I only want to partner with companies I believe in. When I was introduced to the concept of almond cow, I was instantly intrigued. Almond cow proves you can easily use any nut seed or grain to make healthy homemade plant based milk. There's no soaking, no straining and really no mas. For me, I love to make almond milk. It's so smooth and I save so much money. And bonus, I don't have to lug a heavy gallon home with me. I can make it with their simple and easy to use machine at home. Do I have you intrigued for listeners of the organ news podcast? Almond cow is offering a special code for you that gives you $25 off your purchase of $200 or more, you can shop at Almond cow.co. That's co not calm, and use your good news at checkout. For more information head to the show notes for a clickable link. Hi, and welcome to the your good news podcast with me your host, Katherine Getty. Each Thursday, I'll give you the scoop on the good news coming out of Washington, and how you can get involved with this thing called democracy. Welcome back to another episode of The York good news podcast. It's honestly hard to believe that we are at the tail end of April. But what's happening in Washington feels like I could have been recording this episode back in January oh wait I did where I talked about the debt ceiling. And that continues to dominate the headlines in DC and around the world. I will say just for context I spent a part of last week on The Hill lobbying, not for my work, but actually with students. And these students are college students, they were talking about a lot of access issues. And there was one bill that talked about financial financial peace, but it wasn't really about anything that would add to the debt or require the government to spend any money. And even in those conversations, the debt ceiling came up, it takes up such oxygen until something is done with that it is going to be hard to get agreement from both sides of the aisle on bipartisan issues. That being said, I want to give you a quick refresher on what's the debt ceiling. Basically, it's the total amount of money the US government is authorized to borrow to meet its existing legal obligations. I have liken this to I know that I'm not the first person to say this, I've likened it to our nation's credit card. Basically, this year, we have hit the limit on our nation's credit card. And we need we either need to raise that. So we need to call a credit card company and raise it or we are going to default and we are going to hurt our credit, we are going to hurt ourselves in the eyes of the world. I'd also add that it is going to increase the cost of the debt if we don't raise the limit. So right now, when we think anything debt ceiling, basically we're trying to say okay, we can authorize to spend more. We can spend more on programs, whatever it may be in the US Treasury can continue to pay down the debt on those things without doing extraordinary measures. So what is happening right now as we head into May. The good news is is that last week, as of recording this House, Republicans led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California presented a plan. And House Republicans are expected to bring this to the floor on Thursday. So the day if you're listening this in real time, it should be on the floor that day. I say this is good, because we got to get this conversation going. We've already had our debt limit, the Treasury Department is already using extraordinary measures to continue to pay for the things that we've already agreed to. And until we actually do something about it, we are going to be in this weird limbo and we are going to hit it. We're going to hit the final limit sometime this summer. So House Republicans have put out a plan and what does that include? It lifts lifts the debt limit by $1.5 trillion, or until March 31 2024, whichever comes first, I will say that $1.5 trillion in Government speak is not a lot, which is sometimes really confusing to say out loud. Or the other thing was 1.5 trillion or March 31 2024. And, you know, let me just remind you 2024 means presidential election year, which means that is going to dominate a lot of what happens in Congress. It gets more divisive, it is harder to get bipartisan things across the line. It's not something I'm proud of working in this town, but that is the dynamics that really come to present itself. So those are that's why On Point part of the plan, it also sets the spending levels for fiscal year 2024, which will begin on October 120 23, to fiscal year 2022 levels. And another piece of the puzzle is it says it blocks Biden to forthcoming program to cancel 1000s of dollars in student debt. Republicans maintain that it is not legal for the administration to take that step it is now you've probably seen being litigated within the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court is going to have to make this decision on if it was legal, if they're allowed to use the mechanism by which they say they can wipe away that student debt. Republicans want to claw back billions of dollars of unspent COVID money. So let's think back to 2020 2021. Both administrations, Trump and then Biden and 21, were trying to get money out the door and ensure that we were stabilizing the economy, ensuring that we had access to health care, ensuring that people weren't losing their apartments, lots of different things. But as of now, there's money that remains from that from those programs that are sitting. And so House Republicans want to clawed back, and they want to put it back into the treasury. So that's kind of the contours of the House Republican plan $1.5 trillion, they'll raise it by that or until March 31 2024. Those are kind of some of the pieces there are more pieces to the puzzle. But what you're really trying to see is that Republicans want to, you know, they believe we're gonna raise the debt ceiling, we also need to understand we are spending more money than we have in the treasury. We have been doing this for years. This is not a Republican issue. This is not a Democrat issue of spending money, both when when Republicans and Democrats are empowered both spend money. This for Republicans is a way Okay, let's limit it down. You'll see then, from the administration, so from President Biden, his administration, they continue to say they will only accept a clean debt ceiling raise. And as of even this Monday, officials from the National Economic Council push back that the debt limit has been raised nine times three of which were under the Trump administration. I will say, and I've alluded to this a couple of times today, both on you know, both sides, both Republicans and Democrats, they are, you know, kind of putting the onus on the other person, but both Republicans and Democrats have spent money. I will say during the COVID pandemic, think about it, there was so much money being spent, and for good reason. But it's a little hard sometimes. And I think both Republicans and Democrats, to be honest, that there's a little onus on both sides. And so you know, why I'm really talking about the debt ceiling is because it is good that there is another step forward, Republicans have laid out a plan, the administration has laid out their position, at some point, they're gonna have to get in the room and decide some things. But those little pieces they matter in the political process, don't let the noise of what's happening, distract you from the fact that we as a government, we, as the US government, are spending more than we have in our treasury, no matter what we think is really important that the US government spends money on we do you need to like look at what we're spending it on how we're spending it? Are we making the right choices? That I think is the heart of the conversation that we should be having this debt limit ceiling fight that we are having is a part of it, but we need to start thinking about what do we value? There's this old adage that I seem to always hear that where you spend your money is what you value. And I think we as Americans need to really start, start thinking about that fact, and ensuring that we are engaging with our elected officials. That's why I do this podcast each week. So you better understand what are some more the context clues? What