Ending the False Debate Over the Debt Ceiling
Joseph Stiglitz is calling for an honest and open debate on the debt ceiling and future expenditures and whether there is any relationship between the two. He states the expansion of the debt ceiling has no relationship between it and laws having future expenditures. The debt ceiling has no bearing on legal expenditures. It is about raising the debt ceiling to meet the expenditure congressional acts.
Mostly a Stiglitz Opinion piece with some editing to make better points.
Let’s End The False Debate Over the Debt Limit, Common Dreams, Joseph E. Stiglitz
The current threat of default on the United States debt is built on an absurdity, almost a kind of mathematical error. While the public debate has inevitably centered around the level of government spending, the debt ceiling has nothing to do with the level government spending.
Economist Stiglitz adds . . .
Expanding the debt limit is not a conversation about future expenditure, but about meeting the level of spending Congress has already passed. If you pass a law that expenditures should be X dollars and taxes Y dollars, then the deficit will be X minus Y. You can not change it with a third law contradicting the first two. It makes no sense.
If Congress passes expenditure bills that sufficiently exceed the revenue bills enacted, the administration can’t comply simultaneously with all three. That is, with the expenditure bills, the tax bill, and the debt ceiling. It has the responsibility of interpreting which is overriding. It is here, the inviolability of the debt and other obligations is the overriding principle. Conservatives in Congress using the debt ceiling as a political tool are putting our economy at severe risk. It’s our responsibility, and within our power, to rein in this behavior, and to debate fiscal policy on its merits.
The economic cost of the US debt impasse is stark. Repeated near-default threats have the potential to seriously undermine confidence in the US’s ability to pay its debts. The way financial markets function makes this level of confidence as important a metric as the level of debt itself. Repeating default threats can cause spiking bond rates and increasing stock market volatility. Consumers and firms will face higher interest rates and reduced credit availability. Such occurring will exacerbate the effects we’re already seeing from the Fed’s rate hikes.
All of these effects, combined with the resulting increase in economic uncertainty, will inevitably erode the overall economic health of the country. Indeed, a failure to increase the debt limit risks bringing about a recession. Credible public- and private-sector estimates find a short default could cost half a million jobs in 2023.
A longer default ending in 8.3 million jobs lost and unemployment going up 5 full percentage points. A short default would reverse the important gains we’ve made in the labor market, where we are transitioning to steady, strong growth with unemployment at the lowest levels it’s been in over 50 years. This includes the lowest unemployment on record for Black Americans.
The higher interest rate combined with lower economic growth will worsen the deficit. Tax revenues will decline, and debt service expenditures will increase, just the opposite of the stated objective of those currently holding government hostage.
In our democracy, we have three fundamental ways of dealing with excessive deficits:
- The nation can democratically through Congress, approve tax increases—such as a windfall profits tax on corporations. Corporations to date making off like bandits during the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. This occurring while many Americans were suffering partly because of the high prices firms with market power can mandate.
- Or we can democratically approve expenditure decreases through Congress, both now and in the future. If Congress wants to reduce Social Security or curtail Medicare or eviscerate our education, infrastructure, environmental, and technology programs, it can do such. We have constitutional processes, requiring assent by the executive branch, with an override by Congress of any veto.
- Finally, we have elections. Obviously, I wish there were less voter suppression and gerrymandering. Both of which have a stronger relationship between “the will of the people” and election outcomes. Still, there is some accountability: If the electorate is dissatisfied with either side of the equation, either with expenditures or taxes, they can reflect that dissatisfaction in their voting.
But one thing neither Congress nor voting can change is arithmetic. The reality being deficits are the simple difference between expenditures and taxes, and debt is nothing but the accumulation of deficits and surpluses.
This should be a moment of reckoning for those who falsely promised tax cuts for the wealthy during the Reagan, Bush, and Trump administrations would generate revenue. Their failure to do so was predictable and predicted.
