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Republicans were never a mob of idiot hostage takers

This is just a cranky aside, but I keep seeing liberals mocking Republicans as "hostage takers who didn't even know what to do with the hostage." In this telling, the debt ceiling deal was an ongoing fiasco of dealing with terrorists willing to blow up the economy for reasons they themselves didn't even fathom.

Give me a break. Republicans may have been disorganized and often chaotic in their demands, but they knew what they wanted: deep cuts in domestic spending programs combined with no cuts in defense programs.

And that's exactly what they got. Defense programs were preserved while domestic programs were slashed 5-10%. Maybe some of the radicals are unhappy at not getting even deeper cuts, but the fact is that they got 90% of what they wanted in the first place. They were not just an ignorant mob wanting to burn the world down. They were a disciplined team that fought tirelessly for big spending cuts and they won.

54 thoughts on “Republicans were never a mob of idiot hostage takers

  1. clawback

    So they were "disorganized and often chaotic" oh and by the way they were "a disciplined team" and at this point I have no idea what you think of the Republican efforts here. For my part I remain unconvinced they got any more than they would have if they had skipped the hostage-taking.

    1. Lounsbury

      Yes quite - and frankly 5-10% is obviously something making the Left unhappy but is not a percentage one normally qualifies as "deep" except if you are giving the meaning "any cuts at all" the meaning deep because you want none at all.

      This is not to defend any such cuts, but to be analytical and give words and phrases their normal meanings.

      As a general matter they seem to have achieved nothing more than was foreseeable under ordinary budgeting latter this year as per sober non-partisan analyses.

      Something the Left would like, of course not, but inevitable when you lost the House...

      and in meantime ex-political Left junkies, they rather looked like bumblers.

      Insofar as Perception and Narrative have selling power, marketing power in Politics, the Left side obsession (here displayed by Drum) with shooting down their own marketing is based on entirely unachievable standards is really at some level impressive, in a negative fashion.

      1. jdubs

        Obviously words liken 'deep' have no exact amount and are always in the eye of the beholder. There is no % that normally signifies deep for everyone.

        1. Lounsbury

          Well in the world of pure subjectivity then you are in the world of meaningless.

          If running a program or running a company, one should be laughed at to call a 5% cut "deep" 10% even.

          15-25%, that is deep

          Unpleasant, unproductive, even damaging are all adjectives available.

    2. kenalovell

      It's long been an article of faith in the deranged wing of the Republican Party that the debt limit should never be increased. So McCarthy was faced with the reality that more than five members of his caucus began with the position that they would not vote for an increase under any circumstances. That's what triggered all the subsequent drama - McCarthy desperately trying to find a package of wildly unrealistic spending cuts that the hardliners would accept as the price for dropping their obstinacy, thus leaving Democrats no real alternative to bringing forward the budget negotiations. But I remain at a loss to understand why the Senate was sidelined from the exercise. Perhaps Manchin and Sinema were regarded as too unpredictable to risk putting the House bill to a floor vote.

      1. treeeetop57

        Correction: It's long been an article of faith in the deranged wing of the Republican Party that the debt limit should never be increased WHEN THERE IS A DEMOCRAT IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

        They do it quietly in the course of normal business when there is a Republican President.

        1. kenalovell

          Not really. McCarthy bragged that some of his crazies were voting to increase the debt limit for the first time in their lives.

  2. MrPug

    I agree totally with this. The notion that Biden played the Republicans is ridiculous. He is the one who said he wouldn't negotiate, then did negotiate, and, as Kevin makes clear, gave them most of what they wanted.

    Now, I am certainly happy that we won't default and taking the debt ceiling off the table for the 2024 campaign certainly helps Biden, but, again, it is just absurd to claim the Republicans were wiped out by Biden's negotiating prowess.

    1. lynndee

      Or, as Lawrence O’Donnell has noted, by saying he wouldn’t negotiate, Biden made the fact he ultimately did negotiate into a “win” that McCarthy is still crowing about. Not unlike demanding more for whatever you’re selling than you know you’ll ultimately accept.

      McCarthy wants something he can brag about and sell to his lunatic caucus. Biden wants to get the job done. So which results in the better deal? I’m going to say the latter.

    2. spatrick

      , again, it is just absurd to claim the Republicans were wiped out by Biden's negotiating prowess.

      Really? All I hear from the Radical Republicans is that THEY were the ones that got taken to the cleaners by Biden. And they keep saying it very loudly and very often on their TV news networks. So who is right here?

  3. Brett

    Would have been nice if the Democrats had been disciplined enough back in December 2022 to just take the debt ceiling weapon off the table with an extension.

    1. Austin

      Sure, would've been nice if the "Democrats" had been disciplined enough in December 2022... especially those stalwart Democratic Party members Manchin and Sinema.

