Lew on Debt Ceiling Showdown: Never Again

For lawmakers who might be getting used to last-minute debt ceiling showdowns, the country's Treasury secretary has a message: Not so fast, sunshine. "The message that we have to send going forward is that there was a turning point on Wednesday night and this won't happen again," Jack Lew told Meet the Press this morning, as per Politico. "It can't happen again. You cannot take a risk with the full faith and credit."

Lew said that the stalemate "was a political crisis, not an economic crisis," and that it needlessly handed increased borrowing costs and loss of activity to a still-struggling economy. "It took an economy that is fighting hard to get good economic growth going, to create jobs for the American people, and it took it in the wrong direction. Our job in Washington is to move things in the right direction." Lawmakers have a new spending deadline on January 15. (More Sunday morning talk shows stories.)