If the crowd really believes the deficit is too large, there should be either a reversal of the tax cuts or specification of which major government program they wish to cut. Social Security, Medicare or both those programs as well as others considered. Nibbling around the edges, nickel and diming one agency or another, may be good for grandstanding. However, it will do little to achieve what they claim they want. And cutting support for the IRS, so that it collects less taxes, will also be counterproductive.
Our democracy can not function without a modicum of honesty. Honesty requires us to admit we can not repeal the laws of arithmetic. Not even the legislature in the most powerful country in the world can do such. Let’s have an honest debate about taxes and expenditure, recognizing that our deficit and debt just follow from those decisions.
Trump, the road to serfdom, and the debt ceiling, Angry Bear, Eric Kramer
I think the Republicans know all that. They simply regard the debt ceiling as leverage to attempt to cut social programs without taking responsibility for it. They should be bargaining for all of this with the budget but that would require them to specify what they wished to fund and what they wish to cut with specificity and they know the voters won’t like their proposals so they try to mask them with this process and can claim later that the Democrats agreed to it.
Jack:
I think many people do not know this factoid which is why I put it up. The gov does not start out with a debt celing. it starts with laws passed for programs and matching the debt ceiling to it and maybe more.
Stiglitz:
This should be a moment of reckoning for those who falsely promised that tax cuts for the wealthy during the Reagan, Bush, and Trump administrations would generate revenue. Their failure to do so was predictable and predicted. But if that crowd really believes the deficit is too large, they should either reverse the tax cuts, or specify which major government program—Social Security or Medicare or both—they want to cut. Nibbling around the edges, nickel and diming one agency or another, may be good for grandstanding, but will do little to achieve what they claim they want. And cutting support for the IRS, so that it collects less taxes, will also be counterproductive.
(The GOP will deny to it’s last breath that such tax cuts as these were bad for the country. Because of this, the country is going down, it looks like.)
I do like the word ‘absurdity’ ~ it has no basis in reality
I think that’s right, the repubs know but are counting on the majority not. Boiled down to ones and zeros they’re trying to make Biden blink, that they can build upon to make him look weak in the face of drumpf uck’s ‘srength’
It shouldn’t be happening. Like religion and race, it’s manufactured hysteria …
This isn’t a “debt ceiling” deadline, it’s a default deadline. The debt was already agreed upon. What the GOP is threatening is default.
JoeL
Yes. Also, there is nothing to stop the Fed/Treasury from printing money either. The Senate does not pay the bills.
issuing debt is the same as printing money. a dollar bill is an iou backed by the government. and since we already have an inflatio problem, i am not sure how this would work. even by paying the bills and thus avoiding default, wouldnt’ it shake up the bondmarket and all that follows from that?
coberly:
The inflation issue is very much and mostly unrelated to an abundance of dollars or Labor for that matter. If you read New Deal democrat’s posts you would have a much better idea of what is taking place.
run,
i did read newdealdemocrats posts. So I guess I must have a much better idea of what is taking place.
now if you print money you will have an abundance of dollars whether or not that is the cause of the present inflation. of course i could be wrong about the present inflation. possibly since the money would be being printed to pay for work already done or being done, which presumably adds to the GDP, then there might not be inflation because of it. my better idea does not extend that far. personally i would just write the checks and see what happens. but i still suspect that might rile the bond markets. people are funny about money. ah, perhaps the fact that printing the money without raising the tax (collecting, not increasing) means that you would get inflation because the taxpayer would not have to forgo some consumption in order to pay the tax, but the guy who did whatever for the government would get the right to demand some of that product the taxpayer has not forgone. something like that.
I am sorry for this because i am going to say two things that are absolutely contrary to me real feelings.
First… Joe Biden may be being weak, as with Putin. but if the consequences of default are as bad as everyone says, does he really have a choice? what the R’s aare demanding is bad…but it can be undone without much harm if we win the next election, which we should if the people have been listening to how ugly the R’s are behaving irrespective of their demands.
