Deadlock Over the Federal Budget Made the Affordable-Housing Crisis Worse

When former House Speaker John Boehner fell on his sword last fall, he cleared the way for then-Representative Paul Ryan to inherit the speakership without a looming political crisis hanging over his head. Speaker Ryan won’t face a vote on the debt ceiling until March 2017. The budget deal brokered under Boehner also found more room beneath the budget caps imposed by the sequester.

But the budget crisis is by no means over: It’s just been pushed back until after the upcoming election. “Perhaps Republicans will win the presidency, and secure semi-permanent victory in the budget war,” as Brian Beutler explained in The New Republic last fall. “If not, you can practically pinpoint the end of Paul Ryan’s speakership somewhere in the spring or summer of 2017.”