America’s debt ceiling is a disaster, though fiscal rules can help

IT IS ONCE again time for that most bizarre of economic spectacles, a debt-ceiling showdown in America. In the name of fiscal responsibility, the world’s biggest economy is flirting with an act of brazen irresponsibility: a sovereign default. The government has just about exhausted its current statutory debt limit of $28.5trn, after which it will struggle to honour its obligations. Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, has warned that the government will probably run out of cash sometime next month.Most economists and executives assume that America will come to its senses before then. After all, Congress simply has to raise or suspend the debt limit, which it has done nearly 80 times since 1960, even if occasionally leaving it to the last minute. Should that occur again—and it almost certainly will—the debt ceiling will fade from view until the next clash, serving mainly as evidence of America’s polarised politics (as if any were needed).