      1. royko

        They were both elected as Democrats and what they do reflects on the Democratic Party. I'm happy to lay blame at their feet, but they're in the party.

        1. camusvsartre

          Actually Sinema says she isn't a member of the party. In any case this is a very odd argument. To clai that two Senators who against the party preference reflects badly on the party seems to assume that the party actually has some way to control them. They don't. The party could, I guess, deprive them of committee assignments but then they could just stop caucusing with the party and the Democrats would not longer have a majority. This country has never had a history of strong party control.

  4. different_name

    I mostly agree with Kevin.

    A detail people are missing (or don't want to talk about) is that a number of sadists with (D) after their name wanted the same cuts, too.

    Sure, hate on the Freedom(sic) Caucus all you like. But save some for Manchin and Gottheimer and their ilk.

  5. golack

    We'll see how well the cuts hold....

    These are cuts from projected budgets, but are still in line with 2019 spending, which was on the high side. Numbers are down from Covid spending years, as expected--and it leaves Democrats to run on bringing back the refundable child tax credit that Republicans axed.

  6. golack

    And yes, the many Republicans were a mob of idiot hostage takers--but they were "useful idiots" to those in charge.

  7. kenalovell

    It's an error to assert that "Republicans" wanted this or that. Different factions within the party wanted different things. It's very clear that Trump and his disciples wanted to force a default, knowing Biden would get the blame for the ensuing economic downturn. Others wanted a short-term deal that would let them play the same game again in election year. Both of those seized on the debt limit as their opportunity.

    As others have commented, the Republicans who merely wanted to cut government spending could have achieved exactly the same result in the next round of arguments about the budget, without all the drama that we've seen in recent months (which is unlikely to have done anything to improve their party's support among swing voters).

  8. D_Ohrk_E1

    OT: Trump was apparently caught in audio recording acknowledging that he held onto classified info and that he had limited ability to declassify after leaving office.

    Mens rea. Perhaps this is why Trump's lawyers tried a PR stunt last week as part of a desperate act before criminal charges are announced?

  9. MikeTheMathGuy

    Picking up here on points Lounsbury and kenalovell have already made…

    The YouTuber “Beau of the Fifth Column” offered a very thoughtful analysis: The House Republicans played it all wrong. They should have simply voted for a clean debt limit increase, and then taken the hostage at the upcoming budget negotiations. They’d certainly be willing to shut down the government, even if they weren’t willing to crash the world economy. And since Congress absolutely holds the power of the purse – no Fourteenth Amendment interpretations, no trillion-dollar platinum coin – they would have gotten more of what they wanted.

    Bottom line: I hate the cuts, too, but Democrats got the best they could have hoped for, and maybe more. Republicans won the House in the last election; elections have consequences.

  10. Yikes

    The concept of a debt ceiling makes zero sense when you are talking about the Federal Government (or any State government for that matter) because when one of these "crisis" come around the only two options are (1) of course its increased as we already voted for the spending, or (2) full clown car, as getting something "in exchange" for raising the debt ceiling makes about as much sense as getting something in exchange for agreeing not to tip over the Washington Monument.

    Since whatever adjustments to the budget made now would have been made under threat of a government shutdown in the fall, might as well get it over with now.

  11. lynndee

    So they were hostage takers who knew what they wanted to do with the hostage. That's wonderful. I'll have to invite them over for dinner.

    They can torture the hostage in the basement while the rest of us have a nice meal. It'll be like Roberto Bolaño's By Night in Chile.

    1. camusvsartre

      Yes. Kevin's comment seems bizarre. He says they weren't hostage takers because they knew what they wanted. Don't most hostage takers know what they want? Kevin misses the whole point. The possibility of defaulting gave them enormous leverage that they seemingly were ready to exercise. Responsible people weren't willing to put the country's and the worlds economy at risk by defaulting, thus they agreed to some budget demands they didn't want in order to keep the hostages from getting tortured. This is precisely why the idea of a debt limit is stupid. You can't not payoff what you have already borrowed.

  12. raoul

    Markos at Dailykos had an interesting take. He said that if there was no agreement the CR baseline would result in cuts no matter what (I’m paraphrasing) and he also said the deal works as a framework for the next two years that will prevent more GOP shenanigans. I think the point is that the Republicans got what they were going to get, no matter what, because they control the House. Kos take is that they didn’t get more and the gave up hostage taking the next two years. He views this as an overall positive for Dems, politically speaking.

  13. kahner

    the GOP controls the house and they were always going to force some budget cuts. in the end the cuts were far less severe than i expected and biden avoided a disastrous debt default. the GOP is going to be left angry and divided, while i expect dems to remain mostly united. this was a win for biden.

    1. zaphod

      Concise and true.

