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Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American power, politics and society.

On each episode, I will talk to an American expert or an expert on America

about something that's going on in America in 2023. I am delighted to be joined today by the

wonderful Joe Wisenthal, who works for Bloomberg and is co-host of the Odd Lots podcast, a very brilliant podcast, which I recommend all Americano listeners listen to, after they've listened to Americano, obviously.

And we're going to be talking about the debt ceiling and the debt ceiling crisis. And it's hard for the heart not to sink when you start talking about the US debt ceiling,

because this is a perennial story, isn't it, Joe, that comes along every year and everybody

gets depressed by it and thinks, oh, well, they're obviously just going to expand the debt again.

And yet there's always a political fight.

It always gets pushed.

It seems every year people say, oh, this time

it really could be right up to the brink. And that's exactly what's happening today. I saw

Ramesh Pannuru writing for the Washington Post that the scariest part about this debt ceiling

crisis is that Washington isn't scared. Are you scared about it? You know, I do think that like the savvy take, like ultimately I think the savvy insider

Washington take like, oh, they always raise it in the end, is probably right.

Like they always do it.

They've done it like 86 times in the past.

I guess if like you had to bet on like what is the most likely outcome, you're like, yeah, they're probably going to raise it.

But it is depressing that this is the thing that comes up because it is this like perfect combination of like completely pointless.

It's never played any like real role and like constraining debt.

The law wasn't actually even originally intended to do that, though we could get into that maybe in a bit.

It never does anything. The stakes are high, though, if the ceiling isn't raised, at least it would appear.

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