go wild life plays here in vietnam, we visit a rescue center for some of the world's most threatened animals and joined the call for an end to the global wildlife sharing. arrived on al jazeera, the u. s. is always of interest to people over the world. people pay attention to what we saw here, and i'll just, he was very good at bringing the news to the world from here. ah, only parker in london, the top stories managers, era, sedans, army, empire, military rapids support forces continue to fight for 14th day of despite agreeing to extend a ceasefire by 72 hours heavy gun fire strike. some type blast have been reported in car to men, nearby areas or turkish military plane. jew to fly, people out of call to him was shot at. no one was injured. if morgan has the latest from seed, there has been intense artillery strikes and asked strikes launch by both sides,

the rapid support forces and the air strikes by the sudanese army against various r s f positions in the northern parts of the capitol in the city of car 40 and in the city of i'm to the man that's the twin city of the capitol, autumn and around the vicinity of the presidential palace and the general command of the army. the scenes of the most intense and heavy fighting between the 2 sites . there were heavy artillery strikes around 5 p m local time, which is around 15, g m t. so fighting is still ongoing in many parts of the capitol hudson. despite the latest these fire, brazil's president has announced the formal recognition of 6 indigenous reservations, totally more than 2000 square kilometers. lewis and nasa alluded to silver has been attending an annual camp of indigenous groups in the capital brazilian. he had promised to reverse the policies of his far right predecessor john bull sanara, who had favoured mine in agricultural operations on ancestral indigenous lands. least 23 people including 4 children have been killed in missile strikes across

ukraine. a residential building was partially reduced to rubble in the central city of oman, key if was also hit the 1st attack by russia on the capital. in nearly 2 months. ukraine says its air force intercepted 11 cruise missiles and 2 unmanned aerial vehicles over keith. but frances is made a fresh appeal for an end. the war in ukraine calling for creative efforts for peace. the head of the roman catholic church is county on a 3 day visit to hungry ways, met the president and prime minister in the capital budapest. in a speech, frances warned of the dangers of rising nationalism in europe and said, accepting migrants is a true sign of christianity he, clarissa, as his story shah. at the present time, there are many dangers indeed on which i asked myself, thinking not least of water in ukraine. where are the creative efforts for peace, no monterey, including the m on to develop a cynical up in the world in which we live,

the passionate quest of the politics of community and the strengthening of multilateral relations. it seems a wistful memory that this team we seem to be witnessing the, sorry, sunset of that coral dream of peace. he showed us the soloists of waldron now take over his cds. after days of being stranded of the peru, chilly border, hundreds of migrants have been given hope for the officials, letting people cross the border into peru to continue the journey to their home. countries. on wednesday perused government decay the state of emergency along all its borders to restrict entry marianna sanchez house more from the peru chilly border. we are at the exact point of a division between both countries. she got it, and it was a, basically a surprise because people are there waiting for some answers to their situation. so immigration officials came here and they started lining up people and started registering people. most of the people we've seen that were here today,

where mostly women with small children are some 100100 people that we saw yesterday. they had crossed, integrated, we legally, but they have been given the opportunity to be registered and to go and to going to be legally the juniors in coast guard as retrieve the bodies of another 43 people who died trying to cross the mediterranean to southern italy, the national guards, as a total of 210 bodies, have now been recovered in the past 10 days alone. the latest to be found were heavily decomposed, suggesting their boat sank several days ago. they were now concerned students, genius in morgues are running out of space. okay, you are up to date. those are the headlines here now to 0 as always please visit our website. i'll just a dot com has all the latest on the crisis in sudan. the bottom line is coming up next looking u. s. government boring. stay with us now to 0. ah

. hi, and steve clements and i have a question. what happens if the u. s. government can't pay its debts. let's get to the bottom line. the. have you ever been in a situation where you've maxed out your credit cards and desperately need more money, but you've got nowhere to turn? well, i hope not, but that's exactly where the u. s. government may be right now, america has hit the ceiling, legally mandated by congress on how much it can borrow. the limit was set last year at $31.00 trillion dollars, but the government already birth through that by january. now the 2 parties are gearing for a showdown to negotiate a new temporary limit by june. the republicans will control the house or using the opportunity to demand major cuts in rollbacks. the president jo biden's agenda,

especially those related clean energy and food assistance for american. the white house says no way, just give us a new limit and then we'll talk fun. so who wins in this game of political brinkman ship? and is there really any limit to the runaway spending of the u. s. government? today we're talking with bobby cogan, who worked in the biden white house as an advisor to the director of office of management and budget. he's now the senior director of federal budget policy at the center for american progress. and gordon gray, who served as a staff member for the senate budget committee and is currently the director of fiscal policy at the american action forum. let me just start out. see, i figured it was use a democrat, one of your public. we're not going to tell the audience which yet, but, but let me just start for a 2nd with you, bobby, and ask, why is this such a big deal this debate about debt limit? can't the united states government just print more money, print it's way out of this problem and deal with this. what it, what are the really the dynamics of this debate that many people are fearful could lead to the 1st serious default by the u. s. government?