Second… the debt ceiling blackmail could be rationalized as last ditch attempt to stop the former majority from voting for excesive spending by a kind of suicide stand to default when they come into the majority with the prior agreed debt ceiling coming to it’s limit. don’t know if i have said this clearly (or correctly) but i don’t think it is quite correct for the D’s to claim “they” (the R’s) voted for the spending.
Like i said at the top, i don’t like this, but I think it is something we need to consider.
The GOP has issued an ultimatum.
Cut spending or we are taking the country down.
Our (their) people agree with us on this.
The rest of you can go to hell.
With any luck, we’ll still be around
in 2024 to straighten this out.
Those tax cuts obtained during the Reagan, Bush Jr, Trump administrations were meant to serve notice that spending cuts would be required ‘going forward’. For various reasons that did not happen, or has not happened yet. Circumstances in the House (and Senate) are now such that the GOP can shut-down the guv’mint if spending cuts are not made now.
If it does happen now, at long last, then there will be some opportunities next year to eject GOP members from the House and Senate and re-elect Joe Biden to express the true desires of the majority of voters. Assuming the GOP does not further adulterate the election process to the point where they get away with their plans which have been unfolding since 2020.
At tiny, but relevant portion of a just-published NY Times article.
Even Flirting With US Default Takes Economic Toll
… Republicans have proposed pairing a debt-limit increase with sharp cuts in government spending. They have pledged to spare Social Security recipients, Pentagon spending and veterans’ benefits. But that equation would require steep reductions in other programs — like housing, toxic waste cleanup, air traffic control, cancer research and other categories that are economically important.
The 2011 Budget Control Act, which resulted from that year’s standoff, led to a decade of caps that progressives have criticized for preventing the federal government from responding to new needs and crises. …
Dobs
as much as you will hate to hear this, i agree with you entirely. i never said they were not thugs. stupid thugs at that.
It’s like two watching opposing teams of Kamikazi politicians tending to our fate.
As much as I hate to say this, the Dems are essentially complicit in this.
With a different version of the ultimatum.
Raise the debt-limit or we are taking the country down.
Our (their) people agree with us on this.
The rest of you can go to hell.
and as much as i hate to say it, iagree with this too, but i can’t tell why..that is, i could tell you why I think they are complicit, but I can’t think why they would be.
it may be just that the consequences of default are too scary to risk. but i don’t see where invoking the fourteenth risks default, and i do think that showing some spine would help Biden politically. If it “goes to the Court”
and the Court forbids paying the debt while it is deliberating…Biden could just keep on paying it and then we might see a real Costitutioina crises. maybe we need one.
Coberly,
“…then we might see a real Costitutioinal crises. maybe we need one.”
Totally, Dude. We also need more folk to understand how fiscal deficits fit with trade deficits and the inner workings of financialization. Treasuries are one of the few safe havens in a securitized Zombie economy of finance and retail. However, electoral wisdom is way too heavy a lift. Updating the wisdom of our Founding elites is the most that we can hope for within the foreseeable future.
Ironic that the last time the Republican Party went to war with the Democratic Party, the monied elites of finance and industry were the Republicans and the landed gentry were the Democrats. Progressive ideals did not enter much into the US political sphere until late in the 19th century and they have rarely amounted to much more than pawns in the rich man’s game.
at least the rich man’s game was rational, if not very kind, as far as it went. the progressives (if you count the Roosevelts as progressives) introduced some much needed humanity and the world did not fall apart, as the rich always said it would.
now it seems the rich have regained their power without having learned anything. i don’t know enough to know if this is just an American problem, (the insanity) or if all the world’s rich are complicit… some of the world bank etc behavior makes me suspect they are all together in making the world safe for bankers… but if they are still rational, they would not be party to what the R’s are doing now.
Sad, but predictable, to see geezers tossing around the idea of default and Constitutional crisis as though they are academic exercises. Of course, geezers won’t have to live with the long-term consequences. They just wish it on their kids and grandkids.
