The best definition of the debt ceiling I’ve ever read.

Image from wvtr.wordpress.com

From a Facebook poster named Beth Wilson Roberts:

When a small business owner starts out, he has an idea and a business plan, with hard numbers included. And then what? He goes and applies for a business loan, the biggest one he can get, because he needs capital. And then he looks for investors because when people think they’re going to see a return, then they invest more.

This is where we are. We are literally building our economy from the ground up. So we have to borrow, and we have to get vested investors, to build the well-laid-out plan. We don’t monkey with the debt ceiling, because that’s our promise that we’re not going to default on our loan payments. We guarantee investments and stop talking about reducing entitlements, because those entitlements are the return on the investment. We create an environment of abundance, not austerity, to offer our businesses some confidence, so they aren’t afraid to do what they need to do and actually hire people, thereby increasing the return of revenue. We offer “sales and incentives” to consumers, tax breaks and tax holidays that encourage consumer spending. And we stop worrying about how we’re going to pay for it, because if we work hard enough on the plan, it ultimately pays for itself.

Austerity doesn’t work. Sometimes a government or a business has to do bold, crazy stuff in order to make it big. But hoarding funds keeps the economy a lot flatter than the deficit does.