President Obama’s Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has embraced the “Buzz Lightyear” strategy to overcome the fiscal and debt crisis known as the “fiscal cliff”: to infinity and beyond. Geithner told host Al Hunt on Bloomberg TV’s Political Capital on November 16 (see video below) that he favors elimination of the statutory debt limit. “It would have been time a long time ago to eliminate it. The sooner the better.” The move would place no upper limit on how much Congress and the White House could spend and borrow, effectively making the Disney Toy Story character’s catch phrase national debt policy.

 

The so-called “fiscal cliff” — though technically separate from the national debt limit imposed by Congress — is a measure adopted by Congress that would automatically increase taxes and impose tiny spending cuts January 1, 2013. It was created in the wake of a 2011 negotiation between the White House and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives as the statutory debt limit neared.