That what budget talks are for
Josh Marshall makes an important point about the reasons the Democrats cannot negotiate around raising the debt ceiling. It’s not that they won’t ever negotiate. It’s that they can’t negotiate with people who think they can hold the world economy hostage in order to get their way:
No one — not the White House or any Democrats on Capitol Hill — is saying they won’t negotiate the federal budget or how much the country should be spending on this or that priority or how much debt the country should take on. Kevin McCarthy is right when he says, albeit disingenuously: you can’t say you won’t negotiate. That’s what democratic governance is. That’s true. In the last Congress Democrats’ had a tenuous but complete control of Congress as well as the White House. Now Republicans hold the House by an equally tenuous but real margin. By definition, that means fiscal policy will move in the Republican direction during the next two years. That’s the democratic process. The extent of the shift is what negotiation is about. Each side has its own set of tools at its disposal.
… if there’s one thing ‘regular order’ is not about it’s the kind of debt ceiling hostage taking Republicans now believe and want others to accept as a normal part of the legislative and particularly the legislative budgetary process. That’s not negotiation. That’s extortion. Do what we say or we will try to force the country into default — bankruptcy in plain terms — to force our will.
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These extortion tactics are also integrally connected to the Republican embrace of minoritarianism. Republicans were expected to win control of both houses of Congress. They hope to do that in 2024 along with the White House. If that happens, then they will be able to largely dictate federal policy on fiscal policy, abortion, health care insurance policy and most else. But that didn’t happen in 2022. They gained only a small foothold of power. But that’s not enough. With only a foothold of power at the federal level they want to be able to dictate fiscal policy, not only going forward but they actually want to reach back and change the decisions already made in the previous Congress. In other words, Republicans want the fruits of control of Congress with only a tenuous control over one chamber of Congress.
That last is very important. Republicans believe that regardless of the narrowness of their win, when they are in the majority in either house of congress, or in the White House for that matter, they are entitled to enact their entire agenda by any means possible. They claim a “mandate from the American people” as if the rest of us don’t exit. (This is similar to the braindead rioters on January 6th screeching “this is my house!” when they rampaged and ransacked the Capitol, as if it belongs to them personally and isn’t shared by the rest of the American people.)
Some of them literally don’t seem to know that winning a vote in the House requires a Senate vote and a presidential signature to become law:
No, they didn’t fire 87,000 IRS agents. That’s just a ridiculous lie. They not only didn’t “fire” 87,000 IRS agents, the party line House vote that will not become law only rescinded funding for future IRS hires — most of whom would not be “IRS agents.” But whatever. In GOP Bizarro World they just put 87,000 people out of work and they’re bragging about it. And note Lindsey Graham standing there clapping like a trained monkey even though he knows very well that it’s a ridiculous lie.
Minoritarian rule is almost by definition authoritarian. It certainly isn’t democracy. Sadly, these people have been schooled in this a number of time over the past 30 years now but the old guard refuse to admit they screwed up and the new guard has to learn the lesson for themselves. (They don’t read much…)
So here we are. Everyone needs to send out strong vibes to the Biden administration not to budge. You cannot count on them refusing to take yes for an answer as they have in the past. If you give this particular bunch of legislative terrorists an inch they’ll take a mile.