Feh.
Joel
as you know, us geezers work pretty hard to try to assure a good life for our kids. the R’s will see the results of default within a few days in their own time. the greedy geezer trope is Republican anti Social Security propaganda and I am surprised you would fall for it.
you should look at the new daze Republicans. when Paul Ryan was still around they like to call themselves the young gunz. you have to be fairly young to be that stupid.
Sure, why have a Constitutional crisis when it is so much easier just to have our brains beaten out with that old rag repeatedly. The Republicans got Trump to blame and all that we have is each other.
Joel
” polling data showing that geezers *are* the demographic that most strongly supports Trump and the right-wing GOP. I blame geezers based on the evidence. YMMV.”
evidence?
that kind of thinking is what gets you “all blacks are…”
so, i’ll try again: the geedy geezers trope is an invention of the enemies of Social Security to make the kids think that old folks are stealing their future. you seem to have bought into it. look again at the ages of the people in congress who are bringing about the debt ceiling crisis.
Maybe we get a definitive answer in 2024. If the GOP permits a fair election, that is.
@Ron,
” . . . and all that we have is each other.”
As a certified geezer, I look with dismay at the polling data showing that geezers *are* the demographic that most strongly supports Trump and the right-wing GOP. I blame geezers based on the evidence. YMMV.
Well, make the time Mr President.
Biden Says He Has Authority to Challenge Debt Limit, but No Time
NY Times – just in
President Biden said on Sunday that he believed he had the authority to challenge the constitutionality of the nation’s borrowing limit but that he did not believe such a challenge could succeed in time to avoid a default on federal debt if lawmakers did not raise the limit soon.
“I think we have the authority,” Mr. Biden said at a news conference after the Group of 7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan. “The question is could it be done and invoked in time.”
Mr. Biden added that after the current crisis is resolved, he hopes to “find a rationale and take it to the courts” to decide whether the debt limit violates a clause in the 14th Amendment stipulating that the United States must pay its debts. He also said that, while meeting with world leaders, he had not been able to assure them that America would not default on its debt — an event that economists say could trigger a financial crisis that would sweep the globe.
“I can’t guarantee that they will not force a default by doing something outrageous,” Mr. Biden said, referring to congressional Republicans who have insisted on deep cuts to federal spending in exchange for raising the borrowing limit. …
… Mr. Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy are negotiating over a fiscal package that would include raising that borrowing ceiling. They remain far apart on key issues, including on caps for federal spending, new work requirements for some recipients of federal antipoverty assistance and funding meant to help the I.R.S. crack down on high earners and corporations that evade taxes.
The two men were set to speak by telephone on Sunday shortly after the news conference as Mr. Biden made his way back to Washington in hopes of re-energizing the sputtering talks. The conversation will follow a weekend in which Republican leaders and White House officials have traded accusations from half a world away — punctuated by Mr. Biden’s attacks on Republicans in the news conference.
Treasury Department officials estimate that there are just over two weeks before the federal government could lose its ability to pay its bills on time, forcing a default. Both Mr. Biden and Mr. McCarthy expressed rising optimism late last week that they could reach an agreement that would pave the way for Congress to raise the borrowing limit while also reducing some federal spending, which Republicans have insisted on as a condition for any debt-limit increase. …
Mr. Biden on Sunday criticized Republicans for not considering raising additional tax revenue to reduce future budget deficits as part of the negotiations. He said he had proposed a discretionary spending cap that would save $1 trillion over a decade compared with baseline projections.
“It’s time for Republicans to accept there is no budget deal to be made solely on their partisan terms,” he said. …
The two sides have found some agreement in talks in the last week, including on clawing back some unspent funds from previously approved Covid relief legislation. They have also agreed in broad terms to some sort of cap on discretionary federal spending for at least the next two years. But they are hung up on the details of those caps, including how much to spend overall next fiscal year on discretionary programs — and how to divide that spending among the military and other programs.
