Brooks: Dems Won’t Accept GOP Additions to Debt Ceiling Like Balanced Budget Requirement

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that the Republicans in the House will want to attach certain provisions, like a balanced budget amendment as an example, to any plan to increase the country’s debt ceiling over the summer, and “the Democrats will not accept” provisions like that and so he doesn’t see how there will be a debt ceiling increase over the summer in the current political landscape. And that failure to raise the debt ceiling “would be catastrophic.”

Brooks stated, “[T]he thing — and I think Jonathan mentioned this last week — that absolutely has to happen is, we have to raise the debt ceiling sometime around July. And if we do that, the full faith and credit of the — if we don’t do it, the full faith and credit of the United States is destroyed. So, they’re going to want to attach all sorts of riders to that that the Democrats will not accept, a balanced budget amendment, things like that. And that means it’s highly unlikely. I don’t see how they get a debt ceiling raised in the summer with this political landscape. And that would be catastrophic.”

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