This explains how Republicans agreed to increase the debt ceiling: by cutting aid to the neediest. "The cruelty is the point. More important is what the deal says about the principles of both camps. It freezes discretionary federal spending , most of the programs for which Americans depend on the federal government — at current levels for the next two years, with increases lower than inflation. That means an effective budget cut, relative to inflation. In return, the debt ceiling is suspended for two years.But there’s really only one way to think about the exercise we’ve just gone through. It was a supreme waste of time. Republicans showed they were willing to crash the U.S. economy to make some bog-standard complaints about the federal deficit, most of which they created themselves through the 2017 tax cuts they enacted for the wealthy.
At dianeravitch.net