      Also, hostage-taking, which many R's attempted and all R's enabled, turns my stomach. And what did it get them that they could not have gotten by other means? Internal divisions, at a minimum.

  14. Cycledoc

    You’re right they are disciplined and united in their goal….. which was to make the middle income earners pay for the tax cuts they awarded to the corporate interests and the wealthy. Kind of pathetic when you think about it, but nothing to admire..

    1. jte21

      That's been the genius of Republican propaganda for the past 50 years: to make the middle class white men think they're the main beneficiaries of tax cuts for the 1%.

  15. QuakerInBasement

    Not mentioned: The lunatic "Freedom Caucus" is shunted to the sidelines to rail impotently.

    That can only be good.

  16. jte21

    I don't know what Kevin's talking about. The spending cuts that were included in the final deal weren't anything close to what the Freedom Caucus nuts were demanding. Really the only significant thing the WH conceded was a portion of the boost in spending for the IRS approved in the big infrastructure bill last year. So....probably what Dems would have had to have conceded anyway in the reconciliation talks for next year's budget cycle.

    The fact that the right wing noise machine is eviscerating McCarthy over this tells you all you need to know.

  17. Laertes

    Yeah, I dunno. The deal looks pretty good to me. It's about what you'd reasonably expect given that the Rs have the house. As I read over the summary of who got what, none of it looks all that painful.

    Also? The compromise seems broadly legitimate. The Rs won the house fair and square. We like to grouse about gerrymandering, but the simple fact is that the size of their majority in the house corresponds pretty well to their overall vote haul.

    1. Laertes

      To be specific, IIUC they got about 6% more votes in house elections than the Dems, and got about 4% more seats. Seems fair.

  18. azumbrunn

    Did the Republicans get what they wanted? The answer is it depends how you know what they wanted. If you go from the legislation they themselves passed to kick off the process: They wanted to cut everything but the military. Ergo they got a pitifully small fraction of what they wanted.

    If however you start from Kevin's hypothesis about what they wanted they get "exactly what they wanted".

    My opinion is that Biden has outsmarted them: He got away with concessions that he would have to make anyhow in the budget negotiations. He saved McCarthy from his crazies (at least he slightly immunized him) and made him depend on Dem votes. He kept the inflation reduction act intact. Big Deal and certainly not what the GOP aimed for.

    But Josh Marshall is right: The GOP version 2023 is not interested in policy at all. Ryan may have actually believed what he said (no guarantee!) about the deficit; Gaetz, Marjorie and Co. don't care in the least. They did not get what they wanted: a humiliated Brandon.

  19. jdubs

    You win these kind of scenarios by creating am atmosphere where almost everyone repeats your talking points/framimg as the basic facts of the situation. And we see that here with many commenters and most of the media repeating the Republican framing of the made up debt crisis.

    Biden agreeing to and championing large cuts as the reasonable person in the room is positioned as a Democratic victory. The overton window is yet again shifted to the right while Democrats pat themselves on the back for winning. The false framing insisted that large cuts must come next year (like the sun will rise), so now large cuts are the moderate, reasonable position.

    We cant have nice things.

  20. rick_jones

    And now we shift our attention to the Senate. And Senator Jeff Merkley*, D-OR has weighed in, per the email sitting in my inbox:

    Dear Rick,

    Since the text of this legislation was released, I have immersed myself in the details and listened carefully to everyone’s points of view. I appreciate the diversity of opinion within the Congress and within my own caucus. Still, I cannot in good conscience vote for this bill.
    This bill breaks with recent, established, and bipartisan practice, cutting programs that are the foundations for thriving families—including health care, housing, and education—to increase military spending.

    In addition, this bill sets two truly horrific precedents:

    It completely exempts the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from following environmental law, even though the company building the pipeline is an egregious violator that has racked up more than 500 violations in two states.

    In addition, the bill dictates the court jurisdiction for the MVP should there be additional legal challenges. This profoundly undermines the integrity of our judiciary. For Congress to—by law—move a court case from one jurisdiction to another, to provide a special favor to a powerful corporation, is fundamentally corrupt. This is a line we should never cross.

    The pipeline itself is an assault against a sustainable planet. We must recognize that fossil gas is just as damaging as coal. Pretending otherwise is leading us to climate catastrophe.

    Finally, this bill contains changes to bedrock environmental law that will allow fossil fuel companies to evade responsibility and accountability. It allows companies to write their own environmental impact evaluations. It changes the standards for acceptable science and data. It exempts entire pipeline projects from federal environmental protections.

    I fully recognize that a debt default would be a disaster for working families and must never be allowed to happen. It’s unconscionable that MAGA Republicans and Speaker McCarthy were willing to entertain driving the economy over the default cliff at all. However, yielding to this blackmail only guarantees that Republicans will use the debt limit to hold America hostage time and time again. We must end the hostage-taking, either by passing legislation like my Protect our CREDIT Act or through the President exercising his executive power, such as the use of the 14th Amendment.

