There are four components of the debt ceiling situation that worry me:
1) There's a faction in the House that thinks default is not big deal, and all the talk of financial catastrophe is just deep state / George Soros propaganda;
2) There's a faction in the House that thinks default is a good thing, and a great opportunity to clean house (…
There are four components of the debt ceiling situation that worry me:
1) There's a faction in the House that thinks default is not big deal, and all the talk of financial catastrophe is just deep state / George Soros propaganda;
2) There's a faction in the House that thinks default is a good thing, and a great opportunity to clean house (pun not intended);
3) I doubt Kevin McCarthy is intelligent or adept enough to negotiate a deal that he can get through his caucus;
4) The Democrats have done an awful job of making the distinction between raising the debt ceiling versus budget negotiations over revenue & spending (Biden't cutesy little diagram about VA benefits just plays into the GOP strategy of muddling the issues)
I doubt very much the current GOP caucus will approve any deal acceptable to the Democrats. The only way out of this is to get McCarthy to permit a vote (or somehow force a vote over his objections) in which a few sane Republicans vote with the Dems to lift it.
If it exists at all, it's a very, very small window for a deal that stands any chance in the House. And McCarthy is definitely not the guy who can do it.
There's all the crazy talk about platinum coins and the 14th amendment, which create a huge firestorm of criticism and the mainstream media will have wet-dreams about all of the *inside baseball* stories they'd be able to write.
I think the only way through this is a discharge petition, which, as I understand it, any member of the House can file and only requires a simple majority. It takes a little time to go through the necessary hoops, so I hope there's some backroom negotiating (maybe with a few Republicans who are thinking about retiring anyway) to get that process going.
There are four components of the debt ceiling situation that worry me:
1) There's a faction in the House that thinks default is not big deal, and all the talk of financial catastrophe is just deep state / George Soros propaganda;
2) There's a faction in the House that thinks default is a good thing, and a great opportunity to clean house (pun not intended);
3) I doubt Kevin McCarthy is intelligent or adept enough to negotiate a deal that he can get through his caucus;
4) The Democrats have done an awful job of making the distinction between raising the debt ceiling versus budget negotiations over revenue & spending (Biden't cutesy little diagram about VA benefits just plays into the GOP strategy of muddling the issues)
I doubt very much the current GOP caucus will approve any deal acceptable to the Democrats. The only way out of this is to get McCarthy to permit a vote (or somehow force a vote over his objections) in which a few sane Republicans vote with the Dems to lift it.
If it exists at all, it's a very, very small window for a deal that stands any chance in the House. And McCarthy is definitely not the guy who can do it.
There's all the crazy talk about platinum coins and the 14th amendment, which create a huge firestorm of criticism and the mainstream media will have wet-dreams about all of the *inside baseball* stories they'd be able to write.
I think the only way through this is a discharge petition, which, as I understand it, any member of the House can file and only requires a simple majority. It takes a little time to go through the necessary hoops, so I hope there's some backroom negotiating (maybe with a few Republicans who are thinking about retiring anyway) to get that process going.