| The debt limit needs to be raised in the next few months, and Adam Jentleson, a former staffer for Senator Harry Reid, has a suggestion for Democrats: They should force Republicans to find votes themselves to raise the limit, "or make concessions – like no more kids in cages." Republicans have 53 votes, he adds. It would be "perfectly responsible" for Democrats to say that they won't filibuster an increase but also won't help Republicans find a majority for one.
Lots of liberals have pilloried Republicans over the years for demanding spending cuts in exchange for increasing the debt limit. It amounts, they say, to holding the nation's credit rating hostage. Would this be equally irresponsible?
No. The key is that Jentleson's proposal would give Republicans an easy way out: As long as they vote for a clean debt-limit increase, it would pass. He specifically rejects the option of filibustering an increase, nor does he suggest House Democrats should pass a measure combining debt-limit legislation with other priorities and then insist that the Senate and the president go along with it. Either of those routes would indeed be irresponsible blackmail.
Instead, he'd simply give Republicans a choice: Act responsibly or pay a price.
Granted, the debt limit is unnecessary and foolish and Congress should simply eliminate it. Total federal borrowing is a consequence of previous policy decisions; incurring obligations and then inserting a veto at the stage where the government is supposed to pay for them makes no sense. If Congress doesn't want to borrow, it should raise taxes or cut spending or both. No business or citizen would organize things this way.
So opposing a bill that increases the debt limit is wrong on the merits. Raising the ceiling doesn't increase federal deficits, it just allows the government to pay what it already owes. And if the limit is breached, the U.S. would be forced into default, at an unknown but probably severe cost to the economy. Nevertheless, members of Congress have always treated such bills as a tough vote, and parties in the minority usually force the majority to take it. In periods of unified government, the majority might add things they like to such a bill to make the vote less painful.
And that's essentially what Jentleson is saying: If Senate Republicans aren't going to act like the majority, then it's totally reasonable for Democrats to do so and reap the normal rewards for it.
I suspect, in the event, that this strategy won't work. I can imagine several options for Republicans to fight back against it (some of which might themselves be irresponsible). But, yes: I see no particular reason that the Democrats shouldn't try this idea.
1. Candy Gunther Brown at the Monkey Cage on the conservative push-back against public-school yoga.
2. Good one from Jack Shafer, who reads the Kim Darroch material to learn how to manipulate Trump. The key point: Outside observers have long suspected the president is easy to influence; turns out insiders think the same thing, and have been acting on it.
3. David Byler on Asian American voters.
4. Nicholas Bagley on the legal effort to end the Affordable Care Act.
5. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Ramesh Ponnuru argues that Republicans would be in deep trouble if that effort succeeds.
6. While Margot Sanger-Katz points out some of the chaos that would follow if Obamacare suddenly disappeared.
7. And Juliet Eilperin reports on a State Department resignation over climate. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close. |
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