Republicans aren’t going to tell Americans the real cause of our $31tn debt | Robert Reich

The rich used to pay taxes. Now they loan money to the US government - at a profit that everyone else pays for

The dire warnings of fiscal hawks are once again darkening the skies of official Washington.

They're demanding that the $31.4tn federal debt be reduced and government spending curtailed - thereby giving cover to Republican efforts to hold America hostage by refusing to raise the debt ceiling.

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