When the Media Helps the Government Lie ...

... it kinda sucks.

In this case I am thinking of the theater revolving around the politicians' "debt ceiling."

The media is assisting the politicians in their Big Lie that not raising that "ceiling" will force a "default" on their debt (which, of course, they also try to tell us is our debt).

As Brad points out over at WendyMcElroy.com, that's just flat false.

In reality, if the debt ceiling is reached and not raised, the politicians can avoid default by using their current streams of stolen revenue to make debt service payments, while cutting any future spending that there's not enough additional revenue to cover.

What the politicians are demanding is that they be allowed to continue borrowing and spending ever more money than they actually take in. And what they're promising in return is that at some unspecified future point they'll start stealing even more money from us to pay down the accrued debt. And if this doesn't sound like a good deal at either end to you, they say you must be some kind of damn anarchist or something.