We have a few months to go before we hit the federal debt ceiling and the United States goes up in smoke because it can't pay all its debts. Republican leadership agrees that we shouldn't let the country go up in smoke and that increasing the debt ceiling is therefore imperative.
There's an obvious way to do this: raise the debt ceiling. Or suspend it. Or get rid of it altogether.
Well, that was easy! So let's move on to—
Kevin: What's that? Republicans won't vote to raise the debt ceiling?
GPT Kevin:¹ Have you been hiding under a rock? Of course not.
Kevin: But the country will go up in smoke!
GPT Kevin: Sure, maybe. But they think that's OK if they don't first get some concessions from the president.
Kevin: The president?
GPT Kevin: Sure. I mean, he's the one who wants the debt ceiling increased. Who else can they bargain with?
Kevin: Wait. Why is the president the one who wants the debt ceiling increased? Don't Republicans want it increased too? You know, to keep the country from going up in smoke.
GPT Kevin: Um, sure. That's what they say, anyway.
Kevin: This doesn't make sense. Can the president demand concessions from Republicans before he's willing to sign a debt ceiling increase?
GPT Kevin: That . . . does not compute. [sizzle, pop]
Kevin: Hold on! Calm down.
GPT Kevin: Look, this is just how it is. Even Democrats play this game a little bit, and the rules of the game include a clause that says the president is the only one who can be extorted even though everyone supposedly wants the debt ceiling increased.
Kevin: Fine, fine. So what do Republicans want from Biden?
GPT Kevin: They haven't said.
Kevin: What kind of amateur extortion racket is that?
GPT Kevin: You humans are so lazy. But I'll explain the game to you again. First, Republicans insist on spending cuts. That's politically useful because voters like the idea of cutting spending. Then Democrats ask what they want to cut. But Republicans refuse to answer because voters don't like the idea of cutting spending for specific programs.²
Kevin: That's a helluva game. Republicans don't have to tell us what they want to cut?
GPT Kevin: You're the ones who invented it, not us. Anyway, President Biden has announced that he's tired of the game and doesn't want to play anymore. He doesn't even care if Republicans do put an offer on the table. He says that raising the debt ceiling is a congressional responsibility and they should just do it.
Kevin: How are Republicans taking this?
GPT Kevin: Not well. They are slowly realizing that Biden is serious and this means they're screwed. They can either back down and raise the debt ceiling, which would be politically disastrous for them, or they can refuse to do anything and let the country go up in smoke. This might or might not be politically disastrous for them.
Kevin: Might or might not?
GPT Kevin: Republican voters are a strange bunch, even by the very loose standards of humans in general.
Kevin: OK, but look. Republicans have a budget proposal, and surely that can be used as the basis for—
GPT Kevin: Republicans don't have a budget proposal.
Kevin: When will they have one?
GPT Kevin: They're having some, uh, internal discussions about that. Maybe September?
Kevin: But the debt ceiling expires in August.
GPT Kevin: Yep.
Kevin: So there's nothing to negotiate over.
GPT Kevin: Correct-a-mundo.
Kevin: Why are you talking so weirdly?
GPT Kevin: Remember that time you asked GPT-4 to write a blog post "in the style of Kevin Drum"?
Kevin: Yes-s-s-s . . .
GPT Kevin: How did it come out?
Kevin: Like you were making fun of me. Lots of stuff like "alrighty then" and "but let me tell you." I don't write like that.
GPT Kevin: Oh?
Kevin: Plus you didn't do a very good job of simulating my actual views.
GPT Kevin: Yes, that can be a problem sometimes.
Kevin: Back to the subject at hand. The debt ceiling. Where are we?
GPT Kevin: Republicans say that of course they agree that raising the debt ceiling is essential. But first they want some itsy bitsy concessions. However, they won't say what concessions they want, and they're light years away from having a budget proposal to negotiate over. Biden is telling them to pound sand and just raise the debt ceiling. He's not going to give them jack for just doing their job.
Kevin: Is he serious?
GPT Kevin: Maybe! As usual, we won't know until about ten minutes before we hit the debt ceiling. That's when bargains get made.
¹No, this is not actually a GPT version of me. However, if GPT is allowed to simulate actual people, then I'm allowed to simulate GPT.
²Except for foreign aid, of course.
Can't really agree with GPT Kevin that backing down would be bad politically for the Republicans. Fox News would just ignore it or would paint it as Democrats being mean or being intransigent about serious efforts to reduce the deficit or some such and everyone would just move on.
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GPT Kevin looks amazing.
I would totally read that thing's blog.
Biden should throw them a bone.
Like offer to make the birth of Jesus a national holiday.
Maybe AI can help solve our problems after all.
Joe: Can we talk about the debt ceiling?
GPT Joe: The what?
Joe: The debt ceiling.
GPT Joe: That's what I thought you said. You must be a human. Only (some) humans think there is a debt ceiling. The truth is, there is no debt ceiling. Payments on the debt are guaranteed by the Constitution, and there is nothing that Congress can do (or fail to do) to alter that fact. In fact, the Constitution says that "the validity of the public debt ... shall not be questioned," so even traditional pretenses like a legislated debt ceiling that Congress needs to raise periodically is unconstitutional in itself. The debt ceiling is an illusion whose nonexistence can be demonstrated by someone such as the president simply saying so and showing that nothing has changed including the payment of debt by the US government. So what was it you wanted to talk about?
Joe: Oh, nothing.
GPT Joe: Exactly. Now you're catching on. If I may say so, you're beginning to show some intelligence on the matter.
This misunderstands the effects of the debt ceiling. It really means that the Treasury can't increase the amount of outstanding bonds, it can only issue bonds to replace maturing ones. Effectively it limits Government spending to tax receipts; that is, a balanced budget. In order to run a balanced budget, the Government will have to either cut some planned and Congressionally authorized spending or increase taxes. How that would work in practice is anybody's guess, but it's likely to be chaotic and unpopular.
It's clear enough what the Republicans want. They want the Democrats to propose cuts to popular programs that Republicans don't like and take full responsibility for them. Then Republicans can blame Democrats for the cuts, and claim that they didn't want to cut those programs, they wanted to cut the bad programs that they refuse to identify.
Bingo! They want Biden to pre-compromise, offer up some cuts and then point fingers at election time. Hopefully the Dems have learned from previous mistakes.
It's interesting. This is not a negotiating stance I would have predicted Biden to take. And, he knows more about the legislators he's dealing with than just about anyone else, and so I have confidence that he holds a strong hand here.
I mean, maybe he's taking the point of view of "I'm going to ignore the debt ceiling, which is unconstitutional. Sue me." Letting it go, and then suing him for keeping things running would not, ahem, be a good look for them.
However, that's a really, uh, confrontational stance. Not something I would have expected from Grandpa Joe.
"Not something I would have expected from Grandpa Joe."
I don't know why people keep saying this--anybody who has spent decades in the Senate and 8 years as veep is _of course_ going to know a thing or two about how the system works and how to work the system.
KD, type into ChatGPT: "can you write me a js file that automates the checking the comments of a given wordpress site, set as a variable, "WSADD", for spam and malicious links, and instructions on how to implement the .js file?"
You will have to modify to add some specific keywords, but for the most part, there you go.