sure, and as you thank you so much for having me on. so we are one of only 2 countries in the world with a fixed dollar debt. when a handful countries in the world also, you know, have debt limits of another kind, you know, set as a percent of the economy. but we're one of the only 2 in this way. and ultimately, what it is, is we hearkening back in targeting back hundreds of years, we used to have the issue each we a congress. these have to approve each issuance of debt in a law. and we change that to set a dollar limit. now every, every so often depending on kind of how much we raised it and when what our new deficits are, we have to keep increasing. and again, again, last we will default and this is really a question of whether it is we want to actually the partner that which i think was great here would be catastrophic if we didn't pair. you agree, it would be catastrophic. can you work center for me? i can progress a lot of democrats work, senator american progress. do they take seriously debt and default?

ah, so i think there's, i think there's a robust debate about the net effects of debt on, on the economy. most people will say that all is being equal, more debt, as a percent of the economy, might kind of have some, some sapping growth course. and they can get to this waiter. all else is never equal. you have to figure out what it is you do to lower the data, whether the net of whether the effects of going the debt or worse or better than the effects of what you did to lower it. but i think most people agree that all else being equal, you'd want lower data percent g, d p especially during good times and higher during bad times, deliberately to kind of boost aggregate demand. the threat of default is of course, really, really, really major. might have had a technical glitch here or there before, but we've never deliberately default the default and our dad because why would we, why would we deliberately say, i know we promised we pay this money, but we won't. that would be catastrophic. no one would trust the us government's word, it would, it would send interest rate,

skyrocketing obviously would cripple the economy and take and destroy many jobs. and then in addition to that, we wouldn't make our payments and that would hurt all the people who rely on those payments. whether they're government contractors or social security recipients, or disabled veterans, or the people who's, who we helped put food on their table or, you know, you name the government, there's a lot of things, equipment. we had a debt level, mandated debt level in 2002 of $6.00 trillion dollars today when it's $31.00 trillion dollars. how did that little number become so big? well, a couple things. there will, 1st of all, one of the, one of the challenges in using nominal numbers is that we allow, you know, decades of inflation just kind of send those up anyway. but unfortunately, over the last 20 years we've had global wars. a, you know, once in a 100 year pandemic, we've had a great recession. we've had somewhat calamitous events confront this country.

and we are privileged to live in a country that has the wherewithal to respond robustly. and it's actually interesting, as we think about the current debate right now, which is it used to be that congress had to pass a law to issue is basically a single issue of debt, right? so rare, but obviously the federal budget has changed substantially. and now the debt limit acts as a limit used to basically be an allowance so that they didn't have to pass individual laws. but we've gotten some, what's addicted to deficit spending and, and the growth of indebtedness that, that dynamic has flipped entirely. why isn't there more discussion about a defense budget this that's approaching a trillion dollars? that seems to be sake, sacrosanct for some reason, even in both parties. whereas you've got a debate on what kinds of cuts you have to put in place to either protect social

security and medicare. or you have some republicans who actually want to cut a social security and medicare in order to keep those trust funds solvent. so unpack it for us. sure. and so i'm part of the issue behind all of this is that over 70 percent of every non interest dollar we spend goes directly to people that's in the form of stuff like medicare and social security and medicaid and snap . it's also in the form of, you know, kind of direct payments to help people for their groceries or i or dad. yeah. how people for the groceries or, or help with child care. so that's kind of over 70 percent of the rate remaining bit is sort of it's research, it's investment in the future. it's transportation infrastructure and it's the military. and so part of the issue behind all of this is that the government, the government's doing is quite popular. and so figuring out what you would cut 1st of all, it's probably unpopular to do it. and 2nd of all, it might have deleterious effects to do it because most of what we're doing is kind

of directly helping people in the moment or investing in the future as for what the, you know, what it is that why it is that the military budget is kind of largely untouched and the rest of it is kind of always in the chopping block. that's in issue of politics . the military spending as a percent of g d. p has declined significantly on the 20th century. but of course, that there are 2 big reasons. so again, it's a big dollar amounts of good dollars, but it's, it's been declining there kind of 2 reasons there. one, you know, we used to be engaged in massive wars all the time. and now while we obviously are always engaged overseas, right, on the full, you know, the full kind of breadth of the way we are is significantly down. and the 2nd one is that the u. s. is significantly bigger than every other country. so the us spends on 3 percent of its g d p. i think it's a little bit more, but it spends threeish percent of its g d p and the military. that is a lot more than another country. you see the status of the us spends more,

