It's become a reliably consistent sideshow in U.S. congressional politics: Democrats and Republicans battling over a self-imposed limit on federal borrowing, a feud that often leads to standoffs and protracted government shutdowns.
But with Republicans in control of the House of Representatives and a clutch of Donald Trump acolytes having secured outsized influence over their new leader, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, there are worries that this time, common sense may not prevail."It is therefore critical that Congress act in a timely manner to increase or suspend the debt limit," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wrote last week in a letter to congressional leaders.
Republicans have persistently tried to portray President Joe Biden as a free-spending, tax-happy Democrat, and plan to use their new leverage to wring spending cuts out of the White House, particularly on entitlement programs like health care and Social Security. McCarthy, for his part, says all he wants to do is develop a plan to reduce the debt, balance the budget and put a stop to what he considers profligate spending justified by the need to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
But on Tuesday, he also sounded a more measured note: "Who wants to put the nation through some type of threat at the last minute with the debt ceiling? Nobody wants to do that.""Canada will always work to make sure that we are able to weather any storm that the United States deliberately or inadvertently throws our way," he said.
"What we're seeing manifest, essentially, is playing a game of chicken with an extremely dangerous potential outcome at the end," Hopewell said.
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