Aaron Blake asks an obvious question today: Why are Republicans starting up yet another debt ceiling battle? Don't they know they always lose them?
The answer is equally obvious: Of course they know. But it doesn't seem to hurt them at the polls, while it does create a sense of crisis and chaos that gets in the way of Democrats getting anything done. It's a pretty understandable strategy for a minority party trying to put some sand in the gears of the opposition.
Republicans will cave in eventually, and nobody should be shocked when they do. After all, the whole thing is laughable. During past debt ceiling battles, people like me would earnestly break down the federal budget and announce that if the debt ceiling isn't raised it would require us to shut down blah blah blah lots of stuff.
This time there's no point to this exercise because our current budget deficit is so enormous. If we breached the debt ceiling and had to cut back spending to match incoming revenue, it would mean literally shutting down every single function of government, both domestic and defense, and whacking a trillion dollars or so from Medicare and Social Security. No one is going to do that.
But in the meantime it will make Democrats squirm. That's all this is about.
I wish they'd do it. It would make September 2008 look like New Year's Eve, and people would finally "get" that they are "Homewreckers".
You've got far more faith in Americans than I do. I think it's overwhelmingly likely the people who voted for Trump would nearly all blame Democrats. Also, owning the "incumbency brand" right now, it's highly likely any resulting economic damage would hurt them more than it would hurt Republicans.
It’s interesting that our representatives are considering blowing up the economy in order to defeat their enemies. What do you call that? Sabotage? Economic warfare? How can we even consider this government legitimate when half of it is ready to attack the other half?
Or it’s all just theater of the absurd and should be ignored as a toddlers temper tantrum.
"It’s interesting that our representatives are considering blowing up the economy in order to defeat their enemies. What do you call that?"
(Majority) white (party) privilege.
I think that’s undoubtedly true but simply highlights the error of spending decades coddling people who wouldn’t piss on a Democrat if he or she was on fire, let alone vote for one.
There’s soft Republican and business oriented voters who are reachable and Biden’s agenda would very likely begin to shift these voters towards the Democrats. Biden’s agenda also solidifies the party’s base, including liberals and progressives.
That said, I agree with you that being the party nominally in power, it will be seen as the Democrats failure if there’s an economic crisis.
The one play that I see for the Democrats is to just put a clean debt limit bill on the floor of each house and then force a vote (and force Republicans to say that they are filibustering). And then let the chips fall where they may without insulating the Republicans from responsibility and without allowing them to preen and posture themselves knowing that the Democrats will make sure nothing bad happens.
I agree but I also hope the dysfunctional congress takes our civil war to the next level. Republicans say that the radical left democrat party is dangerous and must be stopped. They have an obligation to do just that. They must destroy this government in order to save it. Flight 93! Let’s roll! Shut down the government and wreck the economy. They will then be able to take power back in 2023… maybe even before then.
Otherwise this pretense is quite tedious. We ought not pretend congress is being serious.
This is odd.
"Republicans, however, would like nothing more than for Democrats to carry the burden of raising the debt limit on their own, without GOP help."
https://rollcall.com/2021/09/22/potential-fallback-for-debt-ceiling-fraught-with-complications/
Democrats should raise the limit, eliminate the limit, and go about spending and taxing to their heart's content. Why do Republicans imagine that this is a burden? Why do Democrats imagine that some hypothetical low info swing voter will be persuaded by this Republican argument?
It's very odd. Everyone knows congress is a shit-show.
except---the filibuster. Dem's can't do it alone.
Get rid of the filibuster?
If they can't figure out how to raise the limit without eliminating the filibuster and if republicans won't support it, then the limit will not be increased. Then the admin should simply ignore it and let someone sue. Really... it's just silliness. Why are democrats squirming over it? Just do it.
What civil war??? By elites??? Exposing the con, ends the game.
"It's a pretty understandable strategy for a minority party trying to put some sand in the gears of the opposition."
Only if that minority party doesn't care about the devastating economic consequences for their constituents. Only if the minority party cares nothing about responsibly governing, but only pursues power for its own sake.
In other words, only if the minority party is the modern Republican party.
Yes...the dog has caught the car
And yet, inexplicably, the car wishes more than anything to prevent the dog from harming itself. Far from taking advantage of the dog’s misadventure, the car will pay any price and bear any burden to insure that the dog does not suffer from its foolishness. The degree of responsibility is undoubtedly vastly disproportionate but, as the dog’s enabler, the car also bears responsibility for a disastrous outcome.
