The politics of this economy can be really, really hard.

From American public media, this is MarketThats.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Rizdole.

It is Thursday today, the 20th of April, it is always to have you along.

We have largely stayed away on this program from the details of the debt limit plan

that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy rolled out the other day.

And by largely, I mean entirely because A are political journalist colleagues who are

doing a fine job on the details.

And B, we are still a very, very long way from anything actually happening.

But in brief, McCarthy is trying to get his Republican colleagues to limit discretionary

spending, roll back some tax credits, end student loan forgiveness, repeal some new IRS

funding and a whole bunch of other stuff.

President Biden and Democrats want what is called a clean debt limit increase and they

want to talk budget stuff at budget time.

But here's the thing, the political back and forth is obscuring the economic reality here

because to meaningfully address this country's debt would take some really big and some really

politically painful changes.

And if the Republican police is Kimberley Adams starts us off.

There's a whole school of thought that argues having a lot of national debt isn't actually

that big of a problem.

But it's fair to say much of Congress is not in that camp.

Thus here we are again fighting over the debt limit.

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