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Re your article “Two Hawaiian Lawmakers View The Debt Ceiling Differently,” Senator Brian Schatz gets it but Congressman Ed Case doesn’t.

The 14th Amendment says “the validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned.” Schatz is fine with that but Case insists on questioning it anyway.

By politicizing a purely apolitical issue, Case complicates what the Constitution aimed to keep simple. To his credit, he does so because he imagines he can solve problems by being a bipartisan “Problem Solver” who reaches across the aisle.

But little does he realize how much the white, male, MAGA Republican world loves welcoming gullible Democrats like him who naively drink their Kool-Aid.

At this point, Case is willing to support a proposal from the “Problem Solvers Caucus” that he feels will solve everything simply because it’s “bipartisan.” Does he not see that the MAGA Republicans are only using the debt ceiling debate to further their goals of cutting Obamacare, education, Meals on Wheels, public safety, veteran benefits, and manufacturing jobs?

Or does he not realize that his Republican allies are only willing to raise the debt ceiling if they can find enough unwitting Democrats to help them inch closer to their goal of cutting support for a woman’s ability to think and act for herself?

Nor should we continue to believe Republicans are good at balancing the budget. Statistics from the Treasury Department show the Republicans sure know how to spend money.

The national debt has grown far more under them than under the fiscally conservative Democrats. President Bush started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and spent trillions on them but Republican Congresses under him and Obama refused to raise taxes needed to fund the wars.

So, we have had no choice but to borrow more. The result is debt, debt and more debt.

The only certain way to stop having to raise the debt ceiling is to balance our federal government’s budget every year. Make sure we tax and earn as much as we spend, if not less.

And the Democrats know how to do this much better than the Republicans. In fact, the last time the U.S. had a budget surplus was in 1998, under Bill Clinton.

The worst spendthrift of all was Donald Trump, who managed to increase the national debt by $8.18 trillion in only four years, about the same as Obama did in twice the time and nearly five times more than Clinton’s increase of the national debt over his eight years in office.

Looking closely, it is clear that the size of our national debt is due not only to excess spending on unfunded wars but also to Republican tax cuts that enrich the rich and push the middle class closer to poverty.

Congressman Case needs to listen to reason and to his constituents.

Congressman Case is right when he says our nation is on track to substantially increase the national debt, but when he invites the Republicans to have a voice in how to solve the problem, he is asking the arsonists to help put out the fire.

Reagan started the fire in 1976 when he asked the poor to ante up first so the rich would get so rich that some of their lucre would eventually trickle down and lift everyone’s boats. This is the false hope that every Republican since Reagan has peddled to the American public.

It does not have to be like this. Congressman Case needs to listen to reason and to his constituents.

In no uncertain terms, he should abandon support for Republicans partisan efforts to politicize the debt ceiling. Instead, he should join Senator Schatz and President Joe Biden in calling for an immediate, clean “up or down” vote to raise the debt ceiling.