Washington’s political dysfunction was evident this week when freshman Republican senator Ted Cruz railed for 21 hours against the health care law to delay a procedural vote. As part of his speech, he read excerpts from a children's book.
Fiscal reform advocate Robert Bixby said that’s not a winning formula for Republicans. "If their position is they would not increase the debt ceiling or indeed pass any appropriations bills unless Obamacare is repealed or defunded, that I think would be viewed by the public as an unreasonable demand and I think they would hold Republicans responsible.”
Likely to be even more contentious is the coming debate on the debt ceiling. Failure to raise the debt limit will mean the U.S. government could run out of money to pay its debts by October 17 - the consequences of which Mark Zandi says “would be cataclysmic. It would mean higher mortgage rates, higher borrowing costs for businesses, lower stock prices, lower house prices, a full blown recession and there would be no reasonable policy response to it.”
But another leading economist says those claims are greatly exaggerated. Alan Meltzer says the budget debates are necessary and more likely to lead to a compromise.
“There will be consequences, but the consequences will depend upon how long the default goes on. It isn’t going to go on forever and it probably will arouse enough reaction from the public that will, if we don’t get the agreement before, we’ll get it after,” said Meltzer.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25