you know, around as much. next 10 countries combined. we're not spending 10 times as much as percent g d p. if that were a big country. and so we now we can do a lot, gordon county, we're the state of play is right now. you know how speaker kevin mccarthy has put out a plan. yep. and the plan says let's keep so security and medicare, solvent where they are. but he said to get the debt ceiling increase that we want, we've got to have cuts in other areas that the democrats and president biden has responded very, very strongly against lead. mccarthy. speaker mccarthy. how, what's your take on that? say to play. i think the legislation that the speaker put together is very much an opening bid. essentially the, the white house and congressional democrats pointed their fingers and kevin mccarthy says, you know, put up or shut up. now this week is where the rubber meets the road. and he, it's now on him to find the votes for this proposal. i'm going to stop you there

for kevin mccarthy defined the votes for his own proposal. right. might he not have? he's the speaker of the house. he's got a majority in the house, might not have the votes for his own proposal. it is, it is possible that he doesn't have a vote. his majority is sufficiently slim. and his majority is populated with, with a number of members who are not widely inclined to support anything that a leader puts out. and one element of the debt limit historically, is that there are always members, republicans, and democrats that are in transit on this issue. and they essentially say, i cannot vote for this, or i will not vote for sometimes those are a little different. one is the cannot, is my, my constituency will, will eat me alive, and i will not get re elect. does anybody remember that president joe biden did not vote for debt limit increase in 2002, when george w bush was president nor did. and how do they explain that the form of the last democratic president, president obama, also voted against the debt limit under george

w bush. and the rationale was rhetorically, very similar to what intransitive on the other side. so all this is about, you know, the full faith and credit of the united states, you know, facing potential collapse. they risk that before. so does it undermine their credibility to de bobby when talking to republicans and saying don't put the u. s. government at risk? yeah, i think you can absolutely call hypocrisy and individual members. you see that all throughout, at the end of the day, politicians are politicians and they want to make the point they want to make. i think my frame would be in terms, in terms of the bipartisanship of what you know, queen increases to bit that limit. we had 7 clean ones under, under president bush and those were all large. they were all very bipartisan. it's true. you have plenty of democratic members who did not vote for them and you had some republicans, you didn't, but those are very bipartisan increases. and there were 3 under present trump, and those were also very bipartisan increases. kevin mccarthy voted for all 3 of

them. when we got to the democratic presidents, all of a sudden they were a lot less bipartisan, i think that's, that's kind of the point that i would make. it's true. you can find individual members, you can call the poxy, right? not wrong to do it but, but the, but there's a big difference here that when it comes to be a democratic president, you get to see stuff where they say, i mean, democrat, didn't say for instance, under president trump, we will only consider our opening bid is for you to, i don't know, do medicare for all and raise the minimum weight. you know, they didn't say this is our opening bed. they, you know, they did by parts and increase in the entry, had individual members who might a push. but i think there's this kind of a kind difference going on here. it doesn't take well, you know, when incisive political scientist to look at governance in the united states is being divisive in fraud. and when you, sir, roll that into a scenario where if congress cannot pass an increase in the debt limit, well,

now you have a reason to fundamentally doubt that proposition that the treasury is a riskless security. it forms the basis the bedrock, the benchmark for global financial markets. banks are capitalized in it. they underpin bobby what happens to regular citizens out there? what happens, i mean like what, what, what are that? you know, here this is going to be a to nami, of chaos. what is that? what's, what's happening to regular people? so just to, to, to the extent that the treasuries are the, the bedrock of the financials and every financial traction. transaction that a, a private citizen engaged in becomes costlier. and so that is your mortgage, your auto loan. so everything with an interest rate, everything that interaction the financial markets and people will understand just how interrelated. all these are because everything in their life will become more expensive. on top of that, you will have disruptions to the federal government. and so that, that can involve, they will have to basically husband the cash that they have, that they should be using the pay other bills and that can have consequences. now

for the broader macro economy that can have consequences for employment. and so all of these are layered on top of an economic outlook where, you know, nobody is out there saying, oh, we're heading for boom times people are talking about the risk of recession. so we're adding this on top of i think, existing anxiety about about the economy for every american and probably a lot of people are the soc is terrible. and i just think go on top of it. so gordon did a great job of weighing out like all the ways in which a financial factor starts to collapse re default. and in addition to that, the government is forced to immensely pull back on it spending. right, so you're no longer allowed to run a net deficit. and if deficits i don't actually have off the top my head what the projected deficit this year is. but if it were to be a trillion dollars, then that would be a trillion dollars of west spending into the economy. and as i said, the hyper majority of what we do goes directly to individuals. that means there's

