Will the United States Government Ever Again Have a Functioning Budget System?

Abstract

This was an invited keynote article for Economics & Labour Relations Review. The article places the debate over the debt ceiling in the context of anti-deficit orthodoxy, explaining how the American political debate has turned into a parody of itself, with right-wing politicians using an unconstitutional statute to try to extract policy concessions that would be damaging to the U.S. and global economies alike.