In a Wall Street Journal op-ed centered on ways to “save” Social Security and Medicare, Progressive Policy Institute‘s Director of the Center for Funding America’s Future, Ben Ritz, opened with this bit for his lede:

The Biden administration has sensibly rejected attempts by some far-right Republicans to hold the full faith and credit of the US hostage in exchange for spending cuts. The administration now must show it will be open to good-faith budget negotiations after the impasse over the federal debt limit is resolved.

Leave it to a Left-winger to say, once again, “Trust us.”

No. Debt limits are reached and need lifting because of prior spending excesses.  And continued spending excesses because there follow no “good faith” budget negotiations from the political Left after the impasses. The current debt-ceiling is no exception.

It is the Progressive-Democratic Party politicians, from the White House on into both houses of Congress, who are holding our nation’s credit-worthiness and our economy as a whole hostage against their demand to continue their profligate spending.

The debt ceiling cannot be lifted, sensibly, without being paired with actual spending cuts (not reduced rates of increase) as part of the package so as to obviate future need to raise the limit once again.

If the Progressive-Democrats were serious about our credit-worthiness and our economy, they’d get out of the way of serious negotiations.