I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Tuesday, October 5th.

Between now and October 18th, the politics in Washington will probably be loud enough to raise the roof. The question is,

will it raise the debt ceiling? We're starting today with an explainer about something that could

potentially crash the economy that few people understand. NPR White House correspondent, Aisha Roscoe

asked President Biden about it yesterday.

So it's possible that the U.S. will not pay its debt.

That is, doesn't... I can't believe that that will be the end result

because the consequence is so dire.

I don't believe that.

But can I guarantee it?

If I could, I would, but I can't.

The president couldn't guarantee that the death ceiling would be raised by the October 18th deadline,

but as you heard there, he did assert the consequences of not doing so would be dire.

So what's this all about?

With me now to answer my questions and yours about the debt ceiling,

and by the way, to argue that it should be abolished, is Teresa Gilarducci, a senior contributor

to Forbes magazine on the topic of retirement security and jobs. She's an economics professor

at the new school and previously taught economics for 25 years at Notre Dame.

She has written several books on retirement economics, including rescuing retirement, a plan to

guarantee retirement security for all Americans. Her article on Forbes is called Debt Limit

is silly and dangerous. Professor Giladucci, thanks for coming on for this and

welcome back to WNYC. Yeah, thank you. I'm very happy to talk about the debt limit. It is silly and

...