Also, it's not just "the minority party". Ever single debt ceiling crisis since 1995 when the Gephart Rule was repealed has been instigated by the Republican Party.
Great summary. That's why, if there's going to be something like a debt ceiling, it has to be part of the budget process, not a separate part of the debt-repayment process. You don't boycott paying your credit card bill. You stop putting more purchases on it.
Granted, the one step follows the other. But Congress is manifestly unable to backpropagate consequences by one step.
So if we're going to have a guardrail, it has to be in the right place. Yet somehow this middle way is never considered. Instead it's just "debt bad" or "debt ceiling bad". People always with the dumb binaries and false dichotomies.
It's unlikely it does that. If it came to a court the judge would have to decide which of Congress's instructions take precedence or how to reconcile them. That falls into territory of implied repeal and reinterpretation of the Federal Reserve Act.
If the Democrats had any backbone, they would instruct the Fed to pay what Congress has authorised and if the Fed said 'no', take them to court to force an interpretative judgement to settle the matter. (which I call the 'empty chest' problem).
Which would almost certainly involve reading section 15(1) of the Federal Reserve Act using the same 'futurity' that the courts have used in appropriation bills.
(ie the deposits it talks about are past, present and future deposits).
That would imply a balancing amount held at the Fed, and the debt ceiling stops the Treasury refinancing that balance into bonds.
Both the spending and the debt ceiling requirements of Congress are then satisfied - and the tool is neutered.
Nationstate finances are not the same thing as personal finances or corporate finances. Trying to paint them the same is misleading at best and actively harmful at worst.
It's worth noting that I wasn't comparing nation-state finances to personal finances at all. I was only comparing US federal finances to US state finances.
Maybe we should revisit those decisions. Even individuals revisit decisions, it is insane that we don't revisit certain decisions.
Even if we agree to pay for things, is the government at peak efficiency? There is so much wastage at every level in the govt. Rather than blame Republicans, maybe ask why Democrats are against a more efficient govt (that can still be large and fund their pet programs).
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/18/heres-how-the-federal-govern...
> The U.S. has lost almost $2.4 trillion in simple payment errors over the last two decades.
This is just at the federal level.
Maybe you could revisit those decisions by passing laws that directly change them, instead of threatening to keep the decision in place and just not allocate the funds you promised for it?
Was wasting trillions of dollars also part of the original promise? No. So the original contract has already been broken.
Btw, not all spending is "promised" spending. Around 30-40% is discretionary spending. Spending that was not promised and is optional. This is on top of the massive levels of waste.
Isn't that what the annual budget process is about? Why do we need a separate process to allow for the borrowing to make the payments for the things that were individually authorized (often with renewals every so often) and then collectively authorized in the budget?
If you don't think the programs are efficient enough as it is, the collosal waste of a government shutdown should be a definite no. Those waste money in that there's extra work to prepare for closing and to reopen, that prevents people from doing the actual work they should be doing, as well as the fact that all of the government workers unable to work because of the shutdown end up getting paid anyway.
Well, you answered your own question. There is a separate process because the budget process has been broken in a spectacular way.
> If you don't think the programs are efficient enough as it is, the collosal waste of a government shutdown should be a definite no. Those waste money in that there's extra work to prepare for closing and to reopen, that prevents people from doing the actual work they should be doing, as well as the fact that all of the government workers unable to work because of the shutdown end up getting paid anyway.
Can you quantify that?