Medicaid work requirements are cruel and pointless

One of the worst ways to cut spending

I was hoping to write a comprehensive analysis of House Republicans’ debt ceiling demands this week, but the caucus is such a clown show that I found myself running up against deadline with Kevin McCarthy still not having actually articulated those demands.

Note that the formal expiration of the statutory debt ceiling happened months ago, and we’re deep into the phase of “extraordinary measures.” Republicans decided to provoke this crisis before deciding what they are even fighting about. Then on Monday, McCarthy went to the New York Stock Exchange to give a speech in which he essentially begged Wall Street to stage a stock market crash to try to pressure the White House to come to the bargaining table. The White House line has continually been that there should be a clean debt ceiling increase, just as Trump got three times. But even if you don’t buy that, the fact is that McCarthy’s been demanding negotiations without a proposal because he’s struggling to come up with anything that …