Are plans to raise US debt ceiling cause for alarm?
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The push to raise the debt ceiling, albeit temporarily, comes on the heels of the House's passing last week of a 1 trillion dollar spending bill that covered the budgets of nearly a dozen cabinet agencies for 2010.
A number of other spending bills have drawn fire from fiscal conservatives, including February's 787 billion dollar stimulus bill and the 3 billion dollars for 'cash for clunkers' -- a program meant to boost auto sales by providing economic incentives to Americans to purchase new vehicles.
Opponents of Congress' spending note that unemployment, while falling slightly in recent weeks, stands at around 10 percent, the highest in more than two decades. And the unemployment rate -- a measure of part time workers who would prefer full-time work -- stands at around 17 percent, although that too has lessened slightly.
Republicans also fear that Congress' spending will lead to tax hikes, although Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said tax increases are not written in stone.
Other problems could result as well, such as a reduction in U.S. credit worthiness.
Lachman said, in a worst case scenario, the bond market could dump U.S. bonds, making it increasingly difficult for the United States to borrow money.
Moody's Investor Services had previously warned the United States' AAA credit rating could be downgraded, although the organization said this week the U.S. was out of the danger zone and that it had no plans to revise U.S. credit ratings.
While Republicans and fiscal conservatives said the forecast 9 trillion dollar deficit was a huge number, others said the figure could be reined in with a combination of tax increases and spending cuts down the road.
Some experts also maintain that those figures must be viewed in context. European Union nations such as Italy, France and Sweden incurred a much higher debt load during the early to mid 1990s.
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