!['No one would be spared': Debt default would set off dire consequences](https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210922070936-janet-yellen-treasury-secretary-capitol-hill-washington-062321-file-restricted-super-tease.jpg)
'No one would be spared': Debt default would set off dire consequences
CNN
The fight over raising the nation's borrowing limit underscores a reality for Democrats as they are in the midst of their highest stakes moment for President Joe Biden's sweeping legislative agenda: thrusting a potential default into the mix may have devastating consequences.
A mild recession, according to analysts, would likely be the best-case scenario in the event of the US government defaulting on its debts, a limit the country is expected to reach next month and for which Congress must act to increase. The worst case scenario would involve downstream effects of potentially cascading job losses, a shut down in tens of billions in Covid-19 economic recovery aid still set to be delivered, a near-freeze in credit markets and gross domestic product taking a tangible hit that could last for multiple quarters.
"No one would be spared," Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told CNN. "It would be such a self-imposed disaster that we wouldn't recover from, all at a time when our role in the world is already being questioned."
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Amid Democrats’ shock and bickering over how much to respond to President Donald Trump is a deeper question rippling through leaders across the Capitol and across the country: How much should they rely on the same institutional and procedural maneuvers they used during the first Trump term, and how much are they willing to wield their own wrecking balls?
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In less than a month in office the Trump administration has simultaneously dismantled foreign aid programs that support fragile democracies abroad and put on leave federal workers who protect US elections at home in a move that current and former officials say abandons decades of American commitments to democracy.
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Sen. Mitch McConnell was a generational force for the Republican Party — using procedural tactics and political will to stymie much of former President Barack Obama’s agenda, hand President Donald Trump key first-term political victories and deliver a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority. Now he’s the odd man out.
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The Trump administration is forcing out senior leadership at the National Archives and Records Administration in a major shakeup, according to a source familiar. President Donald Trump has been highly critical of the archives since the agency asked the Department of Justice to investigate Trump’s mishandling of classified documents after he left office.
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The morning after the mass resignation of prosecutors sparked a crisis inside the Trump Justice Department, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove led a meeting with the Justice Department’s public integrity section. His message: they had to choose one career lawyer to file a dismissal of the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, according to three people briefed on the meeting.