WTH is Going On with the Debt Limit Fight? Brian Riedl on our Fiscal Future

What the Hell Is Going On

AEI Podcasts

Politics, Government, History, News

4.4 • 633 Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2023

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s a tale as old as time… where will our next trillion come from to feed our hungry coffers? We jest, but only a little: Negotiations on raising the debt limit are ongoing, marking, ahem, dozens of times this has happened under both Democrats and Republicans. Neither party has been able to summon the wherewithal to sacrifice political clout for the good of the long-term economy. Take healthcare spending: Democrats promote top-down, regulatory spending, while Republicans support consumer-based choice and competition. Fine – but costs haven’t been fixed, efficiencies have not been produced, and Medicare has an $80 trillion shortfall over 30 years. Who do we think is going to bail us out? China and Japan hold a measly $2 trillion of our debt and they are selling it; the Fed holds just $5 trillion and they’re trying to downshift. Are we really going to rely on American banks and savers and mutual funds to lend Washington $100 trillion over the next 30 years at low interest rates? It is not even a possible scenario. Our guest predicts that we are on a path that ends in a 15% value-added tax and a payroll tax rising close to 22% – yes, exactly like Europe.

Brian Riedl is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, focusing on budget, tax, and economic policy. Previously, he worked for six years as chief economist to Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) and as staff director of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth. From 2001-2011 Riedl served as the Heritage Foundation’s lead research fellow on federal budget and spending policy. He also served as a director of budget and spending policy for Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign and was the lead architect of the ten-year deficit-reduction plan for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast is brought to you by the American Enterprise Institute.
0:03.0	If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, review, and share. Thanks for listening. Here's our show. What the hell's going on? What the hell is going on? What the hell is going on? I don't know what the hell he's talking about. You don't have to know what the hell is on it. What hell's the matter with these guys? We don't know what's going on. What hell's going on?
0:01.1	Who in God's name knows what hell's going on who in god's name
0:21.7	knows what it's all about i'm i'm daniel pletka and i'm Mark Teeson. Welcome to our podcast.
0:38.5	What the hell is going on?
0:40.7	Mark, what the hell is going on these days in Washington?
0:43.2	We're hurtling off a fiscal cliff, Danny.
0:44.9	Oh, my God!
0:48.0	Like Thelman Louise.
0:49.6	Oh, if only it, we're so interesting.
0:52.7	No, we're actually not going to hurdle off the fiscal cliff.
0:55.3	That's coming later, as our guests will tell us.
0:57.0	We'll tell us.
0:57.6	But we are in the midst of the debt limit negotiations we were promised would never happen.
1:02.7	Joe Biden said that he will not negotiate on the debt limit, no way, no how.
1:07.7	And he dared Republicans, put your plan on the table if you've got a plan. And so he
1:12.1	looked at Kevin McCarthy's tumultuous election with having to take 15 votes to get votes to become
1:17.3	speaker and said, he'll never be able to herd those cats. They'll never pass a bill. And lo and
1:22.0	behold, the Republicans passed a bill that raised the debt limit with some spending cuts in it. And
1:26.4	now it's sitting there. And now the ball's in Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer's court. And despite the fact that they say they wouldn't negotiate, I think there are talks going on. And June is coming up where Janet Yellen has said the deadline is coming up where we're going to run out of money. And what do you think, Danny? Are we going to avert disaster or what's going to happen? Oh, my God. This is so fake, you know. It's like when you're watching a TV series and the star they spent all that money on is in some cliffhanger situation and, you know, might die. Like Batman, right? Will the Cape Crusader make it? Will Robin be thrown to the sharks?
2:02.7	Yes.
2:03.2	Tune in next time.
	...

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