The lame, dysfunctional and untrustworthy Democrats should have dealt with the debt limit while they still controlled both chambers of Congress. In fact, there’s reason to believe Senate Republicans would have given them enough support to have neutered the House’s incoming crazy caucus. Did they let it slide because they feel it will help them electorally when the House Republicans hold the country hostage with unreasonable demands to gut popular programs? Or were they just too lame to get it done? Today, the House Republicans, led by the crazy caucus, seems to be on a suicide mission.
This morning, NBC reporter Sahil Kapur wrote that Speaker-in-Name-Only McCarthy has endorsed “a push by his hard-liners to demand spending cuts as part of any extension of the country’s borrowing authority,” a performative temper tantrum which will— at the very least— trigger a serious debt ceiling crisis, likely to cost the U.S. billions of dollars. Kapur raised the specter of a default and noted that “the range of consequences includes a stock market crash, a recession, higher interest rates for consumers, a weaker dollar, a U.S. credit downgrade and a government unable to meet all its obligations, from funding the military to providing Social Security benefits.”
The debt ceiling was invented in 1917 and should have been eliminated decades ago. Periodically the Republicans use it to flex their muscles at the expense of the taxpayers. It’s always politically helpful for the Democrats who come out of these showdowns looking like reasonable adults. Kapur reminded his readers that although the Republicans and right-wing media— particularly Fox— falsely portray the showdown as a vote to spend more money, “it is simply about paying bills that the U.S. has legally imposed. Congress is unique in that it regularly votes to raise spending or cut taxes, which adds to the debt, but also forces itself to vote separately on whether the country should borrow to pay those bills.” He further reported that the reactionaries “say that as part of their negotiations to allow McCarthy the speakership, it secured assurances to include major spending cuts to balance the federal budget in any debt limit increase. And to enforce that, they’ve secured other rule changes that give a small group of members [in effect acting in concert with the Democrats] the power to remove McCarthy. But Democrats, who control the Senate and the White House, are unlikely to accept those cuts. They are also opposed to granting policy concessions to lift the debt ceiling, particularly after a 2011 showdown, during Barack Obama's presidency, when a GOP House brought the U.S. to within days of economic disaster and caused a rating downgrade by Standard & Poor's for the first time.
So, what do the Republicans want. Kapur noted that “So far, there’s no specific set of demands and no document that reflects a consensus position within the party. Republicans have floated everything from budget cuts to socially conservative legislation as part of a debt ceiling increase.” In a typical move to deceive the public, McCarthy was on Fox News Sunday this past weekend whining that “the U.S. government to a spendthrift child with a credit card limit that needs to be reduced. ‘You couldn’t just keep increasing it,’ he said, calling on Biden to negotiate over spending cuts. ‘Let’s sit down and change our behavior for the good of America. Because what we’re going to do is bankrupt this country and bankrupt these entitlements if we don’t change their behavior today.’ (Social Security and Medicare are the costliest of those programs.) Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) said he wants dollar-for-dollar spending cuts for any borrowing limit increase. ‘Plus, we’ve got to make some headway with the deficit we’ve got.’ Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said he wants to cut federal spending to fiscal year 2022 levels and balance the budget over 10 years. That's a tall order: Balancing the budget in a decade would require massive spending cuts or tax hikes that lack support in Congress.”
Biden is taking the position that he’s not going to negotiate with hostage-takers and that he won’t accept any “policy strings attached to raising the debt ceiling. ‘We’re not going to do any negotiations. And it should be, again, done without conditions,’ White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Friday… Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) issued a joint statement Friday warning that a ‘default forced by extreme MAGA Republicans could plunge the country into a deep recession.’ They added: ‘Democrats want to move quickly to pass legislation addressing the debt limit so there is no chance of risking a catastrophic default.’”
And then come the mainstream conservatives, who the media consistently— and inaccurately— describe as “moderates.” The closest to an actual moderate is Bucks County conservative Brian Fitzpatrick, co-chair of the conservative, business-oriented Problem Solvers Caucus, who claimed “we will not allow our country to default on our debt… The full faith and credit of the United States is what gives us the position we hold in the world. So that’s off the table. We’re not going to default. We cannot allow ourselves to default.” His co-chair is one of the most right-wing, disliked and corrupt Democrats in the House, Blue Dog Josh Gottheimer (NJ), who is working with Fitzpatrick to solve this one, though the Problem Solvers Caucus is best known for never having solved any problems.
Fitzpatrick said Congress should “tie it to some assurances that we're going to be responsible in trying to balance our budget.” But he said he believes in a social safety net and that a 10-year timeline to end red ink is “aggressive.”
Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who sits in a district won by Biden, said Sunday on ABC’s This Week that default is “a real threat” that both parties should take seriously.
He said Republicans are determined to “control reckless spending” but should realize they cannot simply “dictate” terms to the Senate and White House. He insisted that Biden must negotiate, too: “He can’t say he refuses to negotiate. That’s a nonstarter, as well.”
