Okay what am I missing here with Blunt’s statement. Does he think that only GOPer votes count? The Dems only need 10 Repubs and all Dems to break the odious McConnell’s filibuster of the debt ceiling right?
"Sen. Roy Blunt (R-CO) told the New York Times that “40 or 45” of his fellow Republican senators would bravely allow a vote for increasing the debt limit if their ballots weren’t public.
But that would still leave Democrats five senators short of what they need to break through the filibuster, Blunt noted."
If the Dems are smart, they’ll tie this whole debt thing to healthcare.
Tell the American people that if there’s a default, tens of millions of people will lose their health insurance (payments under the AFC), and the myriad ways government helps with healthcare will also go out the window, not the least of which is getting vaccines out (to the unvaccinated, to those who will get boosters, and soon to children down to the age of 3).
Who cares if this is speculation (but it’s not, really, if things get extreme). Let Fox news commentators rail at the very idea. But, of course, just mentioning the Affordable Care Act is a good thing, because Obamacare is very popular. You have to hit people where they live, not in some meager statements about the “full faith and credit of the United States.” That’s amorphous, difficult to define. But everyone knows about healthcare.
What cowards. They’re not only afraid of Trump, afraid of McConnell, and afraid of their own voters; they’re also afraid of the handful of their own colleagues who want to filibuster and force a crisis. I can’t think of a single thing they’re not afraid of.
Any Republican president who minted the $1 trillion coin would be hailed as a maverick, outside-the-box thinker for getting one over on the rascally Dems.
[Sen. Roy Blunt (R-CO) told the New York Times that “40 or 45” of his fellow Republican senators would bravely allow a vote for increasing the debt limit if their ballots weren’t public.]
We are so beat down with negativity from all directions that we cannot take note of the promise in the numbers “40 or 45”.
Biden is taking fuel away from the coin or other unilateral executive action, which is risky with the current Supreme Court. They refuse to start reconciliation, and with the slow timeline, it goes off the table before we hit full crisis mode.
At that point, either McConnell or Manchinema folds. McConnell drops his filibuster, perhaps with modest concessions, a decent scenario.
Better scenario is that we get a filibuster carve out, making future carve outs more likely.
Sure, we’re playing with fire, but most likely scenario is death of the republic, so a credit default ain’t no thang.
Blunt went on to state that, “…would still leave Democrats five senators short of what they need to break through the filibuster, Blunt noted.”
There’s something wrong with the math that requires !00% of the reactionary caucus to move a measure to a vote in an equally divided Senate.
h/t to @bobatkinson & @arrendis
McConnell crashing the world economy would not be good for his wife’s and her family’s business interests in China and a good part of the world. Chances are they’ll talk him off the ledge.