I’ve mentioned before that when I am asked, from time to time, why I identify as a Democrat, I usually flippantly say “because it requires far less hypocrisy.” Cute, right? But it is becoming more and more true each day. An obvious example before us at the moment are the stunningly hypocritical GOPers in Washington trying to “negotiate” over the debt ceiling.

You may well remember, if you are of a certain age, seeing so-called documentaries that featured little critters called lemmings. These rodents, when their population got too big, apparently hurled themselves over cliffs and out to sea, sacrificing for the greater good. But it turns out, that was all fake. The Disney movie people, in making 1958’s “White Wilderness,” basically made up the whole mass suicide story. And the lemmings you see leaping into the air and off the cliffs were, in fact, tossed by hand over the cliffs by Disney movie people. They ran a few dozen lemmings on a huge snow-covered lazy Susan to make them look frantic and then cut to tight camera angles of their murder, I mean “suicide.”

No sane creature deliberately hopes for self-destruction, right?

Which, of course, brings me to the current GOP and their lemming-like behavior on the debt ceiling. Remember, dear readers, these same Republicans had absolutely no problem raising the debt ceiling under President Donald Trump no less than three different times, with bills unfettered by poison bill amendments. Yet now suddenly Speaker Kevin McCarthy (and more importantly, the MAGA core behind him) has suddenly decided, without even a slight bit of irony or guilt, to suddenly demand that under President Joe Biden, the debt ceiling will only be raised if a bunch of massive spending cuts are included.

Remember that under Trump, the national debt exploded when he oversaw the third largest deficit increase of any presidency. But since Trump kept yelling about being a spending hawk, the GOP didn’t bother to look at the actual results. Heck, the debt ceiling was increased no less than 18 times under that supposed debt-cutter Ronald Reagan.

Back before 1917 there was no debt ceiling legislation. That basically meant that every time the congress wanted to spend any money, they had to specifically authorize the Treasury Department to issue bonds to fund that particular program. Clearly, that was not sustainable, and so a debt ceiling was created that allowed the Treasury to do what is needed to pay the nation’s bills, as long as those payments don’t exceed the current debt ceiling. Back in 1917 gas was 15 cents-a-gallon, and a wage of $700 per year wasn’t too bad. Obviously, times have changed, and since 1960, the debt ceiling has been raised 78 different times – 49 times under Republican presidents and 29 times under Democratic presidents.

And remember, the debt ceiling has absolutely nothing to do with future spending, and whether such spending should be increased or decreased. The debt ceiling only has to do with money already owed by the government. Not raising the debt ceiling is akin to just tearing up your credit card bill when it arrives – you still owe the money. Oh, and for the kids, the expression “tear up” has to do with a time when bills arrived printed on pieces of paper in the mail, and not as email. Crazy, I know.

President Joe Biden is standing strong, demanding a clean Trump-like bill be passed to raise the debt ceiling. Interestingly, Trump has called for letting the default actually happen, which shows Trump is genuinely stupid about economics, or he just doesn’t care about the massive damage such a default would cause. My retired Air Force Officer’s pension might well not be paid, which would be personally injurious, but my active-duty brothers and sisters, on the front lines of our defense, likely wouldn’t get paid, along with other numerous and disastrous impacts.

The ripple effects of default would certainly reach us here in Colorado. You’ve likely heard the phrase, “the full faith and credit of the United States?” That is what, until default, stands behind every U.S. dollar. But even a short period of default would mean a deep recession, coupled with a rise of roughly 5% in the unemployment rate. A longer default would likely see unemployment over 12% (millions of Americans would lose their jobs), a contraction of about 10% in the overall economy, and inflation would likely top 11%. Pretty grim, right?

And all for a political point or two by an embattled Speaker with no control over his own caucus?

The actual, bipartisan, non-political solution that would, over time, help both Democratic and Republican presidents would be to toss the current debt ceiling legislation to the curb, and to replace it with legislation that automatically adjusts the debt limit to whatever level is needed to pay our debts. It is long past time for such modern legislation.

We can, and should, argue about what future spending should be, but we should also be able to agree that the U.S. is not a deadbeat nation, and we pay our bills. Colorado manages to have a balanced budget every year, and the U.S. should too. But the last balanced budgets were under President Bill Clinton, so it’s been a while.

It will take decades to address our debt issues, but we shouldn’t cut off an arm for a hangnail. I can only hope that McCarthy gets control of his caucus in time. Otherwise, it will be grim. Oh, and I promise next time to get back to writing about Colorado specifically (Editor: good!).

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.