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What The Media and Some Democrats Have Forgotten About McCarthy's Inability To Control The House.. [1]

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Date: 2023-05-21

David Jolly brought up an important point about the debt limit hostage situation — and he did use the word “hostage” to describe what McCarthy and his ilk in the House are really trying to do. Jolly said that in about a week it will become painfully obvious that McCarthy will NOT be able to deliver Republican votes for whatever half-assed “deal” he extorts from President Biden. The media and some Democrats are under the delusion that McCarthy will be able to deliver votes to raise the debt ceiling if he obtains concessions from Biden. All the focus is on what Biden has to give up, and the House Freedom Caucus wants everything on that hostage demand they call a debt ceiling limit bill they passed.

And he is not the only one to notice this little difficulty.

From the LA Times:

Column: Kevin McCarthy’s doomed debt ceiling deal House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been strutting his stuff for two weeks since wheedling his slim majority of House Republicans to (barely) pass a bill to raise the debt limit, supposedly strengthening his hand for negotiations with President Biden and Senate Democrats to avoid a first-ever default. McCarthy should relish his victory march for now. Because that strut is about to become a slog and, ultimately, a surrender of sorts. At stake is the job he fought so hard, and sold his soul, to get. “We lifted the debt limit. We’ve sent it to the Senate. We’ve done our job,” McCarthy crowed after the 217-215 vote. Note to the speaker: You didn’t lift the debt limit, not without Senate approval and Biden’s signature, and you won’t get either of those for this bill. So, no, your job is not done. To get the job done, you will have to compromise with the Democrats.

Notice how close that vote was for the maniacs wish list for the destruction of Biden’s agenda. All it will take is for a few Republican defections to wreck any so called “compromise” with Biden. And does anyone think that there might be more than few fanatics who will vote against ANY deal made by McCarthy and Biden?

It’s a radical bill, in other words. And even with his giveaways, McCarthy lost four right-wingers’ votes; two more and he’d have failed. And yet more Republicans are sure to join the naysayers against any deal McCarthy might reach with Biden and the Senate. Some already have said so, all but ensuring that the speaker can’t pass a debt limit hike that actually will become law and not just a political statement. One hard-liner told Politico that McCarthy promised that he’d oppose any compromise that omits the right-wingers’ provisions. That’s insane. It contradicts the very definition of compromise — give and take.

And about that promise McCarthy made to the House lunatics:

THE $31.4 TRILLION QUESTION: How long will the kumbaya last? Uniting his members around a GOP-only proposal is one thing. Convincing his members to vote for a deal negotiated with a Democratic White House and Senate is another thing entirely. Already there are signs of trouble ahead. Freedom Caucus member RALPH NORMAN (R-S.C.) told Playbook that in a bid to win their support, McCarthy promised conservatives late Tuesday night that the debt ceiling bill they voted on yesterday was a floor, not a ceiling. McCarthy, he said, told them he would personally oppose and fight against any debt ceiling agreement that doesn’t include all of the red-meat provisions in the House bill. Said McCarthy spokesman MARK BEDNAR about Norman’s claim: “The speaker’s job is to fight for the House’s priorities, and the House has spoken. No one should be surprised that he’s going to fight for what the House passed.” Norman credited McCarthy’s collaborative, talk-it-out style with keeping the GOP ranks together so far. But he told us things would change quickly if McCarthy moves to water down the deal in the coming weeks: “That,” he told us, “will be a problem.” It will also be inevitable, given that Democrats will never swallow many of the provisions in the GOP bill. (Things like repealing student loan forgiveness, gutting the Inflation Reduction Act and trimming eligibility for social programs stand to be rejected outright.) “He’s going to have to eat a crap sandwich at some point,” Buck said. “And if eating that crap sandwich happens when he’s got his members fully backing him, versus when they are already nipping at him, that’s a very big difference.”

It was a floor, not a ceiling! That’s what McCarthy told Norman and the other fanatics. It’s going to be Christmas in May for the GOP!

And the leaks about what is going on in those “negotiations” are scaring the hell out of me. Here is some of the latest from Politico:

Biden aides offered what they viewed as a key concession by proposing that Congress hold flat it’s spending on defense, as well as a series of domestic programs including housing aid, education and scientific research. The White House — which earlier this year sought major increases by raising taxes — said that the adjustment would instead amount to a cut because of year-over-year inflation. But the GOP negotiators rejected the offer, instead insisting on increasing spending for the military, veterans care and border security. To then satisfy the GOP demand to slash overall spending, that would mean the resulting domestic spending cuts would have to increase dramatically to what the White House has deemed “draconian” levels. Republicans claimed that the White House negotiations — led by top Biden staff while the president is at the G-7 summit in Japan — had changed their offer. “Unfortunately, the White House moved backwards,” McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol on Saturday. “They actually want to spend more money than we spent this year. We can’t do that. We all know how big this deficit is.”

So the attacks on the GOP’s efforts to fuck over veterans appears to have made Republicans wince. So what do they do? They up the money for defense, veterans, and precious border security, while demanding more cuts from Biden and the Democrats. This was after it appears that Biden has agreed to keep government spending “flat.”

I know I feel better already at where this is headed. /s.

So let’s say that Biden does cave and give away a good chunk of the store to avoid a default. McCarthy goes back with his deal to the House fanatics, and what if they do not say, “Yes!”? This has happened before.

Many on the Democratic side like to forget that Obama was willing to cut Social Security to get a “Grand Bargain” on fiscal policy. Republicans balked because part of the Grand Bargain was raising some taxes on the wealthy. They couldn’t take the “win” that they would have made cuts to Social Security, and this has been one of their goals for decades.

The only way out of this difficulty would be for Democrats to supply any of the missing votes to raise the debt ceiling. And I can hear the media and some in the Democratic Party saying that Democrats must accept the end of the Biden Agenda to save America from default. After all, the alternative would be doing something “unconstitutional” and “unconvential” like the using the 14th Amendment.

How many Democrats do you think will go along with eviserating all they have worked for the last couple of year?

But once again, this is because most in D.C. do not want to admit that McCarthy cannot deliver.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/21/2170504/-What-The-Media-and-Some-Democrats-Have-Forgotten-About-McCarthy-s-Inability-To-Control-The-House

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