Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
Title I - Troubled Assets Relief Program
Sec. 122. Increase in Statutory Limit on the Public Debt.
Subsection (b) of section 3101 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking out the dollar limitation contained in such subsection and inserting "$11,315,000,000,000".
General Comments on Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
This section is revealing. Supporters of the bill like to pretend that it won't cost $700 billion -- and might even make money! But the borrowing authority allowed by this section would never be rescinded. This section would raise the national credit card limit. Even if the bailout costs less than $700 billion, the taxpayers will still have authorized their government to borrow that amount, and can never take it back.
Insert a sunset prevision and require the U.S. Congress to directly confront and set in place an aggressive program to pay down the national debt.
The current financial crisis is a wake-up call to the other silent financial crisis that is the national debt.