Member Newsletter
While you were out honoring America’s fallen or just honoring your need for a good cookout, I was dutifully blogging away about the Biden-McCarthy debt ceiling and budget deal that’s set for a vote in the House tomorrow evening. You can scroll through the various Editor’s Blog posts I did over the long weekend. But let me summarize here what I think are the main takeaways.
We start with an article of faith that you can’t run a government by extortion and episodic games of chicken over the outdated and likely inoperative/unconstitutional debt ceiling. Joe Biden agreed to negotiate over the debt ceiling after months of insisting he wouldn’t. Things got even worse when he appeared to unilaterally rule out any of the extraordinary measures which were his only cudgel in such a negotiation. But then something weird happened: he got a better deal than almost anyone thought possible.
It’s not that Republicans got nothing. They got a freeze on 2024 spending at roughly 2023 levels and then a 1% increase in 2025. Defense and Veterans spending are allowed to grow at Biden’s proposed levels. Social Security and Medicare, as non-discretionary spending, are exempted too. They also got their work requirements. But only with respect to a very narrow slice of the population: Able-bodied people with no children between ages 50 and 54 for SNAP and TANF. Biden also agreed to trim $10 billion off that $80 billion for the IRS, but that $10 goes to shoring up social spending from the spending freeze.
So, no, it’s not that Republicans got nothing. But in the context of a debt-ceiling hostage taking, House Republicans and Kevin McCarthy basically got jack. It’s the deal you would expect if there never would have been a debt-ceiling hostage taking and the two sides would have had a normal budget negotiation in the fall.
And here’s the key part of the deal. It’s structured in a way that Republicans don’t get a second bite at that apple during budget negotiations this fall. And that’s it. The hostage is back with its family and it’s safe until at least 2025.
We shouldn’t forget that the incubus of debt ceiling parliamentary terrorism is still there and it’s going to need to be vanquished. Biden didn’t get that done. He could face it again in 2025. But somehow he managed to stiff the Republicans anyway.
What only became clear over the last 24 hours is how getting stiffed on his debt ceiling hostage taking might have ended up working for Kevin McCarthy too. I get into that in this post and this one. And that leads us to our topic in today’s Backchannel: What about Donald Trump?
The Fascist That Didn’t Bark
Originally Published: May 30, 2023 12:50 p.m.
If all goes according to schedule, the Biden-McCarthy deal will go to a vote tomorrow evening. Yes, we see this or that member complaining, perhaps a dozen or two either announcing or signaling their opposition. So far though it’s all quite low energy — far more performative and box-checking than any true effort to scuttle this deal or punish its author. There is of course one person who on his own could potentially change the dynamic: Donald Trump.
It’s very noteworthy that so far, as far as I can tell, he’s said basically nothing. I don’t think that’s because it escaped his notice. He could definitely still jump in. But there’s very little time left and he’s already had upwards of a week.
Here are a few points to keep in mind.
Point #1: Kevin McCarthy is the Tom Wambsgans of House speakers. He is craven, completely bereft of dignity and up for any humiliation you have on offer. I don’t want to do any spoilers. But you know how he ended up. McCarthy has remained very close to Trump and it’s likely paying off here. By “close” here I simply mean always in touch. There have been a handful of reports through this process that McCarthy had phone chats with Trump during the deal making. Needless to say, if he’s managed to keep Trump on side, that will be a big advantage for him.
Point #2: It goes without saying that Trump couldn’t give a crap about any of this. Trump’s guiding star is always his own personal benefit. But some issues still have more traction than others. Whether that’s because he actually has some residual concern for them or just recognizes they are important to his political brand is irrelevant for these purposes. Fiscal policy, debt and deficits matter to him least of anything. So there’s no need for Trump to get involved here. If it looked like it were sinking on the right he’d definitely jump in to get a piece of it. But other than that he simply may not care. The risks of intervening are also real even though there’s not a lot of upside.
Point #3: It had occurred to me that DeSantis might be the one to come out against this rather than Trump. There’s a certain logic to that. He’s literally a Freedom Caucus guy. It’s more authentic to him. It could be a way to distinguish himself. But that’s not happening either.
Point #4: One point is staring us in the face. This Republican Party cares a lot less about fiscal policy than even the old GOP. The post-1970s GOP was always opportunistic and hypocritical about spending and debt. These days, though, they barely care about it enough to manage the hypocrisy. Consider DeSantis: that whole terrain of politics is totally absent from his presidential pitch. To the extent the current GOP wants to re-form the federal government the energy is entirely on purging it of non-conservatives, Deep Staters and the like. Authoritarian politics, anti-BLM and gender culture war politics, the border. Those are the Republican issues. A necessary though not sufficient explanation of how McCarthy seems able to sell this agreement is that basically no one in the GOP actually cares about the thing they were demanding.