Brent Andersen

“Since the debt limit simply accommodates debt that has already been incurred, raising it should, in theory, be perfunctory. But politicians have found it a useful shibboleth for showing their fealty fiscal discipline, even as they vote to ratify the debts their previous actions have a beginning the country to pay. The symbol of railing against debt has proven politically beneficial, even if not substantively meaningful.”
― Thomas E. Mann, It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the Politics of Extremism