A debt-ceiling crisis is on its way. Yes, again.
Mnuchin is a beseecher. A commanding figure is needed on the scene. Where has the Trump administration been all this time? Getting clean debt-ceiling legislation requires a herculean effort, especially out of those congressional Republicans who believe sabotaging the government is good for the country. The greatest threat to raising the ceiling unconditionally is found within Trump’s own party.
.. And it looks even worse when the president’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, has acted as a public cheerleader for tying a debt-limit increase to fiscal reforms favored by hawks in the House Freedom Caucus, where Mulvaney once held forth. That Trump was so cavalier about his treasury secretary getting stabbed in the back by his OMB director only underscores the magnitude of the problem caused by his inattention. Fortunately, after getting the word from the White House that Mnuchin “speaks for the administration” on the debt ceiling, Mulvaney this week saluted, silenced his foghorn and executed an about-face. At least in public.
.. Yet we are once again, as a country, about to be subjected to another “Perils of Pauline” debt-ceiling cliffhanger in which the financial system is placed at the point of death to only, I hope, escape at the end. That is, if this president, who takes apparent maniacal delight in pulling wings off butterflies in the form of
- Attorney General Jeff Sessions,
- former chief of staff Reince Preibus and
- former press secretary Sean Spicer,
awakes to his obligation to protect the full faith and credit of the United States, and gets to work. We live in hope.