Commentary

Debt Ceiling with GSEs on the Red Carpet

In a piece over at Reason.com, Mercatus’s Satya Thallam and I dip into the debt ceiling debate that remains stalled as the GOP and administration dig in:

If Washington policies were Hollywood celebrities, the cover of Us Weekly would perennially feature the debt ceiling. And like every Tinseltown starlet, we’d all want to know: “Who is she pairing up with?”

Today’s cover story would spotlight the continued failure of self-appointed matchmaker Vice President Joe Biden to find the debt ceiling a date to a congressional budget gala. Another story would discuss House Speaker John Boehner’s desire to couple the debt ceiling with spending cuts of equally stunning looks and charm. The story on President Barack Obama would note that he prefers the debt ceiling to walk the congressional red carpet alone, while the Tea Party would be quoted as saying the debt celing should “just stay home.” And according to certain Senate Republicans, if they were given the chance to play cupid, they’d marry a debt ceiling increase to a balanced budget Constitutional amendment.

The debt ceiling itself is paralyzed with indecision. Yet there is another option the gossip pages haven’t mentioned: a sunset date for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Read about the details on how trading an increase the debt ceiling for ending the GSEs in the full column.

For more, also see my blog post from back in April outlining details for how this might work.