    In sum, there is virtually nothing in this bill that matches what the people of Oregon care about, and a whole lot of stuff that will hurt them. I can’t throw them under the bus. I cannot in good conscience support this legislation, and I will vote no.

    All my best,
    Jeff

    * autocorrect on my system is very insistent on changing his name to Berkley.

    1. kahner

      mcconnell is backing the bill, so i imagine it will get a large GOP majority in the senate and most of the D's too so I'm not too worried about passage there. unless there are some senate procedural tricks that some rightwinger uses to delay.

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  22. djp1955

    The idea that the Republicans got “90%” of what they wanted in the first place” is ludicrous.

    In the House passed “debt limit increase bill” in late April that squeaked by 217-215, there were the details....

    -the GOP bill would have raised the debt limit by $1.5 trillion or until March 31, 2024 whichever came first, giving them another bite of the hostage apple.

    -what is in the “deal”? - Biden wanted a longer extension of the DL...he got what he wanted with the SUSPENSION of the limit until AFTER the 2024 election. This deal suspends (not just raises) the DL until early 2015!!!! - HUGE Biden WIN.

    -the GOP bill would freeze the discretionary budget to 2022 level, or $1.47 trillion for the next FY 2024, and allow it to increase only 1% for the next TEN YEARS.

    -what is in the “deal”? - freeze 2024 discretionary spending at FY2023 levels ($1.6 Trillion...a NINE percent increase from FY2022 levels) and a 1% increase cap for ONE year. - HUGE Biden WIN.

    -the GOP bill would have targeted and repealed the $80 Billion IRS increases in funding.

    -what is in the “deal”? - claw back $10 Billion - BIG (not “huge”) Biden WIN.

    -the GOP bill would have blocked student debt relief in full.

    -what is in the “deal”? - NO blocking of the student debt relief in the least - HUGE Biden WIN.

    -the GOP bill would have repealed most of the tax breaks in the “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA....which was really a climate change green energy bill).

    -what is in the “deal”? - NO repeal of ANY part the IRA - a HUGE, HUGE Biden WIN!!!

    -the GOP bill would have imposed additional “work requirements” to SNAP (food stamps) AND Medicaid, for those able-bodied adults between the ages of 50 & 55

    -what is in the “deal”? - additional work requirements for SNAP with exceptions for veterans and the homeless, with NO additional work requirements for Medicaid. - a BIG win for Biden.....STOPPING the Medicaid work requirement was one of the biggest goals of President Biden's. The SNAP work requirements are dumb, but will not affect that many people.

    Of course, what many forget is that in 2021, the Biden administration revised the nutrition standards of the food stamp program and prompted the largest permanent increase to benefits in the program’s history.

    “...average benefits will rise more than 25 percent from prepandemic levels. All 42 million people in the program will receive additional aid. The move does not require congressional approval, and unlike the large pandemic-era expansions, which are starting to expire, the changes are intended to last."

    -the GOP bill would have done nothing concerning funding the government beyond the end of the present fiscal year which end September 30, 2023. They were threatening shutdown with another hostage taking this fall. That would means TWO bites at the “let’s shutdown the government” hostage taking....the second attempt right before the 2024 election.

    -what is in the “deal”? - FULL FUNDING for the government for TWO YEARS!!!! NO chance to shutdown the government until September 30, 2025!!! - Another HUGE, MASSIVE, GIGANTIC Biden WIN (actually, huge win for the country).

    What did President Biden “give up”?!?!? Not that much at all. Certainly hardly ANYTHING that would not have been “given up” with the usual budget fight and compromise that occurs every year in particular when government is split among congress and the presidency.

    The truth is the opposite. The Republicans got less than 10% of “what they wanted in the first place”

    President Biden got 90% of “what he wanted in the first place”.

    Both debt limit AND two years of budget hostage taking oof the table.

    Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid not touched IN THE LEAST.

    Relatively minor “cuts” that do not amount even close to “5-10%”.

    1. kahner

      yup. i am pretty confused by kevin's post, tbh. this seems like a very clear win for biden. far better than anything i'd expected.

    2. zaphod

      Good and useful list which clarified some of my own uncertainties. Thank you.

      The vote in the House does support Kevin's contention that the majority of Republicans there "were never a mob of idiots".

      Instead, just a bunch of spineless politicians who need political cover when opposing the large idiot minority there.

  23. Doctor Jay

    This is roughly the outcome to be expected with a Republican House and a Democratic president. There was a lot of theater and nail biting about the debt limit, but that didn't appear to have much impact on the outcome.

    So, SNAFU.

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