you know you’ve played things well when both q and lgbtq are inclined to boycott you for caving to the other side.
@djc @SteveRoth yes, i don’t think it’s too far-fetched to inagine sources suggested certain options remain sensitive and they’d prefer not polarzing the discussion prematurely.
@djc @SteveRoth yes. i think people are disappointed because it feels like they aren’t playing to win with legal tools, but i think they view this primarily in political terms. they could “win” legally very quickly, but if Rs can successfully spin it as illegitimate overreach and irresponsible governance, they’ll lose next year. so they need to set up those kinds of “optics”.
@djc @SteveRoth like all this stuff, it might be wishful thinking on my part, but i’d note the administration also hasn’t mentioned this option, where they’ve mentioned most of the others to cast shade on them. makes me wonder if they aren’t keeping it in their back pocket.
“I think my conservative colleagues for the most part support Limit, Save, Grow, & they don't feel like we should negotiate with our hostage.” —Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) https://twitter.com/josephzeballos/status/1661080044498812928
// i hope they speak the quiet part louder and louder. i hope they revel in it like Scrooge McDuck swimming in gold.
"whichever course of action Biden chooses, we should be clear that he has other options than agreeing to crack the whip against America’s poor." #MattBruenig https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2023/05/23/the-debt-limit-situation/
“If Treasury today issued $1,000 bonds paying 8% or 10% interest, at whatever price the market’s willing to pay, it gets a lot more than $1,000. But the “national debt” only increases by $1,000, the “face value” of the bonds…Money to pay the bills, without increasing the national debt. It could make the debt-limit silliness simply immaterial and moot, forever.” @SteveRoth on Treasury selling premium bonds. https://mastodon.world/@SteveRoth/110414015390778669
@StefanThinks that’s outrageous!
@rst i agree that n-dimensional chess games in US politics usually turn out to be just wishful thinking. and i am definitely wishful thinking. but we’ll soon see if it’s just that.
if Biden really does pretty fully cave (can McCarthy afford anything less, which would mean Democrats stepping in to provide the votes the freedom caucus withholds?), what would be left of him politically? if extortionists win, in his own coalitions’ eyes, it’s like letting Russia win. it emboldens the worst people.
@curtosis the loons have enough leverage in the party to force the party as a whole into outright lunacy. therein resides the danger, and the opportunity.
@dpp i want to say that the puritans have some pretty unrecognizable descendants — i mean, the prototype Republican caudillo has his lawyers pay hush money to porn stars but only cares about keeping it quiet until the election.
but there is some continuity. look at the witch hunts and moral panics!
@LouisIngenthron yes, but i'm pretty sure the context was a budget impasse, not a debt ceiling standoff.
@LouisIngenthron failing to pass a budget provokes a soft "shutdown". government workers get furloughed, services get bare-boned, people get mad and madder over time.
failing to raise the debt ceiling, though, provokes people not getting paid what they are owed, for work they do or have done, or for US debt that they hold. it's a harder cliff.
@LouisIngenthron i'm not sure a government shutdown (as the Republicans sometimes foolishly talk themselves into during budget negotiations) is an option on the table here. i think it relies on statute that allows debt payments and "essential operations" or "skeleton staffs" to continue to operate if no budget is passed, but there's not something like that for the debt ceiling. 1/
@LouisIngenthron if i'm right (i may not be!), then the only path to avoid a debt ceiling breach without an overt Treasury default becomes "payment prioritization" — the government pays some bills, but not others.
and that may be the plan! if Republicans can be painted as unreasonable enough, the President might get away with overtly nonpaying things Republicans especially prioritize while holding Treasury debt and Democratic priorities harmless. 2/
@LouisIngenthron under ordinary circumstances, a Democrat would not be allowed to get away with using overt, discretionary executive power to favor their own coalition.
Trump did it openly, but the press demands Democrats be institutionalists, while it expects Republicans to be manly caudillos whose hypocrisies and hard-ball are right and natural. 3/
@LouisIngenthron but if the negotiations can make the Republicans look aggressive enough, perhaps they can get away with it as an aggressive defense. (and how could the Supreme Court respond? they won't want to do the legally right thing, which would be to invalidate any prioritization, because *pro rata* nonpayment would default Treasuries. if stiffing some but not others must be legal, are the Supremes going to claim the right to micromanage who gets the shaft? /fin
but what about the Supreme Court? worries Ezra Klein. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/21/opinion/biden-mccarthy-debt-ceiling.html won't they just declare the workaround unlawful, leaving Biden to own the chaos for doing something novel?
that is precisely why it's so important to set up the republican negotiators as unreasonable extortionate goal-post movers. because a partisan Court must worry that they and the party they serve will own the chaos rather than the administration. 2/
no one wants to own the chaos.
and killing the debt ceiling after a breach is much, much worse than, say, also arguably illegal payment prioritization before a breach. it would invalidate lots of debt that will already be in (wealthy) private parties' hands.
existing US Treasury instruments go poof! is about the clearest path to calamity. Would an unpopular Supreme Court defending what the public perceives (if the admin plays this well) as extortionate brinksmanship really do that? /fin
positing 11-dimensional chess to explain US politicians' choices is a losing game, usually.
with that as caveat, i think the biden administration's strategy is to tempt republicans into a set of demands that can be portrayed to the public as unreasonable and extortionate.
that creates *political* justification to defang the debt ceiling, using any of the variety of technical and legal workarounds available (and probably the ones Biden hasn't publicly discussed at all so far). 1/
in retrospect it feels like someone hit fast-forward.
expansionary austerity is just taxing the rich.
@johnefrancis the wealth of the ultrarich places very little pressure (in per-dollar terms) on the inflation constraint, so yay #MMT the state has lots of room to spend.
unfortunately the wealth of the ultrarich weighs very heavily on influence of the state.
so despite the theoretical liberty that comes with state-as-currency-issuer, it becomes difficult for states to act in ways that would upset the general enslavement upon which the privileges of the rich depend.
@jmalonzo sure, the rich do what they can to make sure the tax burden falls as heavily as possible on the poor and middle class, in order to keep taxes unpopular.
but look at it this way: the greater the tax take the government demands, the more it must necessarily fall upon the rich. that’s where the money is!
the rich use their influence to try to insist before it hits us it will hit you! you should hate taxes too!
because they know a high tax state must mostly tax them.
a structural weakness of the Democratic Party relative to the Republican Party is the difference in how corruption is perceived.
corrupt Republicans are bold, cigar-chomping caudillos, unapologetic winners who can’t be bothered with your whining.
but Democrats are always on about “Democracy” and “institutions” and “rule of law”. they can’t embrace corruption like a winner, so their indulgings come off as cagey, hypocritical, obvious but pedantically denied, weak.