Fiscal Policy

Debt Limit Debate

On Topic

After the United State's credit rating was downgraded in 2011 by Standard & Poor's due to the months of debate in Congress over raising the debt limit and a lack of substantive action on the budget deficit, the cost of political brinkmanship seemed clear. While Congress passed a last-minute bill that created the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, the committee's work has not led to real change, and the debt limit will be reached again in May. Brookings experts offer their perspectives and recommendations on the discussion.

U.S. dollar banknotes lie on a table in this picture illustration taken in Warsaw (REUTERS/Kacper Pempel).

Opinion

The Perils of Automatic Budgeting

March 26, 2013, Philip A. Wallach

In the fall of 1978, the United States Congress finally solved the federal government's budget problems. Philip Wallach examines how the automatic budget mechanism holds Washington under its spell as Congress continues to make iterative yet unsuccessful financial commitments.

Recent Activity

Refine by: U.S. Budget Deficit | The Federal Budget and Sequestration | U.S. Economic Performance | U.S. Congress

  • In the News

    Ironically, Obama tried harder and longer than the results merited to work cooperatively with Republicans in Congress. He has learned painfully that his public embrace of a policy virtually ensures Republican opposition and that intensive negotiations with Republican leaders are likely to lead to a dead end. No bourbon and branch-water laced meetings with Republicans in Congress or pre-emptive compromises with them will induce cooperative behavior.

    March 6, 2013, Thomas E. Mann, U.S. News & World Report

  • In the News

    The public views a downgrade of the U.S. debt rating as just one more sign that the government doesn’t know what it’s doing.

    January 28, 2013, Douglas J. Elliott, Reuters

  • In the News

    [America] has moved so very quickly from the broad argument of the campaign to the great difficulty of governing under a deadline.

    November 28, 2012, E.J. Dionne, Jr., New Haven Register

  • In the News

    Forces within the Democratic Party are clearly mobilizing to prevent President Obama from returning to anything resembling the 2011 negotiations. Where [Nancy Pelosi] will come down on that, I don't know.

    November 14, 2012, William A. Galston, The Daily Beast

  • In the News

    They'll defer action [on the budget] for as long as they think they can get away with it... It could be six months. It could be three months.

    October 13, 2012, Thomas E. Mann, The Kansas City Star

  • In the News

    …[T]he idea [for Republicans] was to take the country's full faith and credit hostage in order to achieve immediate cuts and discretionary domestic spending at a time the economy was not yet back into a self-sustaining recovery. It's sort of Econ 101. That is in how you proceed. They didn't get much in the way of spending cuts, but they did manage to decrease the confidence in the economy.

    August 6, 2012, Thomas E. Mann, The Diane Rehm Show

  • Interview | Columbia Journalism Review

    Does Journalistic "Balance" Hurt America?: A Q&A with Thomas Mann

    July 31, 2012, Trudy Lieberman and Thomas E. Mann

  • In the News

    The Republican leadership compromised just enough [on the debt ceiling] to make sure they got a deal done at the last minute, and if you were [willing to make a wager], you would probably say that’s what will happen again the next time around because they don’t want to be responsible for plunging the economy into chaos.

    July 25, 2012, Philip A. Wallach, Voice of America

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