Please, take a breath and chill. I know that last week Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen came out and the mandatory Chicken Little that the US economy is about to go over the cliff because we hit the debt ceiling on Thursday. T’ain’t happening Dooley.
As an old fart, I’ve been through this sturm und drang more times than I can count, but oddly enough only in the last 25 years or so. Up until then, raising the debt ceiling was a congressional exercise that was as automatic as passing a bloated defense budget. It was the ovstructionalist Republicans that decided to hold the debt ceiling hostage in order to try to gain Democratic spending concessions that they couldn’t hope to get legislatively.
And sadly, in 2011 it worked. In a Mexican standoff with the GOP House, then President Obama agrees to a series of austerity measures that hamstrung US government spending, and the US economy for the next five years. Nothing breeds success like success. And so, every time the debt ceiling comes up for a raise, the GOP holds it hostage. Except;
During the Trump administration, the GOP voted three times to raise the debt ceiling without so much as a peep. What the hell happened to Pay as you go? But did the Democrats hold the debt ceiling hostage for expanded social security and medicare benefits? Of course not. Because they understood the gravity of the situation.
Look, we’re not going to crash through any ceiling on Thursday. This is a kabuki dance I’ve seen more times than I can’t count the number of ties I’ve been through this nonsense. If we get to Thursday night and Howdy Doody McCarthy is still licking his split pea nuts, then the US Treasury Department will kick in a series of what they call extraordinary measures to keep the ball rolling. Basically that means that the Treasury Department will resort to a complicated series of accounting shuck-and-jive that will keep the government churning along until some time in early June.
Just a quick tutorial in plain, simple English. Look at it this way. Say you have a $5000 credit limit on your Visa card, and you’ve maxed it out. So you go to Dollar Moolah Center, and take out a payday loan for $6000 so you can pay off your Visa and keep using it. You’ll figure out how to pay Dollar later. That’s what a debt ceiling increase is, it allows you to borrow more money to pay what you already owe.
The GOP loves to twist facts and logic to try to claim that raising the debt ceiling is giving the government access to more money to spend. Nothing could be further from the truth. Raising the debt ceiling only allows us to borrow more money to pay what we already owe on the national Visa.
Already knowing that the Treasury Department has the ability to keep the train lurching along the tracks, McCarthy is trying to put pressure on the Treasury Department to give him leverage. McCarthy wants them to use a twisted GOP formula called Discretionary Spending, which is a bullshit con for things like paying off rich shitpoke bondholders while not bothering to pay FAA air traffic controllers. Fortunately the Treasury Department already has the procedures set in stone.
My prediction is that this is where you start to look for the first use of the House discharge petition, but not right away. Kreepy Kevin is terrified of the Freedom caucus, so he’ll let us blow through the Thursday deadline, forcing the Treasury Department to act. McCarthy sold his soul to the Freedom caucus, but his power has limits. McCarthy will dick around with non negotiable demands for social spending cuts, or over the cliff we go. In due time the Democrats, with the support of the McConnell GOP will pass a clean debt ceiling increase. As Democratic the House will file a discharge petition and put it on the floor. There are 18 GOP incumbents from swing districts sitting in the House. All it takes is for five of them to sign the petition, and then vote for the bill on the floor in order to avoid fiscal disaster.
Having some experience in congressional politics, I’m betting that way more than five GOP moderate conservatives will vote to pass the debt ceiling resolution. First to flex their muscles to McCarthy to make him take them seriously, and also to provide each other with close air support to prevent reprisals later.
This unforced error is going to be McCarthy’s first major challenge as Speaker, and his first major debacle. There are more than enough moderate GOP members to buck McCarthy to keep the US from becoming a third world country on the global financial markets. And my guess is that when it’s over, either Gym Bag Jordan or Laborious MTG will introduce a motion to remove McCarthy as Speaker. But this will all take time, so just take a deep breath, sit back, and watch the mayhem unfold.
And when McCarthy is inevitably deposed, the unanswered question remains on the table: who holds the gavel next? And does anyone see the GQP being coordinated enough to get a person through? I don’t.
The fact is, this is scary to many people depending on Social Security to make ends meet. I’m retired and I draw a SS check each and every month I can remain above ground, which is why it baffles the shit out of me that so many retirees vote for republicans. If I were from another planet and I came to Earth and learned what republicans are always trying to do to two funding sources that so many retired people desperately depended on, I would conclude that no retired person would ever vote for one of them. But I’d be wrong!