America’s debt-ceiling deal means it should now avoid Armageddon

Even in a sharply divided Washington, DC, politics-as-usual sometimes works. America has a history of debt-ceiling drama, staring into the abyss of a government default before reaching a deal at the last minute.

This time, too, the familiar pattern has repeated itself. Intense negotiations went down to the wire. But President Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, resolved the final points of an agreement in a phone call on the evening of May 27th.