Is there a way around McCarthy?
Lawmakers have discussed using a “discharge petition” if necessary. It requires a faction of House Republicans to end-run a speaker of their party— an extremely rare occurrence— and team up with Democrats to force a floor vote. If a majority of lawmakers sign it, the bill can proceed to a vote in the chamber.
Still, there are a variety of constraints to using a discharge petition.
First, it requires a bill to be stranded in committee for 30 legislative days (not calendar— and the House has only eight legislative days in February). Then it takes 218 House signatures (meaning at least five Republicans plus Democrats). Then it must sit on the calendar for seven legislative days. Then the originator can force the speaker to hold a vote within two legislative days.
Some moderate [mainstream conservative, not moderate] Republicans have kept the door open to a discharge petition. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s one of many options.”
But more conservative members say hell no.
About a week ago, Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell asked her readers to “Imagine if Republican lawmakers threatened to blow up the Washington Monument unless Democrats agreed to cut Social Security. It would be understandable if President Biden and his party refused to haggle on such abhorrent terms, and said they wouldn’t negotiate with terrorists. Pretty much the same form of extortion is happening right now, only the bomb is aimed at a different target: the global economy. And Republicans are already trying to blame Democrats for any carnage that might result.”
“Democrats,” she wrote, “have said the terms McCarthy reportedly agreed to are a nonstarter: They want a clean debt-limit increase, period. This stance seems reasonable to me. Anything related to future budgets should be negotiated in the context of those budgets and not under threat of unrelated default on past bills. The country’s creditworthiness should be considered an innocent party here, just as a beloved national monument would be… Republicans also recently suggested that if the financial system blew up thanks to their own debt-ceiling hostage-taking, that would be Democrats’ fault.”
So, will the mainstream conservatives in the Republican caucus realize that McCarthy is so controlled by the crazy caucus that they have to finally stand up— something they have never done, despite incessantly bragging that there’re more of them than there are fascists. This morning at Semafor Kadia Goba reminded her readers that “any five members can team up to block Republican leaders’ plans.” The fascists may have forced the rule of McCarthy but the mainstreamers can use it as well. “That’s why it’s worth keeping an eye on the relative moderates who are making rumblings of their own. They have the power to stall legislation or to try and get bipartisan bills to the floor through procedural workarounds— if they have the guts. She listed “five outspoken members who’ve taken on the role of quasi-spokespeople for the Mod Squad.”
• Don Bacon (R-NE)- “the first person to threaten a collaboration with Democrats if McCarthy holdouts got their way and has repeatedly warned against allowing them to drag the party to the right. He publicly admonished the group of 20 members calling them ‘terrorists’ and ‘the Taliban.’ Over the weekend, Bacon urged Democrats to negotiate over spending cuts tied to the debt ceiling vote, but warned his side to keep their expectations in check.”
• Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) was “influential in getting bipartisan support for President Biden’s infrastructure bill over strong opposition from McCarthy… [He and Gottheimer are] discussing a discharge petition— a procedural maneuver that would allow the minority to force a vote on a bill— to increase the U.S. debt limit if conservatives [the fascists] threaten default. ‘We cannot allow ourselves to default,’ he said.”
• Tony Gonzales (R-TX) “was the sole Republican to vote against the new rules package, arguing concessions meant to appease HFC holdouts gave the right flank too much power and could impact military spending. Gonzales, whose massive border district is majority-Hispanic, has also warned the caucus against pursuing ‘anti-immigrant’ legislation.
• Nancy Mace (R-SC) “rose to prominence after January 6th with her cable news condemnations of the party’s most MAGA members and has frequently called out Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (‘batshit crazy’ via emojis), Lauren Boebert (her ‘racist tropes’ against Ilhan Omar were ‘disgusting’) and Matt Gaetz (‘fraud’) in unusually personal terms. A rape survivor who talks openly about her experience, she’s also made headlines by warning Republicans not to overreach on abortion by imposing bans without exceptions for rape or incest. Mace’s critics have questioned her willingness to follow through. She threatened to break with the party on the rules package this month over “backroom deals,” but ultimately voted yes, and went on MSNBC to criticize an early series of votes on abortion, even as she voted for them. Mace has said her critique is less about individual bills, than emphasis: She wants leaders to focus on legislation that can actually pass the Senate.
• Mike Lawler (R-NY) "has been less outspoken than the rest, but the freshman has emphasized his eagerness to work with Democrats. 'Obviously, in this split government, we're looking to get things done,' Lawler told Semafor in an interview. Lawler bested former DCCC former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney to clinch a seat in Central New York, giving him one of the most Democratic-leaning seats in the majority— and a target for Democrats to pressure on key votes. His seat on the House Financial Services Committee could make him a key go-between with Wall Street as the debt ceiling fight heats up."
The problem with these 5 and the rest of the mainstream conservative Republicans in the House is that they are totally all bark, no bite. Andeven referring to their sounds as a "bark," instead of a whimper, is being overly generous.
