The debt ceiling is used that way by Republicans for the most part. They don’t want to increase taxes even for corporations, but they try to force a budget resolution by cutting spending when there really is only so much you can cut without hurting people.
Exactly! The Democrats can't use the debt ceiling, because shutting down the government hurts their constituency more. So it's a loaded gun that can only be used by Republicans, and whenever Democrats are in a position to do something about it, they don't. Same with the filibuster, BTW.
The debt ceiling has always been used by Republicans to pressure Democrats into further concessions that would otherwise not have been needed to give. Remember, the debt ceiling is just an extra hurdle towards spending money that was already appropriated by Congress. So Congress as a whole voted to spend all that money and thus a certain amount of debt. The CBO can calculate exactly how much something will cost, so if you're worried about what tax cuts/spending would do to the debt, you can always find out. There's no need to have an additional thing on top of that that can randomly shut down the government.
Yep, and last time the debt ceiling vote came up, people on the left were imploring Democrats to raise it by a stupid amount / abolish it so they wouldn't need to go through this stupid fight again, but that was dismissed because it was 'unrealistic' or whatever.
And now Republicans are doing exactly that. After they've proven that a small caucus can take down / get concessions from the speaker of the house. Another thing some Democrats were unwilling to do.
I did notice that the Murdoch media lost a lot of the influence they once had. The only ones that still care about the front page of the Australian are politicians and other media.
The US supports the current military dictatorship and is apparently fine with the former prime minister bring locked up for no reason. And that's bipartisan policy, most of this happened under Biden.
Not sure if Imran Khan would've let things escalate as far as it has (or even would've allowed those initial terrorist attacks to happen).
And as for Trump, I don't have high hopes of him successfully negotiating a peace between 2 nuclear powers that have been at war since the 40s.
Yep, and he's using that charity money to get influence with research institutions and universities. Meanwhile he privately holds stock in big pharmaceutical and energy companies. Not sure if anyone has done the work to trace the money, but I'm sure his charitable donations end up benefiting those private investments.
So the money he would've otherwise paid in taxes went to a vehicle that buys him PR and benefits him financially through his other investments.
At this stage Israel controls the Rafah crossing, so Egypt doesn't have a way to send stuff in unless they try to force the issue with military involvement.
And obviously they're dependent on the US for military aid, so if they tried they'd get cut off immediately.
With the amount of followers he's disappointed, he'll be dodging bullets from his own followers left and right. The people that have already tried were all followers of his.
Exactly! The Democrats can't use the debt ceiling, because shutting down the government hurts their constituency more. So it's a loaded gun that can only be used by Republicans, and whenever Democrats are in a position to do something about it, they don't. Same with the filibuster, BTW.