Obama Gets Automatic Debt-Ceiling Hikes

Friday, 05 Aug 2011 03:02 PM
By Betsy McCaughey

The U.S. Constitution is the biggest casualty in the debt-ceiling deal signed into law this week. The 635 elected members of Congress ceded the important decisions to 12 budget bosses as yet unnamed, and caved into the president’s demand for automatic debt-ceiling increases.

These are the latest erosions of representative government. Fifteen months ago, when the Obama health law was enacted, Congress also ceded important decisions about Medicare to a 15-member board of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats. If members of Congress don’t want to make difficult calls, they ought to move aside for newer blood, rather than presiding over the slow decline of government by the people.

The budget bosses: All sides in this week’s deal agreed to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for slightly more than $2 trillion in spending “cutsâ€