EDITORIAL: Our leaders must stop flirting with disaster

May 12—A month before a projected default on our nation's debt, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar sent out a tweet.

"Fun fact," she wrote. "Republicans voted to raise the debt ceiling three times when Donald Trump was president, with no preconditions. Kevin McCarthy voted for all three. They are creating a crisis and threatening default for one reason and one reason only: Joe Biden is now President."

It has always been this way, it seems.

Ronald Reagan could practice what George Herbert Walker Bush once described as "voodoo economics," and Republicans were fully on board, but get a Democrat in the White House, and fiscal conservatives start crawling out of the woodwork.

Here's another fun fact: Republicans can be as hypocritical as they want, and it won't make a bit of difference in terms of who will be blamed should our nation's economy go over a cliff.

Both parties will get the blame. And they should.

With the clock ticking toward what the experts insist would be an economic meltdown, the lack of progress in these negotiations is infuriating.

After a meeting intended to move the discussion forward, Biden repeated what he's been saying for months.

"I told congressional leaders that I'm prepared to begin a separate discussion about my budget, spending priorities, but not under the threat of default," he said.

McCarthy appeared not to be listening.

"I asked the president this simple question," he said. "Does he not believe there's any place we could find savings?"

McCarthy seems determined to keep playing this very risky game of chicken.

"I've done everything in my power to make sure we will not default," he said.

He hasn't, of course. One thing he could try would be to go back to his caucus with a proposal to raise the debt ceiling at least temporarily.

Some have suggested an extension to September, at the same time Congress should be approving a new federal budget.

Others have suggested the White House could end the standoff on its own by invoking the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which says the validity of the federal debt shall not be questioned. White House lawyers will pursue that idea, Biden said, but the odds are it won't end the standoff.

"The problem is it would have to be litigated," he told reporters.

The good news out of all of this is the two sides are still talking, and the president has another meeting scheduled with congressional leaders today.

Still more good news is this promise from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

"The United States is not going to default," he said. "It never has, and it never will."

Let's hope he's right.