United States debt ceiling

We'll be ta- institute.

We'll be talking about national debt and its relationship to the debt ceiling.

We'll visit with Charles Goyette, author of Empire of Lies and with the Libertarian Institute.

Michael O'Neill is the vice president for Landmark Legal Foundation.

And then on the web, it's C-A-T-O.O-R-G.

Thank you, Bob.

So we've been, uh, talking about the national debt and its relationship to the debt ceiling.

Would default be the same thing as repudiation in questioning the validity of our debt?

Thank you, Bob.

I thought today we could talk about the national debt and the debt ceiling.

There's some confusing issues there.

So, uh, tell us about the ongoing controversy over the public debt ceiling.

So, you know, on a fairly regular basis, uh, Americans are warned that the federal government may no longer be able to meet its legal obligations unless the debt ceiling is raised.

So the result, uh, would be def- default with, uh, financial chaos to, to follow.

But despite that, uh, warning, the political grid [laughs] is, uh, elusive as it is on most other issues.

Uh, the liberals don't want to accept entitlement spending cuts, and the conservatives don't want to accept any meaningful tax increases.

So again, it's that kind of accomplishment over ambition.

Get some key policy victories, but, you know, the more ambitious stuff really can only be used as leverage on the debt ceiling, and it, it remains to be seen if they'll actually push that, or will the debt ceiling even be available to them to be able to push those policy changes.

But that's where I see it, and that's what the market is beginning to price in right now.

And the last thing that I would just say is that if you have a Republican president and a Democratic Senate, there is a chance for some sort of deal-making with a president who's non-ideological.

It's certainly a big driver and the catalyst to be a, a big macro mover on many different fronts.

Where we would get worried is what we were referring to at the beginning, and that is if the Democrats have a bigger than expected win, they say they have a mandate on data centers.

And then when we have to raise the debt ceiling next year, that the Democrats then say, "Okay, listen, we're raising the debt ceiling because of Trump's deficits.

Why does Trump have deficits? Well, he cut taxes for the wealthy and he cut taxes for big tech data centers." And then they basically use that as leverage, very similar to the way the Republicans did in two thousand and eleven to get spending cuts from President Obama, and then want to take away the hundred percent expensing of property, capital equipment, and R&D for data centers.

It cannot legally fund the military.

Most importantly, it cannot raise the statutory debt ceiling.

So if the opposition holds the Senate,

If the opposition party controls the Senate, the rump house as legislative power hits an absolute brick wall.

It is the ultimate boundary condition.

The forty one point one trillion dollar wall.

The statutory debt ceiling.

Yes.