Writing from a naive household economics viewpoint, this budget process looks to me like the process preceding financial collapse of so many hippie communes, ideology displacing common sense.
A more promising workaround has been discussed recently. Issue "premium bonds" with a high coupon rate. They will sell at auction for a multiple of their face value, and can then be used to retire existing debt. It's artificial but much less so than the platinum coin, and arguably less so than the current emergency measures, which were controversial when they were introduced in the 1980s.
Politically, the great merit of these measures is that the Administration controls the timing of the whole process. If a government shutdown becomes necessary, they can time it to cause maximum harm to the Republicans.
Writing from a naive household economics viewpoint, this budget process looks to me like the process preceding financial collapse of so many hippie communes, ideology displacing common sense.
A more promising workaround has been discussed recently. Issue "premium bonds" with a high coupon rate. They will sell at auction for a multiple of their face value, and can then be used to retire existing debt. It's artificial but much less so than the platinum coin, and arguably less so than the current emergency measures, which were controversial when they were introduced in the 1980s.
Politically, the great merit of these measures is that the Administration controls the timing of the whole process. If a government shutdown becomes necessary, they can time it to cause maximum harm to the Republicans.