Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

Joining me on today's show is

Brian Reedle. He's a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He works on fiscal and economic

policies. He's been on the show before. Brian has previously worked as the chief economist to

Senator Rob Portman and as the staff director of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on fiscal responsibility and economic growth.

Brian, thanks for joining us.

Glad to be here. Thank you.

Now, Congress, as people know, follow these things, is in the midst of a protracted showdown over the debt ceiling, something that's

happened in the past.

The federal government hit its borrowing cap recently, and the clock is now ticking until

it's not going to be able to pay its bills.

But at the moment, negotiations are at a standstill between Republicans, you know, who see in the debt ceiling an opportunity to reduce federal spending and the Democrats who argue that Congress has a duty to raise the debt limit unconditionally in order to avoid default, which would be disastrous.

So what in your assessment is the current state of play

of these negotiations? Well, right now, there isn't much negotiation going on. Republicans are

trying to decide what they want. And that debate is happening internally.

There are some Republicans who want to be really aggressive on the debt limit.

They want to get Social Security and Medicare reforms or discretionary spending cuts as high as even 15 and 20%. There are other Republicans who are a little more realistic that you only control a slight

majority of one half of Congress.

And ultimately, the debt limit is a hostage.

They can't shoot.

We have to raise the debt limit.

It would be too economically destructive not to.

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