Don’t call the debt-ceiling deal a success. It shouldn’t have been a crisis at all

The arsonists are taking credit for putting out the fire.

Late Saturday night and again Sunday morning, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and two of his lieutenants were providing self-congratulatory spin to scrums of reporters at the Capitol on a holiday weekend, declaring their success at ending an economic crisis Republicans unnecessarily provoked.

They didn’t describe their deal with President Biden that way, of course. But that’s what we’ve been enduring — needless brinkmanship that’s undermined global confidence in the nation’s financial reliability and in the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, and still could spark default and a recession.

All for the relatively modest spending cuts and policy concessions McCarthy extracted, which came at some immediate cost and will do little to reduce long-term debt, especially if Republicans extend the Trump tax cuts, as they propose. And this manufactured crisis isn’t over yet, notwithstanding the Republicans’ back-patting calisthenics. The “budget agreement in principle” must make it into law.