The latest White House offer would hold both military spending and other spending — which includes education, scientific research, environmental protection and more — constant from the current fiscal year to next fiscal year, according to a person familiar with both sides’ proposals. That move would not reduce nominal spending before adjusting for inflation, which Republicans are pushing hard to do. Asked by a reporter on Sunday, Mr. Biden said the spending reduction he had proposed would not cause a recession. …
,,, Republicans’ latest proposal includes a nominal drop in total discretionary spending next year. But that cut is not evenly distributed; in their plan, military spending would continue to rise, while other programs would face deeper cuts.
Mr. Biden’s offer would set spending caps for two years. Republicans would set them for six years.
Republicans have also proposed several efforts to save money that White House officials have objected to. They include new work requirements for recipients of Medicaid and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. They would also make it harder for states to seek waivers for work requirements for certain recipients of federal food assistance who live in areas of sustained high unemployment — a proposal that was not in the Republican debt-limit bill that passed the House.
Republicans are also continuing to seek a reduction in enforcement funding for the I.R.S., a move that the Congressional Budget Office estimates would actually make the budget deficit larger by reducing future federal tax receipts. And they have sought to include some provisions from a stringent immigration bill that recently passed the House, according to a person familiar with the proposal. …
It might be useful to note that the Republican threat to dishonor the Debt is not about the Debt at all. Their proposals do not sugest anything that might cut the deficit/debt except cutting programs that they have been trying to cut for years. They are not willing to cut Defense or raise taxes or give IRS the means to audit complete tax returns of highearners and corporations. If we thought we had an honest Supreme Court we would have no need to fear a court challenge to simply ignore the debt ceiling threat and pay the bills…by borrowing the money, I suppose, or simply not spending the money authorized (but not yet “spent”) for other programs.
If we thought we had an honest Supreme Court.
Liberals Are Persuading Themselves of a Debt Ceiling Plan That Won’t Work
NY Times – Ezra Klein – May 21
The debt ceiling might be the single dumbest feature of American law. Congress decides to spend money and then, later, schedules a separate vote on whether the government will pay its bills. If the government doesn’t pay its bills, calamity ensues.
Moody’s Analytics estimates that even a short debt ceiling breach could cause a recession. An analysis by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers modeled a more protracted default and foresaw a crash on the order of the 2008 financial crisis — the stock market falls 45 percent, unemployment rises by 5 points and America’s long-term borrowing costs are much, much higher. All of this to pay money we already owe and can easily borrow. Madness.
Defenders of the debt ceiling will tell you that the limit has been around a long time and has largely operated to the good. America has never defaulted on its debts, but the debt ceiling has often motivated compromise between the two parties. That may be true, but it’s a bit like saying that since America has won every game of Russian roulette it’s played so far, it should keep playing.
And so I understand — and share — the interest in ways to render the debt ceiling null and void. Democrats should have eliminated the debt ceiling entirely when they held Congress and the White House in 2021 and 2022. But they didn’t. …
Manchin and Sinema align with Republicans in debt negotiations
Politico – May 3
Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema saved the filibuster and cut down President Joe Biden’s agenda, delighting Republicans. Now they’re breaking with Democrats on the debt limit, and Republicans hope they keep it coming.
The two centrists, who spent Biden’s first two years in office at odds with the left, are glaring outliers on the debt drama in the party’s 51-member Senate caucus. While their Democratic colleagues insist on no negotiations until the debt ceiling is lifted, Manchin and Sinema are not only pushing for a bipartisan deal but positioning themselves as potential players in any future Senate talks on a way out of the crisis. …
(Manchin & Sinema kept the Senate filibuster in place back in 2021-22, and that has everything to do with getting around the debt-limit in 2023.)
EK: The debt ceiling might be the single dumbest feature of American law. Congress decides to spend money and then, later, schedules a separate vote on whether the government will pay its bills.
