Because Republicans are not offering any concessions to the Democrats’ policy program but merely agreeing to forego forcing an economic calamity, they have no reason to moderate their demands.Īnd even if President Biden folds, the same kind of extortion will be back next year, because House Republicans are offering only a modest increase in the debt limit. In normal negotiations, each side stops when the price of additional concessions from the other side exceeds those concessions’ value. This bears no resemblance to Democrats trading spending cuts for Republicans’ agreement to upper-income tax increases or COVID-19 relief deals where Republicans accepted expanded unemployment compensation in exchange for wide-ranging business subsidies. Republicans do not claim to want a default they instead demand sweeping concessions to vote for something they say they support. President Trump said “I can’t imagine anybody using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge.” But when a Democrat is president, Republicans start making demands.Įven more remarkably, unlike any normal kind of negotiations, debt limit deals do not involve the parties trading things that each other wants. Democratic leaders insist that a default is contrary to the national interest and vote for unconditional debt limit increases even when the added debt came from Republican legislation that they had opposed. For starters, they never occur when Republicans control the White House. Nor are negotiations over the debt limit the least bit normal. And Section 4 of the 14th Amendment states that “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law … shall not be questioned,” which bars any law from interfering with the Treasury’s ability to make payments Congress has authorized.
No other advanced country has a debt limit that brings it periodically to the brink of default. The debt limit has haunted American politics for so long that many people have come to accept it as something normal or inevitable.
But Biden has a far better choice: eliminating the debt limit’s threat once and for all. A national default and almost certain global recession would be preferable to enactment of anything like the bizarre legislation the House passed by a single vote. We shouldn’t be surprised that President Biden’s May 9 meeting with congressional leaders produced nothing: to win the speakership on the 15th ballot, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) granted the Freedom Caucus a veto over any deal, and that far-right group has made clear it will not settle for anything short of a radical transformation of this country’s governance.
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