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Mitch McConnell’s debt ceiling compromise doesn’t harm the filibuster

Conservatives are unhappy with the debt ceiling compromise engineered by Mitch McConnell today:

Nah. This isn't a carveout. In fact, it's just the return of regular order: McConnell has promised to round up enough Republican senators to break a filibuster, after which Democrats can pass the debt ceiling bill with 51 votes. The only weirdness is that instead of using the Republican votes to "end debate," they're being used to pass some kind of enabling legislation. But it's all the same thing.

And it's happening because it's a win-win. McConnell doesn't want Republican fingerprints on the debt ceiling increase, but he also doesn't really want another big brawl over the government defaulting on its debt. His agreement with Chuck Schumer gets him this.

But it only works because he genuinely wants the debt ceiling increase to pass—and it's always been possible to do that if there are 60 votes in favor. For anything else, he will just return to his usual sphinx-like pose and Republicans will unanimously oppose everything Democrats want to do. No harm done.

14 thoughts on “Mitch McConnell’s debt ceiling compromise doesn’t harm the filibuster

  1. KawSunflower

    Lesson learned: "Regular order" in Mitch McConnell's Senate is whatever Mitch McConnell says it is at that moment.

  2. Justin

    I'm disappointed. How can the republicans support this "evil" government? I was really hoping they would blow the whole thing up. Surely Trump is not happy with this. What a bunch of cowards!

    "McConnell this week agreed to a deal with Democrats that would employ a complicated maneuver to solve the issue by December 15, lending them GOP support briefly to overcome the filibuster, then leaving them to proceed alone.

    The approach puts him at odds with the scorched-earth policy Trump has called on McConnell to adopt.

    The former president has called on McConnell to strike no further deals with Democrats on the debt ceiling. Trump has accused McConnell of giving Democrats breathing room in which to pass big spending bills, arguing that without McConnell's help they would have been too preoccupied with the debt-ceiling crisis. "

    1. Justin

      I guess Trump needn't worry.... his plan to take over is well underway.

      https://www.reuters.com/world/us/georgia-republicans-purge-black-democrats-county-election-boards-2021-12-09/

      GRIFFIN, Georgia, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Protesters filled the meeting room of the Spalding County Board of Elections in October, upset that the board had disallowed early voting on Sundays for the Nov. 2 municipal election. A year ago, Sunday voting had been instrumental in boosting turnout of Black voters.

      But this was an entirely different five-member board than had overseen the last election. The Democratic majority of three Black women was gone. So was the Black elections supervisor.

      Now a faction of three white Republicans controlled the board – thanks to a bill passed by the Republican-led Georgia legislature earlier this year. The Spalding board’s new chairman has endorsed former president Donald Trump’s false stolen-election claims on social media.

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      Why would Supermaga Glenn Danzig tell Addison 2Ms not to let the Biden-Harris regime default on our nation's sovereign debt?

      Default helps the cause of MAGA Restoration.

  3. jeff-fisher

    It is yet another illustration of the fact that the filibuster will not stop McConnell from passing whatever he actually wants to pass. He'll do the minimum workaround in hopes of preserving the bulk of it to stymie Democrats, but whenever he has 51 or more votes he will pass whatever he actually wants to pass.

  4. KenSchulz

    When most Republicans walked back their criticism of Trump’s role in the January 6 Beer-Gut Putsch, some pundit claimed there would be no GOP civil war. Hah! It’s barely begun, and it’s going to be ugly. Will need lots of popcorn.

  5. zaphod

    It's the return of regular order only if you define regular order as what Mitch McConnell wants to do.

    I'm also getting a bit tired of Kevin seeing things the way Republicans want us to see things. There are two possible explanations.

    1. Kevin really doesn't believe what he is saying, he just puts it out there to spark controversy and fuel debate in the comments.

    2. Kevin's previous article is really correct, and having turned 63, we are seeing seeing the early signs of his cognitive decline.

  6. clawback

    I'm fine with just pretending this is a filibuster carveout. Anything that normalizes getting rid of that absurd anti-democratic relic is progress.

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