Actually, not dumb at all, or at least very understandable, given that spending measures must originate in the House. This is where ‘pork is born’, congressmen of both parties love pork that benefits their constituencies. Step one is to secure support from any/all of your colleagues who want your vote for their pork, regardless of party.
Step 2, before spending money, vote only to provide funding for pork that benefits your party, and not the other side. Voila!
@Fred,
“The debt ceiling might be the single dumbest feature of American law. Congress decides to spend money and then, later, schedules a separate vote on whether the government will pay its bills.”
It’s only dumb if you believe that the job of Congress is to govern in the best interests of the American people.
EK: … Congress, the court has said, does not “hide elephants in mouse holes.”
… We just watched this Supreme Court wipe out decades of precedent to overrule Roe. It has repeatedly entertained cases that even conservative legal scholars thought farcical just a few years earlier. …
The Supreme Court does what it wants to do. Does it want to let the Biden administration dissolve the debt ceiling using a novel legal theory?
If testing the question wouldn’t cost anything, there would be no harm in trying. But I don’t think it would have no cost. The strength of the Biden administration’s political position is that it stands for normalcy. The debt ceiling has always been raised before, and it must be raised now. But if the administration declares the debt ceiling unconstitutional, only to have the Supreme Court declare the maneuver unconstitutional, then Biden owns the market chaos that would follow. Who will voters blame in that scenario? Republicans, who say they just wanted to negotiate over the budget, as is tradition? Or Biden, who did something no other president had done and failed?
Right now, at last, the positions are clear. The White House is open to budget negotiations but opposed to debt ceiling brinkmanship. Republicans are the ones threatening default if their demands are not met. They are pulling the pin on this grenade, in full view of the American people. Biden should think carefully before taking the risk of snatching it out of their hands and holding it himself. …
It is seems very fair for the Dems to posit that they (and the country) are would-be victims of a kidnapping (or blackmail?) by the GOP. Their reacting by refusing to pay the ransom may not be entirely wise, but it is not inappropriate,
“NY Times – Ezra Klein – May 21
The debt ceiling might be the single dumbest feature of American law. Congress decides to spend money and then, later, schedules a separate vote on whether the government will pay its bills. If the government doesn’t pay its bills, calamity ensues.”
Maybe. But let’s try a little thought experiment. Suppose all economists, bakers and both parties agree that at some point debt is dangerous. So the parties agree that they will enact a law requiring Congress to look at the Debt when it reaches what might be a dangerous point and decide whether they can take the chance of increasing it. Of course they decide this by vote.
Now suppose that Republicans have had a majority in both houses and the Presidency for a number of years, And during that time they have cut taxes and increased defense spending until the debt reaches that point previously agreed to be dangerous.
The people agree and vote to elect a Democrat majority in the House. The Democrats say they will not vote to increase the debt limit unless the Rs agree to raise taxes and cut defense spending.
But, but, but, but…sputter the R’s, that will create chaos in the economy and destroy America. Right, say the D’s, so you need to raise taxes and cut defense spending. But, that’s blackmail, say the R’s. Yes it is, say the D’s, What are you going to do about it.
Now that might in fact be a lousy way to run a railroad, and I personally think that in the present situation, the R’s are just thugs taking advantage of this grenade we left lying around. But if the shoe was on the other foot, what would you-all do?
bankers. not bakers.
I don’t understand Biden’s logic about being too late for the 14th Amendment. He seems to think that it had to be invoked in enough time for the GOP to litigate and judges to decide all the way up to a SCOTUS appeal. As noted above, he can just invoke the 14th Amendment and keep paying the bills. If a judge calls a halt until the litigation is resolved, Biden can just ignore that, too, on the grounds that he took an oath to the American people to see that the law is faithfully executed.
I hope Biden is just giving McCarthy and the House GOP enough political rope for them to hang themselves before invoking the 14th. I fear that Biden will plead helplessness and let bills go unpaid, calling into question the good faith and credit of the US and discouraging future investment in the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. This is not something we’ll just pick ourselves back up from in 2024. This is playing with fire.
