How the 2024 presidential candidates talk about taxes and budget challenges — a voters' guide

Soon after inauguration, the next president will be steering the toughest budget debates in decades, as individual tax rates expire and the debt limit will have to be suspended or raised.

Congressional Democrats and Republicans have already tangled this year over the debt limit, and what's coming is likely even more daunting. A general "erosion of governance" concerned Fitch Ratings enough to cause analysts to cite it as one reason for dinging the U.S' sterling creditworthiness, knocking down U.S. debt from the gold-standard "AAA" rating to an "AA."