Clearly, the car was enticing the dog.
/s
Yes, in a manner of speaking. To flaunt weakness in front of predators is to invite attack.
I may be missing something and I'm happy to be disabused of my ignorance but why don't the Democrats just take McConnell's bait and raise the debt ceiling. OK, so no Republicans signed on but who cares ? Polls show most people don't even know what it is let alone care about it. If the GOP doesn't want to participate in governing then go ahead and use whatever power you have to govern without them. I don't see how this is a loser politically and it's obviously good for the country.
Doing what you indicate requires unity: all fifty Democratic Senators. It looks unlikely all fifty are willing to go without the cover of GOP votes.
However, they could carve-out an exemption to the filibuster for suspending (rather than raising) the debt ceiling if they wanted. So no Democratic Senator would have to go on record as raising it. This seems to me the slam dunk move, but Joe Manchin believes the filibuster is sacred, and won't weaken it.
And none of you seem to understand the issue.
Democrats have full 100% power to increase the debt limit. And, no, it cannot be filibustered. And, no, manchin and sinema have given no indication that they would not vote for that.
But they then have to use reconciliation to do so , and they can attach it to any reconciliation bill.
The issue is that the democrats cannot agree among themselves what to put in reconciliation in time to get the debt ceiling raised. And, if they use reconciliation now to raise the debt ceiling, they have used it up for this year .
Democrats are fully in power and thus have full responsibility here. They do not need Republicans. And it is just spin to blame Republicans because democrats cannot agree among themselves to do something .
Everybody knows that the ceiling has to be raised. Even if it does get raised in a reasonable time a lot of time and energy is being wasted. Republicans have run up debt with their tax cuts and wars and now they are refusing to accept any responsibility for this. Whatever the technical details of the voting, Republicans are just avoiding their responsibilities and causing trouble for political purposes. The idea that Democrats would be solely responsible for the government defaulting is absurd.
Skeptonomist ,
The argument for being responsible for running up PAST debt does not fly. This is a vote to increase the debt ceiling, not just to allow debt to exist.
I did check because I knew the debt ceiling was just suspended and not raised in the pandemic bills and I wondered if it went back to prior level. But it got reset in August for all extra debt through that date.
In a way , we just had a big debt ceiling increase in August to account for all debt run up in the pandemic. But not for new debt .
Thanks for the clarification but really McConnell also has 100 percent power to increase the debt limit, he just needs to not filibuster it. He doesn't choose to do that because the filibuster is his only way to prevent the Democrats from using reconciliation to advance their agenda but no one has a gun to Mitch's head. He's just playing politics to get his way and the Democratic leadership is doing the same. What is the non-political argument for voting against raising the debt ceiling (by filibustering it) ? The difference is that much of what the Democrats are advocating is quite popular with the American people so Mitch and company - and I guess you too - need to make this stalemate exclusively the Democrats fault.
McConnell ( and I assume you mean republicans not just one) does NOT have 100% power to get a debt ceiling increase. If all Republicans voted for it and democrats opposed , it could not happen even without a filibuster.
But democrats do have 100% power to increase the debt ceiling through reconciliation and Republicans cannot stop them.
And if you want a non political reason and assume you mean a policy reason, Republicans will not vote for it to force democrats to have to use reconciliation to raise the debt ceiling before default . Which will force them to hurry negotiations and reduce the 3.5 trillion cost down a whole lot more than they might do if they can postpone that.
But I am not sure if the republican tactic here may actually be helping Pelosi more . And Pelosi might even be encouraging it.
Republicans filibustering a non reconciliation debt ceiling increase give Pelosi a lot of real leverage with both manchin and sinema and even more so with house progressives .
In the end, house progressives are going to have to mostly cave in on what they want. This is a democracy and, right now, the most Middle democrats like manchin and sinema and the few house democratic moderates are the political middle that hold the political power . And they should basically get what they want - that is how democracy works ..
Republicans do not get their way because they, just barely have less than 50% of the power. And silly for house progressives to throw a tantrum when they do not get their way when they have a small minority of the votes all on one ideological extreme.
But house progressives need a face saving way to back off . What better than being set up to say " Republicans were being irresponsible so we have to give in and be adults to prevent disaster ".
What Republicans are counting on are democrats being too dysfunctional to get their act together and work out a reconciliation compromise.
Not sure why this system won't let me reply to "Rational Thought" ( some might say a somewhat pompous self appellation) but here goes.
