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In this episode, we explore the manufactured debt-ceiling crisis of June 2023. Sold to the US public as a financial emergency that required immediate action in order to avoid impending doom and “the scourge of default,” we look at what the debt-ceiling negotiations actually resulted in: a giant cash giveaway to big business, the war industry, fossil fuel companies and the ruling class. While feigning the need to cut federal spending across the board, military spending and funding for fossil fuel projects actually increased, while the US government slashed the budgets of the minuscule federal food stamp program and ended student debt relief. In addition, the bipartisan debt-ceiling deal included the legislative fast-tracking some of the most protested and lethal pipelines to people and the planet.
As the corporate duopoly marches in lockstep in their war on the working class, the poor, and the planet, there was almost no corporate media analysis of this phony crisis and the giant financial gift to the one-percent that resulted from these debt-ceiling negotiations, which is why we provide you with a deeper analysis here.
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Show notes:
- Ben Norton: Debt ceiling hypocrisy: US boosts military budget while restricting food stamps for poor
- CNN: Hear why Cornel West is running as a third-party candidate
- Insider News: The debt ceiling deal could lead to 750,000 older Americans losing SNAP benefits
- Appalachian Voices: Mountain Valley Pipeline
- Democracy Now: David Sirota: Working Class Will Be “Deeply Harmed” by Biden’s “Big Win” on Debt Ceiling
- DemocracyNow: “Turning His Back on Student Debtors”: Biden’s Debt Deal Ends Freeze on Loan Payments for Millions
- The Guardian: Protesters to march on White House as anger mounts over Appalachia pipeline
- Oil Change International: The Mountain Valley Pipeline: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Briefing
- Center for Biological Diversity: Biden Sacrifices Climate, Working Families in Debt Ceiling Deal