I used to have Chait speak on panels all the time with Jonah Golberg of the National Review- both of them smart and funny, one of them consistently more persuasive. "The debt ceiling turns out to be unexploded ordnance lying around the American form of government. Only custom or moral compunction stops the opposition party from using it to nullify the president’s powers, or, for that matter, the president from using it to nullify Congress’s. (Obama could, theoretically, threaten to veto a debt ceiling hike unless Congress attaches it to the creation of single-payer health insurance.) To weaponize the debt ceiling, you must be willing to inflict harm on millions of innocent people. It is a shockingly powerful self-destruct button built into our very system of government, but only useful for the most ideologically hardened or borderline sociopathic. "
Posted on: Sat, 05 Oct 2013 21:28:20 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015