Beware when GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell says, as he did yesterday, “We ought … to begin to think about the implications to the country’s future with this level of national debt.” In effect, he is saying that the growth of the national debt is about to become the rationale, or should I say cudgel, used by Senate Republicans to block future appropriations to address the deepening crisis conditions across the country as a result of the pandemic and a collapsing economy. Austerity is once again on the Republican agenda!