On the U.S. Debt Ceiling: Selected Views
As the U.S. Government hit its $31.4 trillion debt limit on January 19, 2023 and the Treasury Department applied “extraordinary measures”, the following are selected views to consider:
Ray Dallio (Founder - Bridgewater Associates, with over $120 billion in assets under management)
“Most people seem comforted that the debt limit won’t trigger a debt default and don’t worry about the debt bingeing continuing. That raises the justifiable questions: Is it a good or bad thing that we are getting around this debt limit? Are high debt levels and high levels of new borrowings that require high levels of government selling of debt assets not risky? I think those are reasonable questions as we have been hearing warnings of a debt Armageddon for decades yet none has occurred.
"The long-term prognosis is for the debt bingeing to go on until a crisis ends this dynamic."
Brookings Institute (a Washington, DC based think-tank)
"The debt limit has been raised continually for more than a century. The first debt limit was established in 1917
The uselessness of a debt limit is exhibited by the fact that only one other advanced country—Denmark—has a separate debt limit rule like ours. And they don’t use it as a political football."
Mark Zandi (Chief Economist - Moody’s Analytics)
“If lawmakers do not reverse course [on the debt limit] and the impasse drags on for even a few weeks, the hit to the economy would be cataclysmic.
“If policymakers actually do fail to increase or suspend the limit before the Treasury runs out of cash and defaults on its obligations, interest rates will spike, and stock prices will crater with enormous costs to taxpayers and the economy.”
Neil Bradley (Executive Vice President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce)
“We need serious solutions to address both our debt and deficit, but at the end of the day, defaulting on the debt and not raising the debt limit actually makes the problem even worse.
“The best path forward is raising the debt limit and enacting proposals to help us begin to address the debt and deficit.
"There are numerous bipartisan proposals … that could be passed as part of a debt limit increase."
OUR TAKE
U.S. congressional leaders will eventually raise the debt ceiling, but the timing is uncertain and significant changes to government spending are unlikely.
Policy makers will negotiate and debate into the summer, and global markets will likely be volatile during this period.
Longer-term concerns continues to be: how much U.S. government debt is too much and could heightened debt levels lead to economic instability?