Jun.01

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Debt-Ceiling Bill Advances

Not everyone is happy with the debt-ceiling bill, to say the least. However, Joe Biden and his team managed to accomplish the two things necessary to consummating a deal: (1) allow Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and the members of his conference to save face, while (2) actually giving up relatively little. And so, the bill passed the House yesterday, and by a more comfortable margin than expected.

The first step to passing the bill was a procedural vote to take up the bill. That passed, albeit with many defections from both sides, 241-187. The vote to begin debate is normally a formality, but opponents of the bill were doing absolutely everything possible to kill it, while Democrats were additionally working to highlight dysfunction in the Republican conference. In the end, only 29 Republicans voted "nay" on beginning debate while 52 Democrats voted "yea."

The next step was the debate on the bill itself, which was fairly anticlimactic. Everyone in the room knew, by that point, that the bill was surely going to pass. So, the "debate" was really just an opportunity for some posturing, and for some members to get sound bites (and video bites) to post to their websites for the folks back home. When it was time to vote, the Democrats initially held back, so that Republicans would be compelled to commit to supporting the bill. Once most Republicans had cast their votes, the Democrats sprang into action. When the dust had settled, 165 Democrats and 149 Republicans voted yea (against 46 and 71 nays, respectively). The nays are listed here, for any reader who is interested. It's largely who you would expect, namely the Freedom Caucusers and much of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Among the (slight) surprises are the nay from Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who is progressive but is also usually a good soldier, and the yea from Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who is a Freedom Caucuser, but has somehow become president of the Kevin McCarthy Fan Club.

Consistent with the "save face for McCarthy" side of things, the Speaker did some crowing about his success, declaring: "I have been thinking about this day since before my vote for speaker because I knew the debt ceiling was coming. I wanted to make history." And some in the media have embraced that perspective. The Hill's headline, for example, was "House passes debt ceiling bill in big win for McCarthy." Reuters went with "McCarthy's moment: Debt ceiling win secures Republican US House speaker's standing." Or Newsweek, which had "The Winner of the Debt Ceiling Deal Is Undoubtedly Kevin McCarthy." You get the picture.

We would agree that it's a victory for McCarthy in the sense that the Speaker got painted into a corner, primarily by the right-wing elements in his conference, and then somehow managed to escape. But if we talk about the actual effects of the bill, well, it is clear that Joe Biden, who first arrived in the Senate when McCarthy was 8 years old, ran circles around the Speaker. On Monday, we ran a list of the key aspects of the deal. Let's look at that list again, this time with comments added, now that details are more clear:

• [The deal] suspends the debt ceiling to get past the 2024 elections, something Biden had demanded.
  
  Comment: This was absolutely key for Biden; he could not allow Republicans to hold the debt ceiling hostage right now, and then to do the same thing again next year. And under the terms of the deal, this problem is solved. The next time anyone has to think about this, there will be a new Congress, one in which the House may well be controlled by the Democrats.
  
  
• It freezes federal spending that had been on track to grow (but will not lower it in actual dollars).
  
  Comment: As we've noted a couple of times already, there is nothing binding about this, and future Congresses (or even this Congress) could decide not to abide by the caps that have been agreed to. Also, freezing federal spending is not the same thing as cutting federal spending.
  
  
• It extends work requirements for food stamp recipients aged 50-54 but expands access for veterans.
  
  Comment: The bill also expands access for homeless people, as it turns out.
  
  This item was an absolute must-have for Republicans in both chambers. And they got it, in a manner of speaking. However, the CBO released its analysis of the bill yesterday, and it projects that the number of people receiving federal aid will actually grow by about 78,000 people. If the goal is to reduce the number of people on the dole, this would not seem to be the way to go about doing it.
  
  
• It claws back $30 billion in COVID relief money that hasn't been spent yet.
  
  Comment: A win for the Republicans, no doubt, but no real skin off of the Democrats' back. Also, $30 billion is a drop in the bucket as compared to the overall budget, and it's a drop in the ocean as compared to the national debt.
  
  
• The amount of new money IRS gets for enhanced enforcement will be reduced from $80 billion to $60 billion.
  