Absolutely correct, Joel. I have to wonder about the legal advice Biden is getting. It would take courage to invoke the 14th and ignore subsequent adverse court orders, if any, but there is precedent (Andy Jackson and Abe Lincoln come to mind.).
Abe Lincoln was a war-time President whose country was in the process of being torn apart. Andrew Jackson was an early 19th century version of Donald Trump.
Joe Biden is a very hard-core centrist with ties to organized labor, and actually a pretty remarkable President given his legislative achievements, which the GOP find rather disturbing it seems.
Have you noticed the actions and statements of the Republican party for the last years and decades? Honesty is the last thing on their minds. And our democracy is not functional, and hasn’t been for quite a while.
I don’t have a solution to this mess that is acceptable, even to me. The work-arounds start with just ignoring the limit and letting the congress sue the executive over it. If it goes straight to SCOTUS and the executive loses the case then cite the Trail of Tears and do it anyway. Alternatively mint the trillion dollar coin. Only mint a dozen or a hundred of them, just to make sure the GOP knows their extortion scheme will be countered in the future as well.
I hope the Democrats start yelling about the dead-beat Republicans pulling a dine-and-dash on the whole country.
In addition to the trail of tears, there is also Lincoln in the Habeas cases and in his debate with Douglas where he argued the Dred Scott ruling should not be followed.
I am trying to keep up with this but is there any chance that the Dems will get the 5 Republican votes they need for a discharge petition of a clean debt ceiling raise? I do not see anyway where McCarthy can agree to anything which would get by 40 Democratic Senators and keep the speakership. The question is what can the Dems promise 5 GOP House members to save the country and McCarthy? The final question is whether there are 10–or maybe 12– GOP Senators who would go along with the clean debt ceiling? One thing is damn sure–this has nothing to do with serving the country or even leading the country.
@Terry,
No, nothing and no.
I suspect that McCarthy and the GOP House think they have Biden boxed in for impeachment. If the nation goes into default, they’ll impeach him. If he ignores the ceiling, they’ll impeach him. There won’t be 67 votes in the Senate for impeachment, but the trial will tie up the Senate business, blocking progress on judicial appointments.
If the GOP does any presidential impeaching, or otherwises causes great economic turmoil in the near future – out to November of next year, they will be looking at an electoral disaster for their party.
I think they’re forcing Biden to use the 14th Amendment. They don’t want him to and he doesn’t want to do it but he may not have any real choice. I think it will be a good thing for the country to get rid of the debt ceiling statute once and for all.
” . . . out to November of next year, they will be looking at an electoral disaster for their party.”
They already are because of their anti-choice nanny state agenda, based on current evidence. I guess they’re counting on gerrymandering and voter suppression to pull them through.
Information:
Since 1960: Congress has increased the ceiling seventy-eight times, most recently in 2021. Forty-nine of these increases were implemented under Republican presidents, and twenty-nine were under Democratic presidents.
Choices: Suspend the debt ceiling, or temporarily allow the Treasury to supersede the debt limit, rather than raise it by a specific amount. The latter move was rare during the first ninety years of the ceiling’s existence, Congress has suspended the debt limit seven times since 2013.
Last Time: Debate over the debt ceiling began in 2011, when sparring over spending between President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans resulted in a protracted deadlock. Congress eventually reached a deal to raise the ceiling just two days before the date that the Treasury estimated it would run out of money.
That makes sense. Can’t have an uppity Black President with a brain doing the necessary things when he is supposed to be the fall-guy.
Results of Repub Brinksmanship: Brinkmanship triggered the most volatile week for U.S. stocks since the 2008 financial crisis, and the credit rating agency S&P Global Ratings downgraded the United States’ creditworthiness for the first and only time ever. The Government Accountability Office, which serves as the federal auditor, estimated that the delay in reaching a deal increased U.S. borrowing costs by $1.3 billion [PDF] that year alone.
https://angrybearblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/US-Debt.jpg