Another Debt Crisis Is on the 2023 Republican Agenda
Using the debt ceiling as leverage to try and extract cuts to Medicare and Medicaid is exactly what House Republicans did in 2011.
Expect more signs like this next year.
Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg
The single biggest thing at stake in next month’s midterm elections has attracted only a sliver of the attention dedicated to subjects such as Dr. Oz’s dog experiments, girls’ high school sports or Hunter Biden’s drug habit. The most important issue in this campaign is the Republican plan to reduce spending on popular social programs and jeopardize the full faith and credit of the US government.
Of course, ignoring boring questions like the disposition of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending in favor of largely content-free cultural disputes is a longstanding tradition in US politics. But that doesn’t mean it makes sense.