  Comment: See below for more, but the short version is that this is a talking point, and isn't actually on paper. There will be ample opportunity for the Democrats, if they regain the trifecta (or if they negotiate in the future) to restore the funding. In the meanwhile, the IRS—which knows a few things about bookkeeping tricks—can move money around if need be. Remember, this is additional money, above and beyond the normal budget.
  
  
• It speeds up the environmental reviews for certain energy projects (to make Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WV, happy).
  
  Comment: A win for the Republicans, albeit one instigated at the demands of a Democrat, as we noted in the original item. Of course, anything that can help Manchin get reelected is not really a win for the red team.
  
  
• The military and veterans get a bit more money.
  
  Comment: A slight win for the Republicans, though again, not one that entails any sacrifices on the part of the Democrats. Also, the Democrats can now also crow: "We're pro military."
  
  
• Some "creative accounting" is used to cover up what will actually happen.
  
  Comment: This is also key. McCarthy and other Republicans can bandy about big numbers, asserting that their game of debt-ceiling brinksmanship will result in cost-cutting in the trillions of dollars. But that requires future Congresses to abide by the deal, which they have no obligation to do, and which they are unlikely to do. For the 18 months remaining in the current session of Congress, if the Republicans stick to their guns (no sure thing, since everyone likes to hand out money), then the cost-cutting is around $150 billion. Nothing to sneeze at, but still a small fraction of the federal budget and an even smaller fraction of the national debt.

It seems pretty clear to us the Speaker got rolled here. That is presumably why more Democrats voted for the bill than did Republicans, despite the fact that it was the work of a Republican speaker. And we're not the only ones who think this way. For example, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who voted against the bill, told reporters:

There were more votes from Democrats than there were Republicans and I think, the far left know, the progressives know how good of a deal they got tonight. This was not a compromise. Republicans got very little. We're adding $4 trillion of debt over the next two years, there's no cap on the debt limit itself, on the debt ceiling, and you know, we're expanding and growing government welfare. That's what happened tonight.

Note that Mace is not a Freedom Caucuser, so this isn't just sour grapes.

Next, the bill heads to the Senate, where there is some grumbling from Senate Democrats, while some of the usual suspects on the Republican side (ahem, Rand Paul, R-KY) have made clear they will insist on time-wasting show votes, so as to make some valuable point that will soon be forgotten. The ostensible drop-dead day is Monday, and the senators don't love to give up their weekends, so we suspect there will be tolerance in that chamber for roughly 36 hours of nonsense before the bill is passed sometime tomorrow afternoon or evening.

As to the House, it will be very interesting to see what happens next. Rightist Republicans got almost nothing they wanted. The hostage is not going to be shot and they got table scraps in return for not shooting it. That certainly is not what they had in mind when the process started. They might just take revenge on McCarthy by introducing a motion to vacate the chair. The only real problem with that is that they don't have a plausible alternative who can get 218 votes in the House. Also, as we've noted, it's entirely possible there is a deal in place to protect McCarthy with Democratic votes. On the whole, the blue team would like to see McCarthy gone and would like there to be as much chaos as is possible on the other side of the aisle. But if Biden had to promise that the Speaker would keep his job as part of the deal that was cut, it's plausible that enough Democrats would sign up to provide that "grease."

It's also possible that McCarthy will take from this a lesson that bipartisan dealmaking is a heck of a lot easier than "keep the crazies happy" dealmaking, especially since the Senate and White House are controlled by the members of the other party, and not the crazy elements of McCarthy's party. If this does cause the Speaker to rethink his overall legislative strategy, then this experience might end up as a much bigger win for him than it is as the moment.

One other bit of news that is not directly related to the debt-ceiling bill, at least officially, and yet is almost certainly directly related to the debt-ceiling bill. Tucker Carlson managed to get nothing out of the 1/6 footage, and is now out of a job. Yesterday, McCarthy opened up the footage to three more pro-Trump pundits—the kooky Julie Kelly, the even kookier John Solomon, and a third person whose identity is not yet known, but who is likely kooky. Do you think it's a coincidence that this decision just happened to be announced by the president of the McCarthy Fan Club, on her Twitter account, at a time when all the attention is on the debt-ceiling bill? Us either. (V & Z)