Politics

Abstract

On August 2, 2011 the world looked on in disbelief as a Kafkaesque spectacle played out in the halls of Congress. To many, a radical fringe appeared to have hijacked the political process, holding the country hostage. The drama over raising the debt ceiling placed the government on the brink, risking its unblemished history of on-time and in-full debt service. Skepticism deepened over the prospects that a divided government could conduct the nation’s business with requisite deliberation and compromise.¹