House Republicans are kvetching again on the budget ceiling, which hit its $31.4-trillion limit last Thursday. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen manipulated some of the government’s check-writing in order to stave off default until June, but if the hardliner Republicans don’t get the budget cuts they want in exchange for raising the ceiling – negotiations into which the White House is unwilling to enter – they could let the government default on expenditures already made and potentially tank the global economy. 

In a Sunday front-page story explaining the history of the federal government’s debt ceiling, The New York Times gathered all the available numbers and repeated the oft-mentioned fact that Republicans did not hesitate to raise the ceiling three times during the Trump administration. It concludes with a rough estimate -- noting “It is difficult to fully assign responsibility to individual presidents or parties for total levels of debt,” – that the national debt grew by $12.7 trillion when Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump were in office, and by $13 trillion under Presidents Barrack Obama and Joe Biden. 

Let us know what you think in the Comment section below or in the right column, or email editors@thehustings.news.