Senate Democrats and Republican are working on the final details of a tentative agreement on extending the debt ceiling until December after Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) offered the temporary delay to his Democratic colleagues. Talks over the agreement went past midnight before Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) adjourned the session to continue the work later on Thursday morning.
Congress has always tinkered with the [debt ceiling, the statutory limit on amount of money the United States government is authorized to borrow to meet its legal obligations, a grand total of 78 times since 1960 - 49 times under Republican presidents and 29 times under Democratic presidents.
Hopefully, Schumer will announce the deal on the Senate floor in his usual morning remarks.
My impression is that the Senate Dem Caucus was very determined not to allow Manchin/Sinema to force them to use reconciliation. The whole notion of bending over backwards to accommodate two refuseniks at the risk of default was absurd and they made that clear to both of them. Manchin and Sinema were cornered so they used their backchannels to McConnell to cook up this deal of a 2 month delay on the debt ceiling. McConnell wanted to tie it to reconciliation. The Dem Caucus seems to have taken the Manchinema-McConnell offer and turned it to their advantage.
The Dem Caucus told Manchinema-McConnell, âno dice on reconciliationââŚever.
The Dem Caucus then told Manchinema that they will accept the 2 month delay on the debt ceiling issue but on the condition that Manchinema get to âyesâ on the BBB, not just the framework, but the whole bill. Manchinema appear to have agreed to this. Now, there arenât specific press reports confirming this point, but I am inferring this assessment based on the comments from the Senate Dems who declared âvictoryâ in this standoff. To a person each Dem said they looked forward to completing the BBB and BIF during this debt ceiling extension period. I donât think they couldâve said so without getting a commitment from Manchinema that the âyou know who twoâ would be with the caucus on this.
Manchinema accepted the terms of the caucus for two reasons: 1. They donât have to do a filibuster exception right now. Like McConnell, they hate and fear that more than anything. 2. They believe that if they get BBB done, the threat will likely go away because the purpose for issuing the threat (stopping BBB) will be moot as it will have passed into law.
The caucus was ok with this plan of a 2 month delay + passage of BBB/BIF in the interim b/c they think that either McConnell will fold on the debt ceiling threat post BBB, or, if Cruz/Lee et al try to blow things up and cause a debt default, they can lean on Manchinema to vote for a filibuster exception as they will have no choice at that point.
Whatever else the phone calls between McConnell and SineManque included, Iâll bet McConnell was really interested in testing how soft they were on modifying the filibuster to make a debt ceiling exception and didnât get a firm enough answer to risk continuing his sabotage.
I guess what is in it for McConnell is that right now the infrastructure bills really canât be tied to the debt increase because those bills havenât been enacted. The debt increase is to cover GOP spending and tax cuts. But in December, the debt increase will be all mixed up with infrastructure, giving McConnell the ability to make his usual âtax and spendâ allegations about Dems, while painting over the reality that the GOP is the âdine and dashâ party.
Though I think itâs the height (or depths) of irony that Bernie Sanders, the notorious non-team player of 2016, is the one chewing Manchinema out in public, I do think itâs valuable.
Part of the problem the Dems have had to deal with is that they let Manchinema, the Gottheimer Gang and their lobbyist friends led by Mark Penn and No Labels keep feeding narratives to Politico and the DC media about the BBB bill and the two track effort from July through mid September. They dismissed the 2 tracks, defined BIF as âgood b/c bipartisanâ and BBB as âbad b/c Dem only, big spendingâ and didnât focus on the policy or revenue neutrality. A good chunk of BBB is about correcting the iniquities of the Trump tax law but that got no coverage. They also let Manchinema stake political negotiating ground in the press which has a deterrent or chilling effect on other Dems attempting to approach them to get agreement.
That changed last week when Jayapal and Khanna took to the airwaves to put Sinema on blast and out the efforts of lobbyists to derail the BBB. Sinema didnât appear on tv, and the tv coverage > politico in terms of impact. Now, Bernie hitting Manchinema on a daily basis is providing the DC news beat with news and is preventing Manchinema from selling another pro-conservative, pro-beltway, familiar narrative of less spending = good, more spending = bad, bipartisan = good, a Dem only bill = bad. In short, Manchinema canât get a message out with cranky Bernie hollering in the corner all the time. Thatâs a good thing. To use a sports analogy, Sinema is finally facing major league pitching, and sheâs struggling at the plate. Manchin is actually leading the âyou know who twoâ to a deal w/Schumer and Schumer did a good flex this week to beat McConnell on the debt ceiling. Letâs keep it going and finish off these two bills.
But doesnât this benefit each of their 'maverick", independent status? Itâs obvious that Sinema will leave the party to become an independent but still caucus with the Democrats so any criticism from the left further boosts her independent persona and her re-election prospects. Criticizing Manchin from the left allows him to stay popular in a deep red state, he can say âsee, Iâm inside the tent pissing outâ in the vernacular of LBJ. The louder the rhetoric and the more extreme the protests the more it cements their re-election.
I wish you were right. In fact I hope you re right! But as I write this there is no deal yet on even the âcan kickingâ alternative. I saw Bernie Sanders last night going after Manchin - and doing a really good job of doing so - but why would he have done that if your terrific script was reality.
Biden is going to have to take charge, if he and the Democrats are going to deserve to be in power. I say that as someone who supported Biden from the very beginning and continued to contribute to his campaign during the darkest days of the early primaries.
What the American people expect of Congress is deal making. What they expect of their president is leadership. When the opposition party threatens to take down the American economy and everyoneâs savings and pensions, it is up to the president to prevent that. The last thing that anyone wants to hear is what Biden said: âWell, I canât prevent a default.â When the presidentâs own party canât make a deal in Congress, it is up to the president to put his deal on the table. The secret sauce isnât very secret; it includes a lot of treats for everyone that they will never get if they donât just say yes.
It is surpassingly - and beyond - frustrating that Biden doesnât take these two obvious opportunities - an unconstitutional debt limit and an ambitious economic program whose implementation is in his hands - and just go forward. Let others challenge him. So be it.
