a little more. I see absolutely no way that I can pay you back in the near future (and possible ever), but I am insisting that you raise my credit limit so that I can continue to spend in the in the way that I am accustomed. I would appreciate you doing this as quickly as possible since I have bills that are overdue that need to be paid with this credit limit increase.
Sincerely,
Your Customer
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Does that sound stupid to you? If you are a fiscal conservative….then it probably does. If you are a fiscal idiot/liberal then it probably sounds perfectly fine. Unless you have been living in a cave for the last year or so….then you would know that it sounds exactly like what the Democrats in Congress are trying to do. They want to raise the nation’s debt ceiling so that that they can continue to spend money that we don’t have (and that isn’t theirs) on even more entitlement programs. Their solution isn’t to stop spending more money than they take in (like you and I would be forced to do)…..Rather their idea of fixing it, is to get a bigger credit card (raise the debt ceiling) and then take more from those who are already paying the most in taxes, in an attempt to pay for it. I think its time to not only refuse to raise the Country’s debt limit……I believe that it’s time to tell all of those in Congress who have access to the Country’s credit card….that we are not raising the debt ceiling…..in fact, we just lowered your credit limit……So live within your means without raising taxes….or we will find some fiscally responsible people who will do it the right way…..Then Again….That’s Just Me
David,As always, I derive great pleasure from reading your blogs, even when I think many of the facts you rely on for your arguments are suspect in their accuracy, but you write well and with a sense of humor which I enjoy. Of course, the fact that I have a great respect for your character and love you unabashedly could have some influence on my enjoyment of your posts.Regarding this particular offering , there is little I find fault with, unless of course you could find a way to finagle a much more expensive car for me to drive at a considerably lower cost to myself. Let me know if this is possible. Oh, one other small point of diagreement. The primary purpose of raising the debt ceiling is not to fund additional future entitlement programs, but rather to pay for promises the government has already made in the form of fiscal commitments, including homeland security, national defense, and two unfunded wars initiated by your buddy, dduuuuubbbyeh. as well as those tax cuts he endowed the wealthy with---you know, the ones that were supposed to be such a boost to the economy, but instead resulted in the smallest net increase in net jobs of any decade since WW11 (7 million),most of which were entry positions at such fine companies such as Wal Mart and Mac Donalds, where a hard working American's chances for advancement to the achievement of the American dream are almost a given. So if the debt limit is not raised we are signaling the world that not only may we not reduce spending going forward, but we have no fucking intention of honoring the obligations we have previously promised to full fill. Even without the benefit of an economics degree from that stellar institution, The Chicago School of Economics, it seems to me this may be a bad idea.
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