Unlike debt limit talks of the past, the Democrats may find that they aren’t going to be able to strong-arm, threaten, cajole or shame the current House Republicans into making any stupid deals with them.
The conservatives in the House have already proved that “business as usual” isn’t going to continue anymore when they used their power during the vote for Speaker of the House. So I’m guessing they’re going to make trouble for the Democrats and the RINOs as they all try to move ahead with debt limit negotiations.
At issue is the Federal Government needing to raise the debt ceiling [1] because they won’t quit their out-of-control spending. The limit was reached in January when it hit $31.4 trillion and has been raised 80 times in the past (big surprise, right?!)
The Dems are gonna want a clean bill to raise the debt ceiling but the GOP is likely to put restrictions on things i.e. spending cuts. The President and the Dems, of course, don’t want to negotiate anything reasonable like that.
Currently, Speaker McCarthy is blasting [2] Biden for being AWOL on the topic. He has called him “missing in action” and said he needs to “drop the partisanship, roll up our sleeves and find common ground on this urgent challenge [3].”
In a letter to Biden, Speaker McCarthy says, “With each passing day, I am incredibly concerned that you are putting an already fragile economy in jeopardy by insisting on your extreme position of refusing to negotiate any meaningful changes to out-of-control government spending alongside an increase of the debt limit” and McCarthy says that Biden’s position could hold “dire ramifications for the entire nation.”
Usually, the strategy for the Dems is to ignore everything until the last minute, accuse the Republicans of wanting to kill old people, tank the economy and not fund Social Security and Medicare – and then the Republicans vote for whatever the Democrats want. But that strategy might not work this time, even with the leftist media helping them out.
On the positive side, if the Dems don’t agree to the Republican’s spending cuts, then they cannot incur more debt and that’s good for everyone. A WIN for our side. That means, we have the upper hand in this fight for a change.
Whether the Republicans realize that – and actually use their power – is debatable.