This Debt Crisis Is Not Like 2011’s. It’s Worse.
On its surface, the unfolding debt-ceiling crisis looks a lot like the confrontation in 2011 between congressional Republicans and then-President Barack Obama. Once again, a new GOP majority in the House is using the threat of a national default as leverage to force a first-term Democratic president to agree to spending cuts in exchange for lifting the federal borrowing limit. A first-ever default could crash the markets and trigger a recession. But, as in 2011, the two parties remain far apart, with a deadline to act approaching rapidly.
Eric Cantor knows the feeling well. Twelve years ago, he was the House majority leader deputized by then-Speaker John Boehner to negotiate an agreement with Joe Biden, who was Obama’s vice president at the that presaged the GOP’s anti-establishment, anti-immigration lurch toward Donald Trump two years later. He’s now a senior executive at a Wall Street investment bank.
