Listen to my May 19, 2023 Alternative Visions radio show for what’s really going on with the political theater called debt ceiling negotiations.
TO LISTEN TO GO:
https://alternativevisions.podbean.com/e/alternative-visions-the-debt-ceiling-negotiations-dance/
SHOW ANNOUNCEMENT
What’s behind the debt ceiling negotiations? Is June 1 the real deadline date? Dr. Rasmus describes what’s happened to the national debt since 2000 and the causes for its rise from $4T to $31.4T and why interest on the debt is projected to accelerate rapidly to nearly $1T/yr by end of this decade. How much have the declining share of tax revenue contributed to the annual US budget deficits and thus the national debt? War and Defense spending? Social program spending? Rasmus reviews the various fiscal policies since Covid—3 Covid relief spending plans in 2020-21 followed by 3 business subsidy and investment plans in 2021-22 by Biden. Why the debt ceiling negotiations are really a cover about how much social program spending to cut in the next federal budget beginning October 1, 2023. Once the debt ceiling is raised again, what’s the prospect for further budget deficits and still more increases in the US national debt?
The question posed by this post is whether the contemporary crisis of capitalism can be solved within the ideological straightjacket of neoliberalism; it was the most recent crisis that created the policies called neoliberalism but it is a close question whether or not US Capitalism can be salvaged without progressive policies.