1) You've made my central point for me:
"Republicans will not vote for it to force democrats to have to use reconciliation to raise the debt ceiling before default . ". So, you agree they do have the power they are just choosing not to use it for their own reasons.
2) Sinema/Manchin are not the middle of the Democratic Party, they are outliers. The majority of the party, as well as most Americans, support most of what's in this bill.
Democrats have full 100% power to increase the debt limit. And, no, it cannot be filibustered. And, no, manchin and sinema have given no indication that they would not vote for that. But they then have to use reconciliation to do so
They can use reconciliation to increase the debt limit (without GOP votes), yes. I'm referring to suspending the debt limit. That can't be done via reconciliation (per the parliamentarian), and so must be accomplished via regular order, which requires ten Republicans. However, they could exempt (carve out) this procedure from filibuster rules (which would obviate the need for Republicans). To me this is the most obvious way forward, since no Democrat would have to go on record as voting to increase the debt limit, and since time is running out (it's not clear the Democrats' reconciliation bill will be finished in time, and Manchin has already announced his belief they should wait until 2022).
And yet deficits don’t matter (and interest rates will remain low): https://jabberwocking.com/the-national-debt-is-complicated/
One of these days Kevin is going to be wrong about stuff like this.
Also, it simply boggles the imagination that Democrats can't create a filibuster carve out for a suspension of the debt ceiling. The Senators in question wouldn't even be on record for raising the debt ceiling. Just suspending it. Sheer insanity. Xi Jinping must get up every morning and burst into a Buddha-like smile the most he comes to and recalls how ineptly his primary adversary is being governed these days.
No, Drum doesn't understand the problem Republican elites have is, the U.S. federal deficit will be sharply lower by the summer of 2022........whoops. Did I give away the trade secrets???
“Also, it simply boggles the imagination that Democrats can't create a filibuster carve out for a suspension of the debt ceiling.”
Manchin and Sinema love boggling the imagination almost as much as they love preserving the filibuster.
Sorry, but it is more than those 2. The filibuster is irrelevant to the debt ceiling. It doesn't exist. It can be nullified by executive order at anytime.
Turns out, boggle is not a contraction of boondoggle...who knew...
https://www.etymonline.com/word/boggle
https://www.etymonline.com/word/mind-boggling
https://www.etymonline.com/word/boondoggle
😉
Actually, they don't even need the Senate (saying this in my Star Warian voice). Lets say the deadline on the debt ceiling comes and goes. All President Biden has to do is say under the terms of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution all debts and obligations the government owes will be taken care of. In one fell swoop Biden can destroy whatever "leverage" the GOP thinks they have and end this silly "hostage taking".
That seems to be what Pelosi is hinting at. Short of filing an impeachment bill in the House, it’s hard to see exactly what McConnell or his fellow Republicans can do if Biden does this and keeps paying the bills,etc.
It is eventually going to occur to even the most timid and feckless member of the Democratic leadership that if there are no rules, then there are simply no rules. As long as they have the support of the majority of Americans combined with control of the levers of state power, in truth, there’s not much the Republicans can do about anything.
That's possible, but that's still a hypothetical. Who knows how the courts would view such executive action, and who knows how financial markets would react until it's sorted out. Also, publicly stating this is your strategy (on the part of Democrats) might give GOP extra confidence to really stick to their guns this time.
Not really. There is nothing to "cut". The US will just default and the capitalist system will liquidate. The dollar will be gone as reserve currency. The billionaire class no more.
The problem with playing with fire/playing chicken/ playing.... is sometimes you lose control.
Sometimes the chicken catches on fire.
hmmm....tasty!
😉
The never ending farce called governing America…
The debt limit game should have been shelved decades ago. How you keep getting held hostage to this same fiction over and over again baffles this Swedish troll accustomed to a (reasonable) sane political system
McConnell has, metaphorically, a big calendar on his wall. Every day where nothing gets done he draws a happy face.
100% of R senators support this project.
Ah yes, the trumpinistas are truly like their divine leader, vengeful and malignant. Nothing new here. Let's get that budget passed, in spite of all of the mephitic noise.
Is it good for the country to be in that much in debt?
At one point Kevin did, if I recall, a "history of the debt ceiling" - anyway, I googled it and we have been at this since 1917.
WTF indeed. Not only that, but it has been raised like 90 times (according to Wikipedia its hard to even count) in 104 years, virtually every year.
At the minute, it provides political points to any party who believes government is a joke, which is the Repubs.
