​Radical Solutions Needed to Avert Future National Debt Disaster

​Radical Solutions Needed to Avert Future National Debt Disaster
U.S. President Joe Biden talks about his proposed FY2024 federal budget during an event at the Finishing Trades Institute in Philadelphia, Penn., on March 9, 2023. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Mark Hendrickson
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Commentary

I don’t know when the debt ceiling will be raised, but it will be raised. Every time federal spending bumps up against the debt ceiling, we witness the same drama, a drama so predictable that you could almost call it a ritual: Republicans, citing a need for fiscal restraint, demand some cuts to federal spending; Democrats resist the proposed cuts; eventually, after playing “chicken” to see who will blink first before the U.S. Treasury suspends some payments, the two parties cut a deal, and Uncle Sam resumes the apparently unstoppable race toward ever-greater debt. It happens every time.

Mark Hendrickson
Mark Hendrickson
contributor
Mark Hendrickson is an economist who retired from the faculty of Grove City College in Pennsylvania, where he remains fellow for economic and social policy at the Institute for Faith and Freedom. He is the author of several books on topics as varied as American economic history, anonymous characters in the Bible, the wealth inequality issue, and climate change, among others.
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