Democrats and Republicans remain far apart on raising the U.S. debt ceiling and preventing a catastrophic default on June 1. President Joe Biden met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Monday but the two remain far apart. Republicans want to extract spending cuts from Democrats in exchange for voting to raise the debt ceiling. It’s a battle that has been fought many times in the past.
Meanwhile, unionized government employees are stepping in. The National Association of Government Employees has filed a lawsuit urging Biden to invoke the 14th Amendment and raise the debt ceiling himself. NAGE president David Holway explained that, “This litigation is both an effort to protect our members from illegal furloughs and to correct an unconstitutional statute that frequently creates uncertainty and anxiety for millions of Americans.”
Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the founder, host, and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a weekly television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. Her most recent book is Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights Books, 2023). She is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute and the racial justice and civil liberties editor at Yes! Magazine. She serves as the co-director of the nonprofit solidarity organization the Afghan Women’s Mission and is a co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan. She also sits on the board of directors of Justice Action Center, an immigrant rights organization.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.
Donate
