S oap operas must run indefinitely and therefore never conclude satisfactorily. So it is with the latest episode of a long-running Washington soap opera—its roughly biennial debt-limit drama—which is wending towards a predictably short-lived conclusion. Having threatened the world with a sovereign default and financial disaster in order to achieve their aims, Republicans in Congress have gathered modest concessions from President Joe Biden and agreed that America ought to honour its obligations, after all. The two sides hammered out a deal to raise the government’s debt ceiling, which will let it resume borrowing money—staving off Armageddon for at least the next 18 months. Republican leaders have called the deal, known as the Fiscal Responsibility Act, a historic victory for budgetary prudence. In reality it does nothing to tackle the main sources of America’s fiscal irresponsibility.
S OAP歌剧必须无限期地运行，因此永远不会令人满意地结论。因此，随着长期运行的华盛顿肥皂剧的最新一集（大约是两年一次的债务限制戏剧），这是一个可以预见的短暂结论。国会的共和党人以主权违约和金融灾难威胁到世界，国会的共和党人收集了乔·拜登总统的适度让步，并同意美国应该履行其义务。双方达成了一项协议，以提高政府的债务上限，这将使它恢复借钱，至少在接下来的18个月中宣扬大决战。共和党领导人称这笔交易被称为《财政责任法》，这是预算审慎的历史性胜利。实际上，它无济于事，无法应对美国财政不负责任的主要来源。
