Business Post's View

Editorial: The US needs to pull its socks up on profligate spending

The world’s most reliable debtor urgently needs to cut spending on bloated programmes such as the military, reform the tax system and stop using tax cuts for the rich as the answer to every economic setback

US President Joe Biden: his administration wants to raise the debt ceiling and has been in talks with the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to negotiate this. Picture: Getty

It is said, not least by the Americans, that the US is the world’s most reliable debtor. The country has been a borrower of other people’s money since it was founded, to pay for services, the armed forces, and welfare programmes, and the government has never defaulted.

Today, the national debt stands at $31.4 trillion, and the US has reached its borrowing limit. The Biden administration wants to raise the limit, known as the debt ...