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Podcast: Fear and loathing in Washington: The debt ceiling

Podcast: Fear and loathing in Washington: The debt ceiling

Here we go again. Congress is facing a June 1 deadline to avoid a totally preventable “debt ceiling” crisis. If no one flinches in this dangerous game of chicken, the U.S. economy will be dragged into a cataclysm, destroying America’s global reputation and unleashing unfathomable pain for every American family.

An artifact from World War I, the debt ceiling comes back every few years to provide existential drama — the battlefield of partisan politics. It all sounds a bit insane, but it’s only the latest crisis to be spawned by our increasingly dysfunctional political system.


On this week’s episode, Fernando is joined by Washington uber-insider Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, to discuss her mounting fear that a “default is possible” and what we can do about it.

Also, Fernando chats with Nellie Gorbea, former Rhode Island Secretary of State, for the latest installment of the X-Ray Vision interview. In this quirky conversation, Nellie shares her dream superpower, transformative leadership vision, and why Puerto Rican rum is superior to scotch.

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Aspirations for the American Experiment Versus the Save Act of 2026
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Aspirations for the American Experiment Versus the Save Act of 2026

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act stands as the direct antithesis of our founders' aspirations for the American Experiment, eroding the core principles of popular sovereignty and individual liberty. Rather than cultivating a government that derives its "just powers from the consent of the governed," this legislative measure inverts that relationship. It transforms a natural right into a government-administered privilege, erecting bureaucratic barriers that conflict with the expansive, participatory democratic republic the Framers sought to construct.

Subverting the Consent of the Governed: the foundational premise of the American Experiment, as articulated by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, is that the legitimacy of a government hinges entirely on the active consent of its citizens. The SAVE Act disrupts this dynamic by fundamentally shifting the burden of proof.

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This nonpartisan policy brief, written by an ACE fellow, is republished by The Fulcrum as part of our partnership with the Alliance for Civic Engagement and our NextGen initiative — elevating student voices, strengthening civic education, and helping readers better understand democracy and public policy.

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