Local political analyst talks about infrastructure plan and debt ceiling | Regional News from Berks

According to political analyst Tim Blessing – the Democratic Party – is a divided house.

“You have a regular liberal wing, then you have a pretty progressive far left wing with AOC, then you have a small but sizable number of pretty conservative Democrats,” Blessing said.

Blessing also says the Tory Democrat faction should be careful about the action they take on the infrastructure bill, as it could weigh heavily on their re-election plans in the coming weeks.

“The right wing of the Democratic Party is a bit stuck,” Blessing said. “They can’t follow the progressive wing or they will get killed in the upcoming general election.”

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is sounding the economic wake-up call about the dangers of not raising the debt ceiling to pay the bills.

The debt limit caps the amount of money the government can borrow. By increasing this limit, Congress allows more money to be borrowed to cover the costs of previous spending or taxation decisions. The debt ceiling has been raised or suspended nearly 80 times since 1960, including three times under the Trump administration.

“It is imperative that Congress addresses the debt limit,” Yellen said earlier this week. “Otherwise, our current estimate is that the Treasury will likely exhaust its extraordinary measures by October 18. At this point, we would expect the Treasury to end up with very limited resources that would quickly run out.”

Blessing says these decisions could have global implications for how the US dollar is viewed.

“Many countries around the world place US bonds and similar financial instruments in their treasury because US money is more stable than their (money),” Blessing said. “So if we default on our debts, those bonds are worth a lot less.”

Blessing says the party itself must find common ground among a broad infrastructure plan that could reshape the country for years to come.