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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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“A Huge Grab of Power”: Trump Is Defying Congress on Foreign Aid
Photo illustration by Mark Harris for ProPublica. Photos by Getty Images.

“A Huge Grab of Power”: Trump Is Defying Congress on Foreign Aid

After the Trump administration upended the world’s largest foreign aid provider last year, terminating thousands of programs and firing nearly all of its staff, its plan for the agency was clear: Eliminate it entirely.

But because it is a congressionally created agency, President Donald Trump needed lawmakers’ permission to do so. So this year, Trump officials asked Congress for permission to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development and dramatically reduce federal spending on food, medicine and lifesaving work around the world.

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Federal Register Reports being printed out of a large machine.

Congress should strengthen the administrative state by writing clearer laws, limiting delegated authority, and requiring periodic reauthorization of agency powers.

Photo courtesy of Luka Jacobi-Krohn

Putting the Guardrails Back on Delegations of Power

Congress needs to write better laws instead of dismantling the administrative state.

Debates over the administrative state focus on whether these agencies have accrued too much power. Some argue that the solution is to severely weaken or, in extreme scenarios, dismantle these federal agencies. However, the issue is not the existence of these agencies but actually how Congress writes its laws. When statutes are drafted with vague language, agencies are left to interpret the scope, and courts are forced to set the boundaries. This results in constant litigation and generally regulatory instability. If Congress actually wants a more durable and accountable regulatory system, they need to start with themselves by writing clearer laws.

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