Yep, that’s my read on it as well. He needs to look like the guy who put the brakes on that CRAZY leftist spending bill, but also to look like the guy who got all that stuff that his state is really happy about, too.
“Buckle up” has to be in a tweet. You guys can’t just make me punch deez every time one of you types it!
RichVR
4293
Feeling cocky, are we? :)
Nice try! A tweet that indicates why one must buckle up.
It seems there are myriad Rules.
I think the rules were added as safeguards post election. A wise decision, honestly.
CraigM
4298
Gotta keep fresh for the big match you know.
Alstein
4300
Biden should probably publicly call out SInema/Manchin on this (not the reconciliation bill, but not nuking filibuster for debt limit)
If that doesn’t work, then you print the coin and say no more debt limits.
Menzo
4301
I’m just so annoyed by this Kabuki Theater nonsense. There is no reason this had to wait until the literal last minute. Whatever gambles Schumer and Pelosi made have failed to pay off and I’m just tired of these 11th-hour shenanigans.
I don’t “both sides” very often, but in the case of the debt limit, it’s pretty clear that both sides really are fine with risking the full faith and credit of the US to use the debt limit as a political football.
Canuck
4302
Have the Democrats recently refused to raise the debt limit?
Houngan
4303
I’m going to vote in the blind here and say “no, they haven’t.” The main reason I vote Democrat beyond the obvious social issues is that they are more fiscally responsible than the GOP, by far.
Menzo
4304
No, but what they have done is kicked the can down the road to the very last possible moment, I assume with the intent of forcing Sinema and/or Manchin to make a decision they said they weren’t going to make months ago.
Some thoughts here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-23/debt-ceiling-deadline-why-biden-democrats-are-worried-about-defaulting
It’s true that Democrats can lift the debt ceiling on their own. But politicians in both parties make elaborate contortions to avoid being seen as big spenders. For the last several years, they haven’t “raised” the debt limit—they’ve “suspended” it. “Suspension is more politically expedient, because they don’t attach their name to a big number,” says Joshua Huder, a senior fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University.
Democrats could have insisted on eliminating the debt limit as a condition of supporting Trump’s Covid bill. Or they could have included a debt-limit hike as part of their $1.9 trillion Covid-relief package in March. Or they could have employed some creative ingenuity and used the reconciliation bill to raise the debt limit so high that it ceased to be an obstacle, as Denmark has done. Or they could have employed even more ingenuity and funded the debt by instructing the Treasury to mint a $1 trillion platinum coin. But they didn’t do any of these things, for fear of the attack ads they’d face.
“No one wants to be accused of believing in unlimited debt, even though what causes debt is legislation Congress passes, not the debt limit,” says Jason Furman, the former head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under Obama and a professor at Harvard, who’s argued for repealing the debt limit. “If it wasn’t strongly bipartisan, it would have been unpopular.”
Instead, Democrats purposely left out of last month’s budget resolution anything addressing the debt limit, guaranteeing a showdown with Republicans. They’re betting McConnell and Republicans will succumb to public pressure to suspend the debt limit and avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month and a possible default. So far, however, there’s little pressure. If it doesn’t materialize, Democrats will find themselves saddled with a debt crisis once again—and at a particularly risky time for an economy still struggling to emerge from the Covid recession.
Undaunted, Democrats plan to force a Senate vote and dare Republicans to filibuster, risking a government shutdown and havoc in the economy. They will then face a tough choice: plunge into a shutdown and pray that Republicans relent or pass a reconciliation bill with Democratic votes alone that would force them to do what politicians dread and put a number on the debt.
Just mint that coin, Joe. Fix this problem that the idiots in congress haven’t been willing to fix for so long, and give Democrats cover.
Alstein
4305
There is a huge degree of difference between not doing enough, and actively trying for a default, which is what the Republicans are trying to do.
We’ll see where this goes- I have a feeling the progressives are willing to call Manchin’s bluff (and even BIden’s if necessary- make him do the platinum coin) There’s a belief in the left caucus that if they get nothing now, they’ll get nothing for a number of years- they learned a lesson from 2009-10 as well- they don’t want to repeat Obama’s mistake.
Few of these things are — practically speaking — true.
If the Dems insist on eliminating the debt ceiling to support Trump’s Covid relief bill, there is no Covid relief bill and it’s their fault. If they insist on eliminating the debt ceiling as part of Biden’s Covid relief bill, there is no Covid relief bill and it’s their fault.
Whether they could have used the last reconciliation bill to raise or eliminate the debt ceiling is an open question: do Manchin or Sinema support that bill if they do that? Probably not.
Could they mint the coin? Maybe, but in fact they have not, yet, needed to do that.
The thing to do about debt ceiling brinksmanship is to blame the people engaging in debt ceiling brinksmanship. And if you insist on finding some Dems to blame, too, pick the right ones. It isn’t these people:
Alstein
4310
I don’t think the Republicans care all that much about their donors now, it’s the base they’re worried about. can’t get kickbacks if you’re primaried out.
