Saner heads prevail. The debt limit has passed the Senate 63 to 36 and heads to President Biden for signature.
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Our stupid national nightmare is over.
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Nah…its just beginning.
Ha yes until the next time they all want to play act knowing full well a deal will be struck just in time AGAIN.
I say we strike the $30 trillion coin and start with a fresh slate.
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It was interesting to see that both the most conservative and the most liberal members of both the House and Senate voted against it.
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I expected 75 to 25. But I’ll take any passage. 63 is plenty.
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Dumb politics lost. Huzzah!
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it’s always “saner heads” when democrats get their way
The most interesting question after the dust settles on the debt limit debate is how did senile, incompetent Joe Biden win such a crushing victory over the House Freedom Caucus.
Biden and team are not crowing about the victory; probably because they need Speaker McCarthy’s support and rubbing the MAGA movement’s face in their defeat would have made it difficult to hang onto Republican votes but compared to the enormous concessions President Obama made to Paul Ryan when Biden was VP, the turnaround is stunning.
Biden made one big concession – to Democrat Joe Manchin who gets to fast track his pipeline. But that is a win for Biden too because it distances him from the most extreme pregressives in his party – useful positioning going into a Presidential election.
But what did Biden win?
• The debt ceiling is off the table until after the election
• The triggered mandatory defense cuts will make it much harder for House Republican to actually present a budget in 2024 rather than hiding behind continuing resolutions.
• $60B of the planned $80B to the enable the IRS to pursue high income tax cheats were maintained. And since the $80B was to be allocated over ten years, in the near term the program will continue
• All of the other Biden initiatives (energy policy, climate change, infrastructure, student loan relief) were preserved
What did Kevin McCarthy win?
• Basically MCarthy gave in to everything Biden wanted to secure his own political power
• He demonstrated that all the “deals” he made with The Freedom Caucus to secure his speakership are toothless.
• There have been threats that a Motion to Vacate the Chair will be made, but right now that appears very unlikely because it would probably fail
• McCarthy has shown he is willing and able to pass major legislation with Democratic help regardless of what the Freedom Caucus wants
What did the Freedom Caucus win?
• A tightening of work requirements for SNAP recipients in their fifties – a majority of whom in red states are Republican voters.
So why is Joe Biden, who allegedly cannot hold a thought in his head looking so effective this morning. And what does the Freedom Caucus need to do to get anything done other than generate publicity?
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a huge win for biden and mccarthy.
a huge loss for extremists on both sides.
Allan
So if Biden delivered a huge defeat to the Democratic extremists, does that mean he is not a Communist?
even worse than a commie, a politician.
never thought they could pull it off.
kudos to both McCarthy and Biden.
Allan
mccarthy gave the FC the middle finger
and Biden did the same to the squad
we are in charge, you are not.
Allan
You can sense the Republican desperation in the increasingly shrill attacks on Trump appointee Christopher Wray over the alleged whistleblower complaint over VP Biden’s corruption. This complaint was filed in 2020 and at the time, neither Trump’s AG Barr or Trump’s man at the FBI Wray treated it as credible even though it certainly could have been useful to Trump’s 2020 campaign. If Trump’s own team did not give it creedence what solid evidence could possible be there?
But if Biden is not incompetent, and not an extremist, then any effort to find something that smacks of corruption…
The debt ceiling was a matter where politicians who are dedicated to achieving through politics outplayed politicians who thing politics is a largely a matter of auditioning for talking head jobs after they leave Congress.
Great stories
Was non-defense spending cut?
Minimally, and in a fashion that does nothing to address the ballooning deficit, which is what the House Republicans so strongly staked out as their position. Every Biden initiative that passed in 2021 and 2022 is still in place.
Why did a group that entered this matter so clearly unified with a major goal come up essentially empty-handed
So yes.
And capped for next year?
Like a clean debt limit increase demand a couple of weeks ago? Like that?
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