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When the GOP threatens to blow the economy to smithereens, Democrats should believe them [1]
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Date: 2022-12-01
The whole of the Democratic conference isn’t so blasé about this. “I’m extremely concerned,” Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA) told Greg Sargent at the Washington Post. “We must do this now. If we don’t, we’ll come to deeply regret it.”
How they do it is with budget reconciliation, which is still available to Democrats and which is not subject to the filibuster. Republicans couldn’t block it. According to three Democratic aides Sargent spoke with, the problem with that is a depressingly familiar one: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Those two would consider using the tactic too “partisan.”
So by this theory, it’s not too partisan for Republicans to threaten to blow the economy to smithereens in order to get what they want—Social Security cuts—but using a legitimate process to neutralize that threat is partisan. These two people have become a dangerous parody of themselves here. Either that or leadership is using them as an excuse not to do the hard work of pushing a budget reconciliation through in the next four weeks—because it is hard work. But doable.
In fact, Manchin and Sinema both signed onto a simple-majority vote process for dealing with the debt ceiling last time around. Force them to do it again, by taking away their vacation if necessary. The stakes were high then, but not nearly as high as they are now. Republican economic terrorists are going to be in control of the House starting Jan. 3. They’ll do this, and the Senate Republicans will go along with it.
Again, you have to ask, have Democrats been paying any attention at all to those people? Sargent’s sense is that Democrats “relish a showdown with Republicans over pending efforts to use the debt ceiling to cut entitlements.” They did, after all, emerge with some political wins from all those previous fiscal showdowns. But they also did some real economic damage, making concessions that cut the legs out from under agencies like the IRS and the Social Security Administration, not to mention forcing austerity when it was entirely unnecessary.
Letting the Republicans play brinksmanship games like this only encourages them to do it more—obviously, because here we fucking are. The other part of this is that the House Republicans are perfectly capable of letting the country go into default just to see what would happen. Or out of incompetence, because that’s the one thing that they’ve got in abundance. This isn’t a rational set of actors whose primary objective is to be responsible lawmakers. They’re maniacs.
The good news is that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is making noises about keeping the Senate in “morning, noon, and night.” The bad news is it’s not about ending the debt ceiling threat. It’s about averting the rail strike, which is also necessary. “The Senate cannot leave until we get the job done,” he said Thursday. As long as they’re there, do the debt ceiling. The nation begs you: Give us two years of peace on at least that front.
Raphael Warnock needs all the support he can get to help our Democratic majority in the Senate. Chip in $5 today to his runoff campaign.
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