70 percent less of that. that's going directly to individuals. and so that means everyone's paycheck. i burns. wallet is small, is lower. you can afford last food to put in the table. you can afford last out here. all the things that we do to make everything be that's not happen, your social security numbers are down. there's a book coming out in june that i looked at called the paradox of debt by richard. vague and vague makes the point that as debt has increased in the united states, government debt, household savings has gone up, but he's is what's very, very disconcerting. is the inequality gap that those folks with assets tend to gather much more assets. and as that debt rises, the federal government debt, the private gains of the most wealthy and society are there. so i just mention that that's i because joe biden has come out and said, part of this is we need to pump up the i r s. and we need to tax the rich more and deal with these social contract stresses. is there any resonance for that within

regard of talking about the debt ceiling politics and this is, is there, is there any room for that to run? yeah i, it's actually a great point. i looked at this in 2019 and i was working with the senate budget committee and the net assets of the night of the nation are significantly up even netting out the debt that the government holds. right. so the assets netted the government, the governments that are going up and up and up and up and up. i think they're up 213637 1000000 as a bill. why would it argue that like increasing debt a good thing? well, so whether or not it's a good thing, what's very clear is that the line that you hear that we are leaving the next generation worse and worse off that's, that's just not true. people are getting richer and richer and richer, and a real per capita basis. the issue, as you said, is that where that, where the accumulation of wealth is, is really bad. you have some people who are doing streamline, well, and you have a lot of people who are falling behind and that's, you know,

that's where we really ought to be focus. and i guess that would be my, my report to the idea that we can't possibly forgeries are debt with that because, you know, we're over leverage, we're not going. so i, i would not be someone who would argue that we can't afford to raise a debt limit. rather i would, i would argue that we have to raise a debt limit. and when we are going to consider doing so, we should also consider the budgetary context in which we're doing. now. the proposal that this speaker mccarthy put forward. i don't think anyone's under any illusion that that piece of legislation is going to be signed into law. i don't think that the send, it's going to pass it. i don't think that the president states right now is breaking out his pen decided in law either. and so, to the extent that the a negotiation ensues and we increased the debt limit and there's a negotiated a budgetary component to that, it's going to be fairly small ball. you know,

we're going to run 20 trillion dollars and deficits over the next 10 years. we're going to spend $80000000000.00 and the high, you know, the legislation, 100000000 trillion years me. 1000000000 here. a 1000000000 there. but the legislation and kevin mccarthy put forward may reduce spending by 4 and a half trillion over the next 10. let me ask you question, why do they go after climate change? food stamps, then say military spending is great. it's really not just about fiscal conservatism . if you are saying, okay, so i'm just nervous in, in the, in that, you know, the targets they're going in this to. and the reason we're basically they have each republicans and democrats, particularly over the last 6 years, have all agreed that the most significant parts of the federal budget. so that in the major entitlement programs and the tax code are off limits. and once you walled

off all but 10 to 20 percent of the federal budget, then no matter what, when you are only negotiating on a small sliver of the federal budget, you're not touching any element of the real budgetary risk that we're facing. so i actually think in this debate that we're seeing here is that there's a lot of risks that we carry, that we already talked about about not increasing the debt limit. and i think the upside budget terribly is fairly small. and so i do think it is a worthwhile to have this conversation recognize where in this current environment is there some compromise on, on the budget, but also recognize that we're still have a lot of work to go. and this probably is not the debate we're going to tackle the budget problem isn't crazy to have this debate at all. i mean, when you kind of look at the fact that they're only going to if, if they succeed in the go with kevin mccarthy or joe biden plan, we're talking about a one and a half $1000000.00 increase to this 31.4. so that would get us up in about

a one and a half trillion more leeway in the government debt that can be carried. what does it by him, is this just just a sure another nightmarish, you know? yeah, why the atoria contest in this right before the election? yeah, i mean one quick response and i want to get to something else. you actually, he's 1.5 showing or march 2024, right? right. whichever comes 1st. so that is showing that even if, even if it got him longer than we still want to set it up to have a fight right before the but you know, getting to your 1st point. sure. you know what about this in the 1st place? what i would say is, i think that, that, that limit should be completely separate from whether we default it's just a separate question from what our fiscal pass should be. i mentioned in the beginning that most countries don't do it the way that we do. and that's because they know that if you want to change your deficits and if you want to change that,

