Special Briefing: The Debt Ceiling Deal and its Impact on the US Economy, States, and Municipalities

The panel of experts discusses the fallout for the US economy, states, and municipalities from the recent deal to raise the federal debt ceiling. 

Our panel of experts includes Matt Fabian, partner, Municipal Market Analytics; Marcia Howard, executive director, Federal Funds Information for States; Annie Linskey, white house reporter, the Wall Street Journal; Vikram Rai, managing director and head of the municipal strategy group, Citigroup; and Torsten Slok, chief economist, Apollo Global Management. 

Notable Quotes: “The problem that this debt crisis identified is that talking about cutting spending has revealed a field of landmines, even for Republicans who got to office to cut spending, and find themselves now unable to… If we can’t cut spending, we have to raise taxes to make up for that spending” - Matt Fabian 

“The way to avoid [future debt ceiling crises] is to have Congress change the law they created in the first place, that requires this debt ceiling dance every few years...” - Annie Linskey 

“This drama is going to play out again in 2025… Once the US debt defaults, it will set a very unhealthy precedent.” - Vikram Rai 

“From the financial market perspective, [the debt ceiling debate] is something that is self-inflicted, and something that obviously is creating a lot of volatility…” - Torsten Slok

 “While we believed that the original legislation paved the way for a very smooth process with incentives to get things done, now we’ve come to believe that recent developments have unraveled that agreement, and that the months ahead are going to be very perilous, complicated, and politically fraught.” - Marcia Howard

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Connect with us @VolckerAlliance and @PennIUR on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn Special Briefing is published by the Volcker Alliance, as part of its Public Finance initiatives, and Penn IUR. The views expressed on this podcast are those of the panelists and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Volcker Alliance or Penn IUR.