Business as usual isn’t helping our nation

The denouncement of the political dance of the national debt was a Faustian deal that will exacerbate the deteriorating fiscal condition of the U.S. economy. Massive increases in the debt ceiling in combination with zero percent interest costs for big financial houses are two sides of the same coin and are the primary mechanism of unending de facto bailouts of failed Wall Street banks.

Main Street is stuck indefinitely with the burden of paying back interest and principal on the ballooning debt of government bonds while struggling with escalating inflationary prices and declining income.

As has been the consequence of many grand financial plans in recent years, there will be a continuance of business as usual for the haves in society. The inevitable result is the further submergence of the have-nots of retirees and the middle classes with a burgeoning shift to minimally paid service industry jobs accompanied by chronic high real unemployment.

The ongoing convoluted Congressional process is an exercise in futility.

The staggering debt and economic crisis will fester until U.S. health care shreds the onerous envelope of insurance funding. The substantive savings to the U.S. government as well as corporate and individual taxpayers will be a major self-sustaining stimulus to the expansion of industry and employment.

George Black

Iowa City