'A moment to sue': Why America’s debt ceiling must be abolished once and for all

05 June 2023

On Saturday, June 3, many economists breathed a signed of relief when President Joe Biden signed into law a bill to raise the United States' debt ceiling.

Treasury Security Janet Yellen had been warning that the U.S. was dangerously close to defaulting on its debt obligations. But Biden, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) managed to find enough common ground to get a bipartisan bill passed.

However, that is not say to that the bill didn't encounter opposition from both the left and the right. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) voted against it, although for very different reasons from all the MAGA Republicans who bucked McCarthy and McConnell.

In an op-ed published by the Daily Beast on June 5, Albert Fox Cahn — founder of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP) — emphasizes that Biden never should have been placed in a position where he had to jump through so many hoops to avoid an economic calamity. The debt ceiling, according to Cahn, needs to be abolished once and for all.

"President Biden has taken a victory lap, praising the debt ceiling deal that helped avert the wholly manufactured crisis of a potential default," Cahn argues. "But this is no moment to celebrate. Instead, this is a moment to sue…. The truth is that this deal isn't just a mountainous monument to mediocrity; it isn't just going to push millions of Americans into destitution and bankruptcy. It's a ticking time bomb for the economy."

Cahn adds that unless the debt ceiling is abolished, it's only a matter of time until the U.S. is once again at risk of defaulting on its debt obligations.

In an article published by Common Dreams on June 3, progressive activist Samantha Sanders and Josh Bivens — research and policy director for the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) — also call for the debt ceiling's elimination.

"This is not a sensible way to govern," Sanders and Bivens lament. "This deal looks significantly less harmful than the original McCarthy proposal that passed the House last month, but it still contains several worrying provisions. Notably, it still includes a concession to expand and tighten work reporting requirements for some of the most vulnerable Americans to access the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). These should never have been part of a debt ceiling discussion."

Bernie Sanders and progressive Bishop William J. Barber railed against U.S. inequality during a rally in Charleston, South Carolina on June 3.

Sen. Sanders told the crowd, "It is not moral that 3 people on top own more wealth than the bottom half of American society, 165 million Americans." And Barber, similarly, slammed the United States' federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour as a "death wage" and told attendees, "We need a living wage, and we need it now. It's time for change, and justice has got to move."

Liberal economist Robert Reich offers five takeaways from the debt ceiling deal in an opinion column published by The Guardian on June 5, describing their implications for the U.S. between now and the 2024 presidential election.

Reich's takeaways are: (1) "House MAGA Republicans will be less of a force," (2) " Biden’s quiet diplomacy is working, at least for now," (3) "The Trump factor wasn't in play, but it will be, (4) "The debt will continue to soar, but that may not be a problem," and (5) "The federal budget will become little more than Social Security, Medicare and defense."

"In the end," Reich emphasizes, "House MAGA Republicans got surprisingly little out of their agreement to increase the debt ceiling. Yes, they were irresponsible. They manufactured a debt crisis out of whole cloth. They played a reckless hostage-taking game. They could have wrecked the full faith and credit of the United States. They demanded spending cuts that would have hurt lots of vulnerable Americans. Yet…. they got almost zilch."

Nonetheless, Reich finds it outrageous that the MAGA far-right was willing to risk a major economic crisis.

"I don't want to minimize the significance of what just occurred," Reich explains. "America has dodged a lethal bullet. Biden played it about as well as it could have been played, given who he is and who they are. Had the debt ceiling not been lifted, we'd be facing economic Armageddon within days. But in terms of the factors contributing to that lethal bullet, little has changed. The MAGA Republicans have been stymied for now, but they're still dangerous as hell."

Read Albert Fox Cahn's full op-ed for the Daily Beast at this link (subscription required) and find Robert Reich's Guardian column here.

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