President Biden may have just saved the country
With the U.S. House of Representatives having passed a bill on Wednesday night to suspend the nation’s debt ceiling, and the U.S. Senate passing the bill late last night, it is now all but certain that a historic Republican-caused default on the U.S. debt has been averted. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill at any time, and to address the nation this evening. While there is plenty of credit to go around, President Biden deserves the most praise for the extreme competence, professionalism and political savvy with which he has handled the issue.
Here is Biden’s statement after Wednesday’sj House vote, with emphasis added:
Tonight, the House took a critical step forward to prevent a first-ever default and protect our country’s hard-earned and historic economic recovery. This budget agreement is a bipartisan compromise. Neither side got everything it wanted. That’s the responsibility of governing. I want to thank Speaker McCarthy and his team for negotiating in good faith, as well as Leader Jeffries for his leadership.
This agreement is good news for the American people and the American economy. It protects key priorities and accomplishments from the past two years, including historic investments that are creating good jobs across the country. And, it honors my commitment to safeguard Americans’ health care and protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. It protects critical programs that millions of hardworking families, students, and veterans count on.
The President’s statement is noteworthy for several things, but mainly it’s Biden’s framing that is so strong. The principal thing President Biden is accomplishing, as he states, is to stave off a catastrophic Republican default on America’s debt. As previously noted, a default would likely result in a deep recession, millions of jobs lost, a stock market crash, the inability of the federal government to make Social Security payments and interest payments to bondholders, and a decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, as well as sending economic shock waves around the world. Democrats’ strongest suit is that, compared to the Republicans who created this crisis by threatening not to raise the debt ceiling and thus to cause a default, they are the grown-ups in the room. President Biden references this when he said about the budget compromise that has been reached, “[t]hat’s the responsibility of governing.”
The President also adds that he has presided over a “historic economic recovery” and “creating new jobs” (indeed, millions of them), which we call the “Biden Boom”, following the Trump Recession largely caused by Donald Trump‘s inattention to the COVID pandemic. And note how Biden calls the deal a “budget agreement,” not a “debt ceiling agreement.” Republicans may not realize that they just negotiated the country’s budget for the next two years, and presumably will not get another chance to do so a few months from now, as is usually the case every autumn.
Another very important aspect of the deal, which President Biden took pains not to highlight before Senate Republicans voted because it’s advantageous to Democrats, is that it raises the debt ceiling not just for the usual one year, but all the way until January 1, 2025, which means it won’t muddy up the 2024 campaigns and elections.
All in all, Joe Biden had to deal with the Republicans because they hold the majority in the House of Representatives and thus have the power to vote not to suspend or extend the nation’s borrowing limit, i.e., to cause a default. When Republicans have such power to gain advantages over the Democrats, they often use it, even though doing so breaks customs and ethical norms (see, e.g., Mitch McConnell denying President Barack Obama a hearing for his U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland).
But President Joe Biden has learned many lessons from his experience as a U.S. Senate leader, Vice President, and now President, and he put those lessons to good use here. Biden made the best possible deal with the Republicans, to the point where some right wing House Republicans are saying, “[t]his deal fails — fails completely,” and “[t]he Republican conference right now has been torn asunder.” Saving the country and splitting the Republican Party? That sounds like a good Democratic day’s work.
Photo by Maryland GovPics, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/60W1zp
