A Debt Deal Still Seems Out of Sight

After passing their borrowing bill, House GOP leaders are betting Democrats will blink.

By
19
President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy on March 17, 2023. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

House Republicans emerged from the chamber Wednesday night, having barely passed their debt ceiling bill, with a clear message: The standoff is now in the White House’s hands.

“This is on them now,” said Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw. “We raised the debt limit. We did our job here.”

Not so fast, say Democratic leaders. 

“No, I don’t think it adds any pressure at all,” Rep. Richard Neal, the top Democrat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, told The Dispatch after the vote Wednesday night. “Their Pyrrhic victory in numbers today didn’t strike me as a mandate by any stretch of the imagination.”

This content is available exclusively to Dispatch members
Try a membership for full access to every newsletter and all of The Dispatch. Support quality, fact-based journalism.
Start Your Free Trial
Already a paid member? Sign In
19
By
Comments (19)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Mdcartw

    This is accurate: "As we’ve written to you before, some members may have been more willing to support the debt ceiling bill because it stands no chance of becoming law. They could look past their policy complaints and back their party in what they viewed as a strategic move to kickstart talks". Looking at comments below, I think it is time for the independent commission on budget tas he Problem Solvers propose.

    Collapse
  2. Avatar photo
    Ms. SSM

    I’m not feeling much pressure here. But I’m firmly in the no negotiation camp. I’m also firmly in the mint the coin or declare it void camp. Really anything other than continuing this discussion and debate over default every time. Shoot the hostage. Ignore the hostage. Mint a fake coin to pay the kidnappers. Whatever it takes so this is our last time ever having a discussion about the stupid very imaginative fake thing that is our debt ceiling.

    Collapse
  3. Avatar photo
    PJ

    Please let me know when the adults are working on the issue and then I will pay attention.

    Collapse
    1. Mdcartw

      Read about the Problem Solvers Caucus & their proposal. They were major players in the bipartisan infrastructure bill, as well as most if not all of the bipartisan bills that passed in the last session. They are made up of Democrats and Republicans who have the maturity to work together and to focus on solving problems supposed topartisan finger oh and performative drama.

      Collapse
  4. Jim S

    The Democrats just need to find a way to pass a bill, get the bills to conference committee, amend it and toss it back.

    Still not an easy lift but ultimately it will fall back on the House to decide whether or not the government stays open and pays its existing obligations.

    Edit: just once I’d like to catch those stupid autocorrects the first time around!

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Scarlette Tarte

      I feel your pain. I always have to go back and edit.

      Collapse
  5. Token Liberal

    The Democrats could have raised the debt ceiling in December, but didn't. Was this on purpose, to pick this fight, thinking it would help them in the next election?

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      J.R.

      While they could have tried, my understanding is that a debt ceiling bill, like other legislation, requires 60 votes in the Senate. Since Democrats didn't have 60 votes in the Senate, this was always going to need to be a bipartisan affair. In order to get around this requirement they would have needed to use reconciliation and sacrificed other major priorities, or received Republican support for a one-time exemption to the filibuster (like 2021).

      Collapse
    2. Avatar photo
      Marty

      Yes, the Democrat-controlled House could have passed a clean debt ceiling increase in December. It would have been dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled Senate. McCarthy's bill is also dead on arrival in the Senate because McConnell doesn't have 60 votes for it.

      Collapse
    3. Jim S

      I think they horse traded it away to McConnell to get something else passed. That is my recollection anyway because there was a plan at some point to do exactly that.

      Collapse
  6. Avatar photo
    Jonathan

    The House dysfunction has been a good story for journos and gets discussed in context of what Biden thinks. The Senate is a lot less discussed. Is the Senate already talking about the kinds of negotiations they would consider? Is anyone in the Senate taking this seriously or are they content to watch Biden fight with McCarthy?