Of course, they don't really believe government is a joke, so it will eventually be increased. But in the meantime get ready for ridiculousness.
I mean, the Repubs have the idiot vote cornered, you think someone who would vape hydrogen peroxide or die of covid to pwon the libs is going to bother to look up the debt ceiling?
Of course not.
'No one is going to do that.'
McConnell and the GOP tried for 8 years (including lowering our credit rating) to tank the economy under Obama, and they are trying to do it again. Your faith in their "humanity" is unwarranted.
This is a civil war and the GOP is all about scorched earth.
If my understanding of history is correct, “nobody’s going to do that” is basically how everyone blundered in the First World War.
Yep that was the premise of Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August.
Nope, your wrong. This isn't scorched earth, but death of capitalism. If your to ignorant to see that, tough. Bring it down and watch small towns die. Suburbs will be fortified "safe zones" within 5 years. All money and property will be worthless.
It's not just the debt ceiling; it's also the lack of a budget on Oct. 1. Either would result in a gov't shutdown, which sure seems like we're guaranteed to have a gov't shutdown, especially since Manchin/Sinema aren't on board with Biden's agenda, leaving us without a budget on Oct. 1.
Incorrect, but that is your own ignorance. When a budget is passed, you should ban yourself.
There's no budget for fiscal year 2022 nor have the accompanying authorization acts been passed. So yes there is also risk of a shutdown given that it is now September 23rd, only a week to go until Cinderella turns into a pumpkin.
That means little. Things move fast.
It takes time to get concurrence on authorization acts different than simply lacking congressional appropriations.
You really crack me up.
There's murmurs of a Continuing Resolution to early December being passed. Apparently a few GOP senators are on board with this to kick the can down the road a bit. The optics of a shutdown/debt default are too much for even the GOP perhaps?
My understanding is that plenty of Republicans are willing to pass a continuing resolution itself. It is including it with a debt ceiling increase that is the hang up.
And presumably the Pelosi bill increases the debt limit substantially with that continuing resolution. Which means it is a bit more than just a bill that buys a little more time .
A different tactic would be to combine a continuing resolution with a very small debt limit increase, just enough to get you through that early December timeframe with only thar spending ( and nothing new ).
One Republicans argument here is that democrats have to do this on their own because they also want to spend 3.5 trillion more . They are being irresponsible in NEW proposals so how can we just be willing to cooperate with that . Anything making a debt ceiling increase being unable to facilitate anything new weakens that and would make it more politically difficult to oppose for Republicans.
So why is Pelosi not just asking for that ?
And explain , if any Democrat partisan here can , why was a debt ceiling increase not in the reconciliation bill democrats already passed earlier this year on a party line vote ? How come nobody is blaming democrats for that? Not only can they still do it without Republicans now, they already could have in a bill they did pass. So why did they not ?
Maybe because in reality, this " chaos " is exactly what Pelosi and Schumer need to force compromise on their disparate caucus .
Really puts the house progressives in a place they have to cave in. Debt ceiling disaster and their party and especially them get most of the blame politically. And Pelosi and Schumer do have one other alternative if house progressives are too stubborn. Negotiate with enough moderate Republicans to offset their losses and accept a new bill that is much much lower than 3.5 trillion ( even below what manchin wants)..
There are a few reasons why Ds are doing it this way.
- Reconciliation only allows a fixed $ cap to be listed, whereas a non-rec bill can include a suspension of the debt clg until an X-date. No political weapons handed to Rs.
- Non-rec bill requires GOP to put skin in the game, aka being an adult. It's hypocritical to say they don't want to pay for things that they passed when they were in control and added to the debt, particularly their Tax Scam Act.
On first point , how is that a problem, if that is a rule? Why would not democrats want to increase it to x dollars, or even just remove it. How is a suspension better .
I would say a democratic proposal of just suspending it again until December with a continuing resolution would be politically more difficult for Republicans to oppose..
Your second point is a traditional reason why both sides , when they are in power , want to get the other side to vote for it too, and call them irresponsible if they do not . While the opposition party refuses unless they get some sort of concessions.
Read the big speeches both Obama and biden have in 2006 before voting against it along with every other Democrat.
Honestly though, do not think that is the real dynamic here today. Just not working politically anymore to blame the opposition for not doing something you have full power to do . If debt ceiling not raised and big problems , democrats will , rightly, get the bulk of the blame. And pretty much all of the blame from anyone for which this could make a difference in how they vote .
Which gives Pelosi and Schumer more leverage over both sides of their own party .