Going over the Cliff

[Dragonflight]

Sadly, they are spending money. Essential services still need to be paid for. The military is the largest consumer of cash in the US economy, and they are still getting paid. The money's being pumped out of the country at high speed, and without raising the debt ceiling, they'll crash.
The idiotic thing from my perspective, is that the US is only one of two countries that actually have this thing called a "debt ceiling." Everyone else just raises the debt limit automatically when a new budget is approved. An artificial means put into place at the beginning of last century as an attempt to prevent government overspending is going to be the event that kills the country. First there's a budget crisis in 2011. Then another last year. Finally, a third this year, and a possible fourth in November if this one is somehow avoided. And that doesn't cover the fact that as the US presumably returns to normal operations the demand on cash will skyrocket over the short term, possibly leading to yet another financial crisis in early 2014...
People have been predicting "the fall of the American Empire" for years now. It saddens me to suggest that it might actually happen, and that it will be because of power-hungry empire builders.
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Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.