Catherine Rampell says what we’re all thinking:
Yes, it stinks that Democrats always have to be the grown-ups and prevent infantile Republicans from trashing the Constitution and causing a global catastrophe. But that’s apparently how our government works now.
The sooner Democrats realize this, the better.
Since Rampell covers economic policy, it means it is time once again for another Republican threat to default on U.S. debt. When a Republican holds the White House, Republicans rasing the debt limits is virtually pro forma. But when it’s a Democrat, Republicans see an opportunity to take hostages and threaten default to make Democrats look bad and to keep “socialism” at bay.
Rampell skims the nitty-gritty of why and how we are here again. (A brink-of-default episode in 2011 under Barack Obama led to the first-ever U.S. credit downgrade.) But granting Democrats the Grown-ups in the Room ribbon is perhaps too generous just now.
Intra-party sqaubbling and hostage-taking on the Democrats’ part threatens to kill off President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda. Principal antagonists are centrist Democrats in the U.S. House and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, writes Jonathan Chait:
If you recall, the genesis of this drama began over the summer, when a handful of centrist House Democrats decided to blow up the legislative strategy their party had in place for weeks by refusing to support a budget unless the House passed an infrastructure bill first. That gang, led by Josh Gottheimer, ultimately settled for a promise by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to bring up the infrastructure bill by September 27.
However, the hollowness of that victory became evident to the centrists this weekend, when House Progressives threatened to oppose the bipartisan bill when it comes for a vote. The Gottheimer Gang had simply assumed that bringing the bill to a vote, with Pelosi’s promise to try really, really hard to pass it even though its passage was not in her interest, would ensure passage. It doesn’t. They have simply set up a scenario where the bipartisan infrastructure bill fails, and the Democratic Party looks incompetent.
Naturally, instead of everyone agreeing to play nice, centrists have counter-threatened with “a threat straight out of Blazing Saddles“: Pass our infrastructure bill on Sept. 27 or reconciliation gets it.
Chait continues:
The centrists are claiming that if the bipartisan bill fails next week, their optimal level of social spending will drop from whatever it currently is to zero dollars, and will remain at zero, even if that means the bipartisan bill fails.
If Sinema and the House centrists already oppose a reconciliation bill, then this threat is meaningless: They are demanding a ransom to release a hostage they plan to shoot regardless. The threat only works if they would otherwise pass a budget reconciliation bill, but will refuse out of pique if infrastructure fails.
Instead of everyone issuing escalating threats or risk losing face, Chait offers, Democrats need to agree amongst themselves what they can get through Congress. And the key to untying that knot is Sen. Joe Manchin:
The centrists want to live in a world where negotiations aren’t necessary, and they can simply force liberals to hope that maybe Joe Manchin will decide to negotiate a bill with them one day. The liberals won’t accept those terms, and they’re correct not to. If Sinema and the House centrists want their bipartisan infrastructure bill to pass, the person they need to start threatening is Joe Manchin.
It is not clear how they do that. He is virtually untouchable in West Virginia. But he cannot secure a legacy as a deal-maker witout a deal.
Meanwhile, progressives, now the largest Democratic caucus on Capitol Hill, are done being treated as red-headed stepchildren.
Somebody’s got to stop holding their breath until their faces turn blue or else the planet burns.