it change you're spending in taxwise, right? you don't say while we should think about this or else for default, right? like that's not, that's not an ok position. so congress can and should debate it's fiscal path, but be shouldn't do it with the pretext of if this doesn't work out right, then we might default in our obligations, right? that's not an appropriate way to do it. and i would just say we also do have a debate about fiscal policy every single year. right? speaking mccarthy focused mote. the hyper majority of what he was like, black me, you know, kind of where it's not mine, but it, but it raises yes. you also the deal that kevin mccarthy did to be in government where you actually have statements of some of the g o. p members that supported kevin that were hold out and that came on board. they've been out thing we want to rec, the federal government budget process. we want to wreck, we want to see government fail and that, so i just want to have people know that while that may not be the bulk abuse, it's certainly become part of the equation. you disagree? i think i would,

i would just want to at least note that at the end of the day to increase the debt limit, you need to have a bill at the house in the senate and the president has to sign it right now. there simply aren't the votes for a clean debt limit. there aren't devotes for it in the senate and earn the vote for it in the house right now. i understand why that would be frustrating and inconvenient but individual elected legislators have to be the ones who take this vote. and right now a clean debt limit does not have enough votes to pass the house in the senate. and so real quick, are your guy answer your prediction? are they going to pass this your view? i think they will increase the debt limit. i think they will increase that. i don't think they're going to pass the speakers legislation. so you're an optimist. that a deal will get done a lot. but bobby, are you an optimist or pessimist, i'm bad at these predictions. i think i think the risk of default is the highest has been in, in, in, in us history. i agree with that. i. internally,

i was around 5050, which is the coward's a coward number. right. and economist. yeah. 33. sure. didn't really. yeah. you know whether you're at 2550. as gordon said, if you take people their face at what they've said, they're statements a place value that there aren't the votes. we might find that when we're really close to, we could have like a target situation where we're right there. and then we, we find that there are the votes, but oh, i would say the only reason that there might not be the votes is that some people have decided that that is inappropriate. now that biden's president, when it was appropriate before again, there was huge bipartisan support. publican just spent a big chunk of that day and to go to this, got it. i put out a report a month ago that said the level, it's not about the level of that. it's about the trajectory of that. but it's just that if you, if you hadn't done the bush tax cuts there, bipartisan extensions and the from tax cuts,

then debt will be declining forever as a percentage g d p. back to any conversation, i wish we had more time, which i rarely say and talk about debt and debt limits. bobby coke, senior director of federal budget policy of the center for american progress and gordon, gray, director of fiscal policy at the american action forum. thank you so much for great conversation. thank you. actually here. so what's the bottom line here is the paradox growing. the national debt can actually help grow the economy and it can increase the private sector as well. even as the government's debt burden gets heavier. but too much debt can drive up inflation, it can make the dollar lose value, and it can undermine confidence in the future. no one has a magic wand and knows how to balance america's budget. no matter what the country's leaders say. so yes, america will keep printing money. as for the politicians, though, the debate on the debt ceiling is going to go to the brink. i think we're probably going to be ok. still, there's always a chance that someone may misstep, misjudge,

or misfire. and then things can go downhill and really, really fast. and that's the bottom line ah, on counting because europe is turning to africa, gas, some green hydrogen from the continent meet the demand. the us, china and russia, racing for economic influence on the continent. plus the scramble for africa spread of elements is heating up. counting, the cost on al jazeera may on out his era a year after a jazeera journalist, sharina block, there was murder despite international outrage and multiple investigations implicating israeli forces. we ask why justice has not been served. folk lines examined the ramifications of julian associates publications of us states he quit and what the case against him could mean for press freedom after leading to key for 2 decades. reggie are you into that is facing perhaps is toughest election yet as

a read coalition of opposition park is focused on seats in nigeria is to hold its 1st census in 17 years, an exercise likely to view ethnic tensions in africa's most populous nation. the united kingdom celebrates the coordination of charles the 3rd as his crown at westminster abbey made on al jazeera. ah i'm the parker in london with a top stories on al jazeera sedans, army and power military rapid support forces continued to fight for a 14th day. despite agreeing to extend the cease fire by 72 hours, heavy gunfire as strikes and tank glass have been reported in costume and nearby areas a turkish military play and you to fly people out of how to was shot at. no one was injured. fighting between the army and the r s. f has continued, and dar for are you and human rights spokeswoman says at least 96 people have been

killed since monday. hey, but morgan has the latest from sudan. there's been intense artillery strikes and asked.