More weirdness from Donald Trump, insisting that a CLEAN spending bill has to include farm aid, hurricane relief, and a debt ceiling increase:
Can anyone imagine passing it without either terminating, or extending, the Debt Ceiling guillotine coming up in June? Unless the Democrats terminate or substantially extend Debt Ceiling now, I will fight ‘till the end. This is a nasty TRAP set in place by the Radical Left Democrats! They are looking to embarrass us in June when it comes up for a Vote. The people that extended it, from September 28th to June 1st, should be ashamed of themselves. It was political malpractice!
I get that no one cares anymore when Trump makes stupid mistakes, but doesn't he have a staff? The debt ceiling suspension was signed on June 3, 2023, and goes through December 31, 2024. It was a compromise between Democrats who wanted a longer deal and Republican budget hawks who wanted a shorter one. But it was always going to extend beyond the election, which no one wanted to bollix up with another debt ceiling fight.
In any case, next year Republicans will have complete control of the government. All they have to do is hold together and they can pass an increase with no chance for Democrats to say a word about it. If they end up embarrassed about it, that's entirely on them.
Not true. Democrats in the Senate can filibuster any debt ceiling increase. Which they must do unless Trump agrees to no cuts in Social Security or Medicare.
Actually, republicans can raise the debt limit as part of a reconciliation bill.
"I get that no one cares anymore when Trump makes stupid mistakes, but doesn't he have a staff? "
The markets are beginning to notice.
"All they have to do is hold together and they can pass an increase with no chance for Democrats to say a word about it. If they end up embarrassed about it, that's entirely on them."
Oh, you sweet, sweet, summer child....
He says they should terminate or substantially extend the debt ceiling. I agree completely - it should have been terminated long ago.
What he (or whoever put this idea in his head just before he sent this tweet) is trying here is to fool the Ds into helping him control the Krazy Kaucus in his own party. (That's because the technicalities will still probably require a 2/3 majority, at this point.)
It's plain those KK guys are True Believers who won't be derailed by trump browbeating and threatening them himself-- they just say he isn't being trumpy enough-- or by Elmo threatening to primary them. And they've been proving all day that they'd be just as willing to torpedo a trump budget process as a Biden/D one. Knowing Ds have always stood for raising the debt ceiling, he or whoever stuffed his head with this is trying to ju-jitsu them into helping him.
If I were D leadership, the only thing I might consider is just outright eliminating the ceiling for good, no half-measures. But I might prefer to keep the weapon for ourselves and very noisily stand on the deal we worked out with Johnson, because I see the bigger picture as a 3-man pissing contest between trump, Elmo, and Johnson over who really runs the House. Let-them-fight gif might be best in the longer run, all things considered.
A plausible reason for mis-stating June as the deadline: when the suspension expires on January 2, the Treasury will go into the alternate mode of "extraordinary measures" to stretch out cash on hand, and when this happened two years ago the suspension expired in early January, just like this one will, and the final drop-dead date came around in June.
So whoever briefed him must have laid out this timeline, and the bleet is what he was able to grasp of it.
Even for a sane person with a sane party, this would be a tricky position to be walking into. The guy isn't actually wrong to be worried. But maybe not as much as the rest of us.
Trump has an advisor who is actually kind of smart. The debt ceiling! How novel.
The Democrats, when they play politics with the debt ceiling, are doing just that: playing politics. They're never actually gonna let the US default, it's just a useful cudgel at times. This might be cynical and ethically questionable, and we should absolutely stop doing it, but it's part of the game.
Republicans, by their own design and own hand, aren't. They have an increasing number of people in their caucus who aren't playing politics with the debt ceiling; they regard it as either a genuine abomination that we keep slamming into it, or a useful tool to implode the entire modern state and cut almost all spending.
This means that even when they control the trifecta, raising it is an embarrassing problem for them if they have a slim majority, because ten or twenty crazy people in the House, backed up by legions of activist howler monkeys, will dig in their heels and demand "no raise debt ceiling, instead cut everything, and a default is great, purge the system of rottenness! Purge it!"
The only way around that is to approach Democrats for votes. Democrats, of course, will have a price for their votes. And suddenly the vaunted Republican trifecta looks all screwed up and incompetent and is cutting deals with the commiecrats.
So of course they want US to raise the debt ceiling for them. Of course they do. They don't want the problem. They want us to solve it for them. That's actually sort of smart to try and do. I hope WE are smart enough not to step on the rake.
I think your overall conclusion is sound. I would argue with your definition of 'playing politics' with the debt ceiling. If you're saying that Democrats won't vote to raise the debt ceiling unless some of their objectives are included, then I guess doing their job is 'playing politics'.
If you're saying that RWNJ are so far gone that they believe their crazy rhetoric, so they're not longer 'playing politics', I would disagree with that definition.
"They are looking to embarrass us in June when it comes up for a Vote." Not sure if the democrats can do a better job than yourself and the lickspittle enablers in government who degrade themselves on a daily basis to massage your ego.
The counter-narrative is exquisitely simple:
"Republicans keep telling us of the dangers of deficits and debt, even proposing a balanced budget law and constitutional amendment every year. Now is their chance to show, without the need for passing a law or constitutional amendment, that they're serious.
For decades they told Americans there was no need to increase the debt ceiling, so they clearly have solutions that obviate a debt ceiling increase.
We would naturally want to increase the debt ceiling; indeed, we consider it good governance. But, we wish to give Republicans the opportunity to show us and the American public that all these decades of pushing to increase the debt ceiling was unnecessary."
Democrats have got to stop saving Republicans, and people who keep voting for Republicans, from themselves.
Of course, you;re right. But the rest of us are in the same boat as "people who keep voting for Republicans." Are Democrats willing to put their own base to the sword, in addition to their other constituents? Are we willing to endure the consequences, too?
I believe Dems need to "get tough" and let the Republicans flail for a while. Apparently many voters who didn't like him personally admired his willingness to stand up for his supporters and beliefs. No time like the present to see if Dems would be rewarded for this type of inaction.
Trump is such a whiney little cry baby. Biden fixes the border and brings down inflation and does Trump say thank you? No, instead he says Biden should raise the debt limit too. Doesn’t the dufus realize it’s been the Republicans who have for years and years kept the debt limit in place?
So let me get this straight, Kevin...you're wondering how it is that Trump says publicly something that isn't true? Have I got that right?
The Republican House majority is thin enough to fall from just a couple of special elections, deaths or resignations. Even with no exits, Mike Johnson still has no margin for defections.