The fiscal cliff goes on and on: Deficit spending, forever and ever, amen

The “fiscal cliff” was devised in the summer of 2011, designed to look as scary as possible, when the Obama administration wanted authorization to borrow more money to pay for ever-expanding expenditures. House Republicans balked, and a compromise was reached. The debt ceiling was raised, from $14.3 trillion to nearly $16.4 trillion. In exchange, President Obama and Democrats agreed that if he didn’t follow the deficit-reducing recommendations issued by his own bipartisan commission – and of course, he didn’t – automatic spending cuts and tax hikes would go into effect Jan. 3, 2013.

This was what Democrats would face if they waited a year and a half without doing anything to slow the borrowing that’s steadily eroding the value of Americans’ savings.

Now note what President Obama recently added to his demands in negotiations to avoid the “fiscal cliff”: Because Washington’s spending has continued unabated, even the raised debt ceiling will be reached within a few months. So Mr. Obama wants, as part of any deal to cancel his administration’s “due and payable” reckoning for failing to keep the promises they made to get the debt ceiling raised 16 months ago, that Republicans agree to again raise the debt ceiling!

In fact, we’re already there. Last week, the Treasury Department announced it would begin taking steps as of Dec. 28 “to delay hitting the government’s $16.4 trillion borrowing limit on Dec. 31.”

Steps such as, say, slashing expenditures? Of course not.

Instead, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a Dec. 26 letter to congressional leaders that the department will use “accounting measures” to save approximately $200 billion, thus keeping the government from reaching the limit – on paper, at least – for about two months. In other words, smoke, mirrors and shell games.

Three decades ago, the national debt stood at $908 billion. But Washington consistently spends more than it takes in, so the debt rose steadily – surpassing $1 trillion in 1982, then $5 trillion in 1996. It reached $10 trillion in 2008.

In August 2011, the rating agency Standard & Poor’s stripped the U.S. government of its prized AAA bond rating because it feared America’s dysfunctional political system couldn’t deliver credible plans to reduce the federal government’s debt. Despite S&P’s warnings, investors still want U.S. Treasurys. That’s why the interest rate, or yield, on 10-year Treasury notes has fallen from 2.58 percent on Aug. 5, 2011, to 1.75 percent last week.

So maybe this can go on forever, while Washington politicians just pretend to care about their spending addiction.

But we wouldn’t bet on it.