On American Debt, Inflation, and Industrial Policy

EconoFact Chats regularly hosts a panel interview with the distinguished economic journalists Binyamin Appelbaum of The New York Times, Scott Horsley of NPR, Greg Ip of The Wall Street Journal, and Heather Long of The Washington Post. In this latest installment, the panel has a wide-ranging discussion, including on the topics of: the fight over the debt limit, its resolution, and the possible consequences of this political fight (Moody’s notes that the United States has one of the least affordable debt burdens among advanced economies); the debate the over sources of current inflation, policies to bring it down, and whether the Federal Reserve should continue to have 2 percent as its preferred inflation target rate; and the Administration’s arguments for, and possible limits to, reshaping the American economy through policies like the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act.