President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are each loudly proclaiming victory for the deal they finally reached over the weekend to raise the debt ceiling.
But let’s be honest: this eleventh-hour compromise was as inevitable as it was depressing, with no real winner, and only one big loser: the American people.
As the day of “default” in early June drew closer, both sides used the usual tightrope strategy.
McCarthy insisted Democrats need to be realistic about runaway government spending. Biden boldly asserted that he would not negotiate under any circumstances. Neither side seemed likely to budge.
But on Sunday, details of a deal did emerge. And, really, although 99 pages long, the deal document is just over $4 trillion in splurge – with a few paltry cuts on the side.
Subject to the passage of this bill, we will see the debt ceiling suspended for the next two years. While early estimates calculate that the agreed budget cuts will total $55 billion next year – and $81 billion in 2025.
President Joe Biden (right) and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (left) each loudly proclaim victory in the deal they finally reached over the weekend to raise the debt ceiling.
This may seem significant, but when compared to the projected $4 trillion increase in the national debt (already $31 trillion) that this deal will precipitate, one begins to realize that the ” concessions” won by McCarthy are less a drop in the ocean than a drop in the infinity pool.
Let’s not forget that Biden wrote off as collateral damage some $7 billion worth of US weapons left behind after his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Clearly, he’s a man indifferent to such meager sums.
It’s also worth putting this new deal in the context of President Obama’s agreement in 2011 to support some $2.4 trillion in cuts to raise his debt ceiling – albeit with an extended timeline. reductions over a decade.
Surely Florida Governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis was right to add his voice to the growing number of worried congressional conservatives on Monday.
“After this deal, our country will continue to head toward bankruptcy,” DeSantis said.
And he’s right: The US economy is already burdened by the highest interest rates in a decade and is looking down the barrel of a potentially catastrophic recession. Increased spending is the last thing we need.
But can you really blame McCarthy? After all, the odds were not in his favor.
Without the Senate or the White House, Republicans have just a nine-vote advantage in the House — the tightest margin in the same number of decades. While in 2011, the Democrats, under Obama, suffered the biggest electoral defeat in more than 60 years.
Florida Governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis was right to add his voice to the growing number of worried congressional conservatives on Monday. “After this agreement, our country will continue to head towards bankruptcy,” he said.
This agreement should add 4,000 billion dollars to the national debt (already 31,000 billion dollars).
Now, McCarthy has gotten a few goodies in the goodie bag for the GOP, including an increase in the age limit on work requirements for some welfare programs from 49 to 54. There is also the promise of accelerated approval for a 303-mile gas pipeline between the red states of Virginia and West Virginia.
$21 billion was also taken from the giant new $80 billion Internal Revenue Service (IRS) budget passed last year, primarily intended to hire tens of thousands more officers to audit the taxes of citizens – or, as Senator Ted Cruz put it, “to harass Americans”. .’
It comes as the IRS faces allegations of whistleblower bias in the Hunter Biden tax evasion investigation and a heightened perception of institutional intolerance toward conservatives.
Although, as Congressman Dan Bishop joked on Sunday, “There will be 1685454613 be 85,260 more IRS agents instead of 87,000 to eat you alive. Great victory.’
Admittedly, it all looks like mighty little potatoes. And the problem is, we can’t escape the fact that the American people are grappling with another Biden-fantasyland budget that will continue to inflate the Thanksgiving parade balloon of crushing debt.
And it’s not like making a deal was McCarthy’s only choice. He could have told Biden it was his way or the highway – forcing the nation into default.
But it’s hard to see that Republicans would have been rewarded by the public for causing such a crisis – even if the intentions were noble. Moreover, the majority of GOP members wanted a deal.
Ultimately, most of the public’s anger should be directed at the Democrats – who are now sickeningly celebrating another financial albatross to bear for the American people.
A graph produced by the Congressional Budget Office in February, projecting the rise in federal debt.
It’s not like making a deal was McCarthy’s only choice. He could have told Biden it was his way or the highway – forcing the nation into default.
Biden’s track record with the public purse has been abysmal. And such planned future spending represents economic illiteracy at best – and sheer contempt for this nation at worst.
The main lesson for Republicans should therefore be the need to win the election – the need to take back the Senate, the White House and to obtain real majorities in Congress.
It’s been three decades since Bill Clinton ran his first presidential campaign under the simple banner that the key to electoral success is: “The economy, stupid.”
Anyone who doesn’t want to see America decimated under the weight of Biden’s multi-trillion dollar debauchery should hope that every Republican running in 2024 memorizes this mantra.
