Slow Boring

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The once and future politics of the national debt
www.slowboring.com

The once and future politics of the national debt

Renewing the discussion on fiscal priorities is key to rebalancing our politics

Matthew Yglesias
Aug 9, 2021
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The once and future politics of the national debt
www.slowboring.com
(November 6, 2019 in Washington, DC. Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for PGPF)

I was at a dinner event a few weeks ago with an ideologically diverse group of people and we were talking about the usual stuff — Covid, Trump, political correctness on campus, the rise of China — when suddenly a center-right woman mentioned kind of casually that we’re going broke. Nobody really engaged with her on that point either to agree or disagree or to suggest a solution; it’s just less engrossing than this other stuff.

And to be clear, when it came to my turn to talk I didn’t address the debt question either.

But in response to my post on means-testing, a well-regarded conservative policy wonk whose spot I won’t blow up wrote me to say we need more aggressive means-testing of things like Social Security and Medicare because “we’re going broke.” I mention this because when Mitch McConnell says Republicans won’t vote to raise the statutory debt ceiling he’s obviously not entirely on the level. Bu…

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