says yes, foreign policy matters in the fight against corruption have dominated campaign. the governing party has been in power for more than 60 years. could this be the moment the opposition had been waiting for, followed the paraguay elections this month on how to sierra? ah, i'm ali inside in doha here. top stories on al jazeera as strikes and artillery. shelling has rock sedans. capital is fighting between the army and the rapid support forces enters a 3rd week. the faltering cease fire will expire in one day mediation efforts have not yet yielded any result. hip morgan has more from cartoon the rapid support forces. anderson denise army, exchange heavy artillery and gunfire in the northern city of battery. and they also

a force in the city of under man, that's the twin city of the capital hot whom the fighting in battery is focused around had fire bridge. that's a bridge that connects the city of on demand to the city of battery. and it looks like both sides want to make sure that there are the ones in charge of that bridge to make sure that they would be able to get supplies to their troops out whether it's in body or on demand. there's also fighting around the vicinity of the presidential palace and that's the scene of intense fighting and confrontations between the r s f and the army. the general command of the army is right now under the control of the army themselves, but there is the presidential palace which is under the control of the r s f and which the army is trying to regain control of. united nation says 50000 sudanese, have fled the turmoil at home for neighboring countries. foreign governments are also still pushing to evacuate. their nostrils from sue dawned by air, land, and sea survivors of a massacre. vir keena foul so have blamed the country security forces. they say

gunman killed at least a $145.00 people, including women and children in the northern village of karma and surrounding areas . last week. protests had been held in israel against prime minister benjamin netanyahu is planned judicial changes for 17 consecutive week. netanyahu put his plans on hold a month ago, but no agreements have been reached. authorities in russian annex crimea, blaming a ukrainian drones strike for fire to fuel deeper storage tank in the poor city of sebastopol explode and causing a fire that spread across a 1000 square meters. the place has since been extinguished, no casualties were ported. well, that attack comes a day, aren't at least 25 people were killed and strikes across ukraine. russia said it was targeting ukrainian reserve us present. voluntary zalinski, says cave will respond to what he called russian terror. shamela any one who guides

and launches michelle's who handles claims and ships for terror. not only those who give orders, but all of you. you are all terrorists and murderers, and you must all be punished. polish people, police have seized a russian embassy school building in warsaw. a moved denounced by moscow as illegal offices broke the locks on doors of the building which was leased by russia. off staff refused to let the men. poland froze. the embassies accounts following rushes, invasion of ukraine. the foreign ministry said the building belong to the polish state, rushes ambassador to warsaw his warning authority ation. a manhunt is underway in cleveland, texas. after a man shot dead, 5 of his neighbors ally say, the family had asked him to stop firing rounds in his yard because they were trying to sleep. 3 women, a man, an 8 year old boy, was shot dead execution stall. with an assault rifle, brazil's environment agency has rejected plans by

a state run oil from petro bras to drill a well at the mouth of the amazon river basin. the company's been trying to open up a new exploration front, northern brazil for years. but the agency found significant deficiencies in its environmental impact assessment and consultations with indigenous communities. protesters and molly have called for an end to the un peacekeeping mission called me new sma demonstrations, gathered in bomber co in response to calls from groups close the military government. it's been in power since acount 2020, and his fighting armed groups linked to al qaeda and i. so the u. n. has the keys, the army of human rights violations under the for san seek is a forward police at the border between chile and peru. vivian authority say they're trying to curb illegal migration on of deployed hundreds of soldiers and officers. ok, those headline news continues here now to 0 after the bottom line. stay with us.

ah hi, i'm 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 know where 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 burnt 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 and rollbacks, the president jo biden's agenda,

especially those related clean energy and food assistance. the for american, the white house, there's no way just give us a new limit and then we'll talk one. so who wins in this game of political brinkman ship? and is there really any limit to the runaway spending of the us 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 to figure that one of 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 us. 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 1st 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 of 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, well targeting back hundreds of years, we used to have to 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 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 center for american progress. do they take seriously debt

and default? i. 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 dissuade or also never equal. you have to figure out what it is you do to lower the data, whether the net, if, whether the effects of lowering 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 is percent g, d p especially during good times and higher during bad times, deliberately to kind of boost aggregate demand. the 3rd, a default is of course, really, really, really major. we might have had a technical glitch here 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, nor would trust the u. s government word, it would

a 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 help with food on their table or you know, you name it, the government does a lot of things. it couldn't. 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 100 year pandemic, we've had a great recession. we've had somewhat calamitous events confront this country.

and we are a privilege 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 issuance of debt and 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 somewhat 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 that's, that's approaching a trillion dollars. that seems to be sake. sacrosanct are for some reason even in both parties where 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 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 the 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 that 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 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 are 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 on. that's an issue of politics that 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 over seized 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 u. s. spends on 3 percent of its g d p. i think it's a little bit more, but spends 3 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 of g d p. it's that we're 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 you know, 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. there's anybody remember that president joe biden did not vote for a 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 intransigence 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 you medicare for all and raise the minimum weight. you know, they didn't say this is our opening bed. they, you know, they did buy parson, increase and entry had individual members who might a push, but i think there's, there's 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 as

a riskless security informs 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 suck. it's 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 the financial factor starts to crops re default. and in addition to that, the government is forced to immensely pull back on its 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 low, where you can afford last food to put in the table. you can afford last child care . 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, that 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 side because joe biden has come out and said, a 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 it says, is there, is there any room for that to run? yeah, i, it's actually a great point. i looked at this in 29 team 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 government are going up and up and up and up and up. i think they're up 213637 1000000 as a belie we didn't argue that like increasing debt to good being. 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 on 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 extremely 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 it's that would be my, my retort to the idea of we can't possibly forgeries are debt when that because 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 it. 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, 100 trillion trillion. use 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 and 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 worthwhile to have this conversation recognize where in this current environment is there's 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 1500000 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. 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, you change your spending and tax laws, 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 rate 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 something came on board. they've been out saying we want to wreck 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, 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 and senate. and so real quick go to your god, 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 u. s. history. i agree with 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 there 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 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, publicans 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 debt, 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 that 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 kogan, 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 a great conversation. thank you basically 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, in 2018, a journalist lead 40 days of civic action against the armenian government. i'm president. soc, is younger group on power. i'm going to live with this, were a new documentary follows his non violent campaign to bring down a corrupt regime, astonishing outcome with i am not alone on munious velvet revolution on al jazeera with

awe. i'm on the inside and die while he a top stories on al jazeera as strikes and artillery, shelling his rock saddam's capital as fighting between the army and the rapid support forces. and his 3rd week, the faltering si fi will expire in one day mediation efforts have not yet yielded any result. hebron morgan has more from call to the rapid support for his ambition . denise army, exchange heavy artillery and.