Republicans are threatening to default on the US national debt. Don’t believe them | Robert Reich

Here's a dirty secret: both Republicans' debt hysteria and Biden's proposed tax hikes are pure theater. Neither will happen

President Biden is proposing to trim the federal budget deficit by close to $3tn over the next 10 years. He was an FDR-like spender in the first two years of his presidency. Has he now turned into a Calvin Coolidge skinflint?

Neither. He's a cunning political operator.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com

This article was amended on 9 March 2023 to correct an editor's error in the standfirst. Biden has proposed tax hikes for wealthy Americans, not tax cuts.