Raze the debt ceiling

The announcement that House Speaker John Boehner has offered to take the debt ceiling off the table in the current "fiscal cliff" negotiations is, in one sense, a welcome development. If the Senate agrees, we will temporarily be spared the sort of embarrassing brinkmanship that accompanied the last increase, in August 2011. But a year from now, we will likely be back in the same place, where the debt ceiling is being held hostage by people who have no qualms about using the good credit of the United States as a negotiating ploy. We would suggest that, rather than just waiting a year to have this fight, the best approach is simply to abolish the debt ceiling. It is an anachronism that causes more harm than good.

By Philip G. Joyce and Roy T. Meyers

December 19, 2012