End the Debt Ceiling

Janet Yellen is completely right about the evils of the debt ceiling issue, much more so than Biden. It should simply be abolished. The entire global economy is at the mercy of the dysfunctional politics of the United States. But at the very least, if Democrats don’t raise the debt ceiling until 2025 before Republicans take control of the House (assuming this happens which is probable but still not guaranteed), they simply don’t understand the politics of our time and how to manage government in said awful times.

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen called on Congress to raise the nation’s statutory debt limit high enough that it would not be reached until after the 2024 election, a move that would neutralize the ability of Republicans to block the United States from paying its bills in order to extract legislative concessions from Democrats.

Republicans are expected to use the nation’s borrowing cap as leverage if they ultimately retake one or both chambers of Congress next year. In previous years, they have demanded deep spending cuts in exchange for voting to increase the debt limit, leading to standoffs that have resulted in government shutdowns, rattling markets and threatening the nation’s credit rating.

Ms. Yellen said she believes that Democrats, who will retain control of the House and the Senate through at least the end of the year, should eliminate it as an issue for the rest of President Biden’s term.

“I would love to see it get done,” Ms. Yellen said in an interview on Saturday with The New York Times aboard her flight to Bali, Indonesia, for the Group of 20 summit. “I always worry about debt ceiling.”

Good Secretary of the Treasury here. Clearly much better at her job than, oh, let’s say the attorney general.