A Way to a Greater Debt Mess

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1:08 PM, Jun 2, 2011 • By GEOFFREY NORMAN

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Just what the country needs in its moment of maximum fiscal peril: wisdom published in the Times (where else?) from one of the architects of the Great Society.

Mr. Obama is not the first president to confront the Cerberus of debt limits, taxes and spending cuts. Indeed, Lyndon B. Johnson’s struggle in 1967 and 1968 to raise the debt ceiling, ward off draconian spending cuts and raise taxes offers important lessons for Mr. Obama.

Yes, do it the way that LBJ did it, says Joseph Califano. We all know how well that worked out. And how much we are in debt (literally) to those – including Mr. Califano – who blithely sowed what we now reap.