Negotiations over raising the debt ceiling are continuing in Washington D.C. A Friday meeting between President Biden and congressional leaders was postponed to give staffers more time to hash out a deal. They are under pressure though. A new CBO report projects there is a “significant risk that at some point in the first two weeks of June” the U.S. could be unable to pay its bills.

Pushing the U.S. to the brink of default does not need to happen, according to New York Times Opinion columnist Paul Krugman. “The debt ceiling is fundamentally crazy,” Krugman told Yahoo Finance’s Seana Smith and Akiko Fujita. Krugman said the debt fight is not about spending or taxing, it’s about “whether, for political reasons, the party that controls one house of Congress can force the U.S. to renege on promises its already made.” Since Congress controls government spending and taxing, Krugman says the debt ceiling is “a crazy kind of double jeopardy on government operations that makes no sense at all.”

Be sure to check out the full interview, in which Krugman weighs in on the platinum coin and the April jobs report.

Key video moments

00:00:05 Why Krugman thinks the debt ceiling is “fundamentally crazy”

00:01:24 How to keep spending in check without the debt ceiling