Read This One Now

 Paul Krugman looks ahead with a warning:

Nobody knows for sure what will happen in the midterm elections. But if Republicans take one or both houses of Congress, the most important question will be one that is getting hardly any public attention: What will the Biden administration do when the G.O.P. threatens to blow up the world economy by refusing to raise the debt limit?...
There’s lots of evidence that Republicans will, if they can, try to use the debt limit to extort major cuts in Social Security and Medicare. They probably couldn’t pass such cuts — which would be deeply unpopular — through the normal legislative process, and they certainly wouldn’t have enough votes to override a Biden veto. But the idea would be to force Democrats into complicity...
Why would refusing to raise the debt limit blow up the (global) economy? In the modern world, U.S. debt plays a crucial role: It is the ultimate safe asset, easily converted into cash, and there are no good alternatives. If investors lose confidence that the U.S. government will honor its obligations, the resulting financial storm will make the recent chaos in Britain look like a passing shower.
So what should be done to avert this threat? If Republicans do gain control of one or both houses in November, Democrats should use the lame-duck session to enact a very large rise in the debt limit, enough to put the issue on ice for years. ... There appear to be several loopholes the administration could exploit — minting trillion-dollar platinum coins is the most famous, but there are others, like issuing bonds with no maturity date and hence no face value.  The Obama administration was unwilling to go any of these routes, largely, I think, because it believed that they would look gimmicky and undignified, and it preferred to seek compromise. ...
Of course, none of this will be relevant if Democrats hold Congress. But they should prepare for the worst.
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 * What are the odds that the Dems have gamed out scenarios where they lose Congress, and are thinking ahead to what to do to protect the people from the economy they've created?