It’s time for Joe Biden to negotiate on the debt ceiling (editor’s note: since I wrote those words he has called for a meeting with congressional leaders next week. Whether he backs off his “no negotiations on the debt ceiling” position remains to be seen).
Make no mistake, it’s understandable why the president refused to negotiate to this point. House Republicans’ insistence on tying raising the debt ceiling to other policy matters is stupid, irresponsible, and downright dangerous economically. In fact, Congress should have abolished the debt ceiling long ago. If people want to argue for spending cuts and addressing the debt, the annual appropriations process is the responsible place for doing it. Once we run up bills, we need to pay them. And negotiating with legislative terrorists who hold the country’s credit hostage to get their policy wishes fulfilled only incentivizes bad behavior.
But here’s the political reality facing Biden: if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling, and the economy collapses, it’s going to be very hard for Democrats to avoid taking most of the blame if the Senate passes no debt ceiling increase, and Biden refuses to negotiate. The House bill that passed last week is extreme and contains numerous poison pills. But it’s still something.
Moreover, explaining about legislative terrorists and what the debt ceiling actually does and why a clean increase is proper policy is complicated — it’s not going to fit into a 30 second sound bite. And as the old adage goes, when you’re explaining in politics, you’re losing. Voters also expect their presidents to do everything they can to avoid any sort of economic earthquake, and tend to blame presidents for things, because it’s easier than blaming the more diffuse 535 member Congress.
Now that’s not to say that Biden should capitulate — far from it. But he needs to be able to say to the American people, look folks (yes, anything Biden would say includes folks), I negotiated in good faith. But they wanted me to cut funding for cancer research, to take food out of the mouths of hungry Americans, to set back our path to energy independence and addressing the climate crisis, and to rip medical care away from the neediest among us. And I won’t do that. You didn’t elect me to do that, and I won’t sell out our long term well being or the Americans struggling most to appease legislative terrorists.
That’s the kind of message that won Bill Clinton the budget fight in the winter of 1995 and 1996. Paint House Republicans as cruel and heartless for targeting their budget demands at the neediest in society. This time Biden can also make them look foolish for demanding a reduction in funds for science and technology as we enter into a new Cold War type competition with China — which won’t be sparing any expenses.
If Biden can say that, even if the economy tumbles, he’s less likely to bear the brunt of the blame than if he says, “sorry I’m not negotiating, because they’re being irresponsible.” For those not immersed in the world of Washington politics, who don’t know the history of the debt ceiling, and who don’t understand that Republican comparisons to credit limits and credit cards are flat out lies, that position makes it sound like Biden is being the petulant, unreasonable one.
Now there is a caveat here: if Biden is willing to resort to extraordinary measures to head off any sort of economic cataclysm — claiming the 14th Amendment gives him authority to ignore the debt ceiling, etc — and dare the courts to block him, then his strategy may be more workable. In that case, the most likely end game is either the conservative Supreme Court sends us into default, in which case Biden says look I tried to be responsible, and they don’t care about the wellbeing of the country. Or the House impeaches Biden and he says essentially my job is to do right by the country, make bold decisions and then whatever the consequences may be, I’ll accept them.
That sort of strong leadership would be very appealing to voters.
But the key here is that Biden can only pursue his current strategy if he’s willing to do whatever it takes to fend off default. If not, then he better start negotiating — and fast since the deadline now appears to be only a month away…
Does Joe Biden have a major problem with young voters?
The New York Times recently ran a story on disgruntled young voters, who were angry and bitter at Biden’s approval of a drilling project in Alaska. The story raised the possibility of young voters staying home in 2024, which could do serious damage to Biden in battleground states. Even worse, the new Harvard Youth Poll, released last week, puts Biden’s approval rating among voters 18-29 at a lousy 36 percent.
But if one digs deeper in that poll, things aren’t nearly as bad for Biden with this crucial constituency as they might seem. The poll found that 58 percent of respondents who voted in 2020 had voted for Biden (slightly below the 61 percent that he got from young voters overall) vs. 31 percent for Donald Trump. And 66 percent of respondents overall said they would definitely or probably be voting in 2024, with another 16 percent saying they were 50-50. So there are almost certainly plenty of Biden 2020 voters who are pretty likely to vote who also probably don’t approve of the president’s performance.
Yet, far from being a problem for Biden, that’s a silver lining — one that becomes clear if one looks at the results for the issue questions in the poll. That data reveals that these voters are almost certainly not gettable for Trump or any other Republican.
To read about those answers, as well as some intriguing population shift data and what it means politically, plus my take on the Supreme Court and ethics, please consider a paid subscription. It’s only $36 per year, and it helps me afford to write more, dig up more data, and add features.
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