NYT OPINION: Doing Whatever It Takes on Debt
By Paul Krugman
Section: Opinion
Source: New York Times
Published Date: May 4, 2023 at 03:00AM
What’s odd about this potential crisis is that it has nothing to do with excessive debt. Maybe you think the federal government has borrowed too much over time. We can argue about such things. But they’re beside the point right now. America in 2023 isn’t like, say, Greece in 2009 or Argentina in 2001, cut off by investors because they have lost faith in our solvency.
Our looming crisis will, instead, be entirely self-inflicted — or, more accurately, Republican-inflicted. If it happens it will be because the party controlling the House refuses to raise the debt ceiling, a quirk of the U.S. budget process that lets Congress prevent the government from making payments that have already been approved through past legislation.
There are three things you need to know about this crisis.
First, whatever courts may say about the constitutionality of the debt ceiling, budget decisions should be dictated by votes over spending and taxing, not by hostage-taking in which the party most willing to destroy the economy gets what it wants.
By Paul Krugman
Section: Opinion
Source: New York Times
Published Date: May 4, 2023 at 03:00AM
But don’t give in to Republican extortion.
The United States is barreling toward a debt crisis; the possibility of default on U.S. debt is already beginning to roil markets.What’s odd about this potential crisis is that it has nothing to do with excessive debt. Maybe you think the federal government has borrowed too much over time. We can argue about such things. But they’re beside the point right now. America in 2023 isn’t like, say, Greece in 2009 or Argentina in 2001, cut off by investors because they have lost faith in our solvency.
Our looming crisis will, instead, be entirely self-inflicted — or, more accurately, Republican-inflicted. If it happens it will be because the party controlling the House refuses to raise the debt ceiling, a quirk of the U.S. budget process that lets Congress prevent the government from making payments that have already been approved through past legislation.
There are three things you need to know about this crisis.
First, whatever courts may say about the constitutionality of the debt ceiling, budget decisions should be dictated by votes over spending and taxing, not by hostage-taking in which the party most willing to destroy the economy gets what it wants.
Read more at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/opinion/biden-administration-debt-republican.html
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