    Collapse
  7. Avatar photo
    Barry Cope

    I think it might be helpful to put the current debt ceiling negotiations in historical context. Has there ever been a "clean" debt ceiling increase when one party did not have unified control of the presidency and both houses of congress? If both Democrats and Republicans have always tied a debt ceiling increase to something else (spending cuts, new taxes, whatever), then it would make clear that a "refusal to negotiate" is just posturing. My recollection is that congressional Democrats always ask for something when there is a Republican president and congressional Republicans always ask for something when there is a Democrat president, but I don't know for sure.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      J.R.

      A clean debt limit increase has been done, but not often recently. Politico has an useful review of the last decade's worth of debt limit fights.

      https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/06/debt-limit-flashbacks-00085493
      https://www.crfb.org/papers/qa-everything-you-should-know-about-debt-ceiling

      Collapse
    2. Avatar photo
      Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

      We could ask Biden's former boss, who had somewhat different perspectives as Senator and POTUS:

      ===begin quote===
      President Barack Obama on Thursday framed his opposition as a Senator to raising the nation’s debt ceiling as a “political vote” and said he is coming at the issue from a different approach as commander in chief.

      “That was just an example of a new Senator, you know, making what is a political vote, as opposed to doing what was important for the country. And I’m the first one to acknowledge it,” Obama told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, according to a transcript of the interview.

      ....

      Obama has warned that hitting the debt ceiling would be catastrophic, but he’s had to answer for his Senate vote when the same problem came up in 2006 during President George W. Bush’s administration.

      “I think that it’s important to understand the vantage point of a Senator versus the vantage point of a President,” Obama told Stephanopoulos on Thursday. “When you’re a Senator, traditionally what’s happened is this is always a lousy vote. Nobody likes to be tagged as having increased the debt limit for the United States by a trillion dollars or a trillion and a half, whatever the number is. And so, traditionally the president’s party … bears the burden of passing it.

      “As President, you start realizing, ‘You know what? We can’t play around with this stuff. This is the full faith in credit of the United States.’”
      ===end quote===
      link: https://rollcall.com/2011/04/14/obama-2006-debt-ceiling-vote-was-politically-motivated/

      Collapse
    3. Avatar photo
      Marty

      Trump got three clean increases, with Dem votes for all three. When the Democrats retook control of the House in the 2018 midterms, they could have demanded something in exchange for their votes on the increase, but they didn't. Republicans only care about federal spending when there's a Democrat in the White House. The deficit ballooned under Trump, but there were no Republicans calling for ficscal austerity. The only GOP spending cuts during the Trump years were to social programs Republicans don't like. And we see them now in the full glory of their disdain for the poor by demanding increased work requirements for Medicaid recipients etc.

      Collapse
  8. Avatar photo
    🐝 BusyBusyBee 🐝

    Has anyone ever considered auditing DOD for real? Maybe that would be a better place to start than cutting services for the poor and veterans, no? DOD has never passed an audit, if I remember correctly. Or maybe it’s that they’ve never actually done one. Either way, the fact that we are no longer technically at war and our defense budgets are going UP rather than down doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

    At least now, 217 Republicans are on record that they want to make cuts to programs on which their constituents rely - from SNAP to the new climate and industrial spending included in the ARP, BIP and CHIPs legislation packages.

    By giving McCarthy his “starting point” and going on
    the record saying they supported it only because it gets McCarthy “into the room” with Biden to negotiate and nothing more doesn’t seem to bode well for their continued support if My Kevin doesn’t back off on cuts that matter more in swing districts than in a ruby red gerrymandered one.

    These negotiations should be done around the budget, not for interest on the bills already accrued. But since Republicans have had so many issues getting this bill passed, what hope is there for an actual budget?

    Collapse
  9. Crs24

    If literally everything was not a game of one upmanship, perhaps something could be accomplished. We are in the throes of embarrassingly childish politicians who are proud of it.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Probably Wrong

      I also like the point that is sometimes made that this brinksmanship would be unsustainable for both parties without the Hastert Rule that requires a majority approval from the members of the majority House caucus before any bills can be passed to the floor for a broader vote, so the moderates are structurally blocked from aligning

      Collapse
      1. Horseracer

        Hastert, another name the GOP can be proud of.

        Collapse