Read the rest here...With a lame-duck session of Congress set for the weeks after the Nov. 6 election, members of Congress face the task of taking steps to reduce the deficit before inevitable interest rate hikes push the nation into a debt crisis with profound, long-lasting consequences.
Former President Bill Clinton gave a reminder of the task ahead as he renewed his warning Sunday about a surge in interest rates and a potential debt crisis.
“If interest rates were the same today as they were when I was president, the payment on the debt, that is, what the taxpayers have to pay every year, the financial debt (payments) would go from $250 billion to $650 billion a year,”? Clinton warned on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday.
Congress and President Barack Obama, he said, “can't let that happen”? – so they must strike a deal on reducing deficits and debt.
While acknowledging that the U.S. economy right now is anemic, Clinton said, “When the economy starts to grow and people start borrowing money again, and banks start loaning money to small businesses and not just big ones, interest rates will go up, because there will be more competition for money.”?
Clinton has been trying for months to warn of what he sees as a danger. Last May he said as soon as the economy begins to grow “interest rates will go through the roof, the cost of financing the deficit will be staggering, and the private sector will be screaming for affordable credit.”?
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