How worried should we be if the debt ceiling isn’t lifted?
brookings.edu
brookings.edu
How about we rip the bandaid. Cut all government spending to zero and start adding back critical services in priority order.
Sorry to Ukraine, but the $100bn or $200bn or whatever. Next foreign aid. Sorry - we broke. Doing research on dolphin adolescence - yeah gone. Building more F-69s for a Russian bogey man - cut.
Seriously. Our political class is an utter failure. We have to rip the band aid off at some point.
Has nothing to do with the debt limit.
Raising the debt limit is putting cash in the bank to cover the checks we already wrote.
> Sorry to Ukraine, but the $100bn or $200bn or whatever.
Congratulations, you've cut off a key ally, allowed Russia to expand its sphere of influence (likely escalating the future conflict) and saved <1% of the budget.
1. Run up $10,000 on a credit card.
2. When sent a bill say, "I'm sorry my debt ceiling is $500 so I won't be paying you."
For those concerned about the US budget deficit and/or the US debt there are 2 simple, non-mutually exclusive, solutions:
1. increase revenues, taxing the wealthy is efficient
2. pass a budget with less spending
3a. print large amounts of money, enough to cause significant inflation.
3b. wait long enough for inflation to have a significant effect on the real value of your currency
3c. congratulations, your currency is now worth less in real terms… but your debt has been effectively reduced by the same amount.