Debt Ceilng

[indy]

Jun 1, 2023 19:02:51 GMT jackd said:

My representative, Jan Schakowsky, confirmed today that she would have voted for the deal had her vote been needed. Since it wasn't she used the opportunity to protest the damage to older people on food stamps and the "easy" permitting of polluting pipelines.

I think there were a fair number of these. The question I have is would Bernie Sanders have voted for it in the Senate if his vote mattered?

[AnBr]

My sense is that Sanders has become less absolutist since the damage of Trump to the disgust of the Bernouts. He did endorse Biden. He has been onboard for much of Biden's legislative agenda, especially with its progressive bent.

[goldenvalley]

Some guy on the Bulwark noted the way in which the craziest Republicans decided on whether or not to support the debt ceiling bill. Not a surprise really but the folks quoted were very clear:

THIS CLUSTER of Republicans—what I call the antagonism caucus—is a subset of the House Freedom Caucus. On Tuesday, at a Freedom Caucus press conference to oppose the debt-limit bill, Rep. Andy Biggs—who chaired the Freedom Caucus in the last Congress—worried that Democrats were suspiciously untroubled by the bill’s “pay-go” provision, which was supposed to constrain spending. “There’s a reason that the Biden administration has no concern over this provision,” he warned. If Democrats were okay with the bill, he suggested, then Republicans shouldn’t be.

That phrase—there’s a reason—is a common refrain in the antagonism caucus. It expresses the assumption that anything Democrats favor, or even accept, must be bad. “There is a reason why 100 Democrats, none of which voted for our initial bill, [are] now for” the compromise debt-ceiling bill, Rep. Ralph Norman surmised at the Tuesday press conference. “It’s because they got what they wanted,” said Norman. “It’s time for us to say no.”

Biggs predicted, accurately, that more than two-thirds of House Democrats would vote for the bill. He concluded that this should make Republicans queasy. He said House leaders were trying to pump up GOP support for the bill so that Republicans wouldn’t “feel too doggone bad when 150 Democrats vote for it.”

This is how the no compromise group makes actual politics which is the art of compromise nearly impossible to do.

[jackd]

In the meantime, a number of progressives are accusing the Democrats of surrendering to the evil doers.

[indy]

It's fine because unlike Republicans, Democrats don't seem to be eating their own. The daily beast has an article on how the conservative knives are out for MTG because of her weird---and dare I say creepy?--- sudden attachment at the hip to McCarthy.

www.thedailybeast.com/far-right-turns-on-marjorie-taylor-greeneand-mtg-hits-back-in-text-to-matt-gaetz?ref=wrap

[goldenvalley]

Jun 6, 2023 17:55:26 GMT indy said:

It's fine because unlike Republicans, Democrats don't seem to be eating their own. The daily beast has an article on how the conservative knives are out for MTG because of her weird---and dare I say creepy?--- sudden attachment at the hip to McCarthy.

www.thedailybeast.com/far-right-turns-on-marjorie-taylor-greeneand-mtg-hits-back-in-text-to-matt-gaetz?ref=wrap

That was probably part of the deal to get her vote for McCarthy for speaker...she gets a platform in various committees for her conspiracy theories and in return she needs to vote for stuff he tells her to vote for.  

[goldenvalley]

Jun 6, 2023 17:36:36 GMT jackd said:

In the meantime, a number of progressives are accusing the Democrats of surrendering to the evil doers.

Of course.  A good compromise means no one is happy.  But I am happy because our financial system will not fall off a cliff.  All USAians should be sharing in that happiness.  But Democrats can't dance too enthusiastically lest they upset whatever delicate balance the more sane Reps have achieved against the chaos caucus.

[indy]

Jun 6, 2023 18:11:30 GMT goldenvalley said:

Jun 6, 2023 17:55:26 GMT indy said:

It's fine because unlike Republicans, Democrats don't seem to be eating their own. The daily beast has an article on how the conservative knives are out for MTG because of her weird---and dare I say creepy?--- sudden attachment at the hip to McCarthy.

www.thedailybeast.com/far-right-turns-on-marjorie-taylor-greeneand-mtg-hits-back-in-text-to-matt-gaetz?ref=wrap

That was probably part of the deal to get her vote for McCarthy for speaker...she gets a platform in various committees for her conspiracy theories and in return she needs to vote for stuff he tells her to vote for.  

That may explain her (short-sighted and likely self-defeating) decision to support McCarthy for speaker. I'm less convinced part of the deal was for her to buy his used chapstick for 100 grand.

www.politico.com/news/2023/05/23/house-gop-auctions-mccarthy-chapstick-debt-talks-00098347

[jackd]

And now Cornell West thinks it would be a good idea to split the progressive vote. They never learn.

[AnBr]

Jun 6, 2023 18:37:58 GMT jackd said:

And now Cornell West thinks it would be a good idea to split the progressive vote. They never learn.

Mr. bothsidesism. I'm not sure he would have as much of a negative impact as someone like Sanders. A lot on the left view him as a crackpot, but point taken.

[jackd]

And I forgot Robert Kennedy.

[AnBr]

Jr.

[andydp]

For what its worth: Douthat thinks Speaker Mc Carthy is the next great negotiator.  The gist is he got buy in from the GOP nut cases.  Frankly, after my third go around with this, it makes some sense.  I still think he gave away a lot to get the job.  

A speaker who acts like ... a speaker

On the Republican side, this tendency has taken several forms, from Newt Gingrich’s yearning to be a Great Man of History, to Ted Cruz’s ambitious grandstanding in the Barack Obama years, to the emergence of Donald Trump-era performance artists such as Marjorie Taylor Greene. And the party’s congressional institutionalists, from dealmakers such as John Boehner to policy mavens such as Paul Ryan, have often been miserable-seeming prisoners of the talking heads, celebrity brands and would-be presidents.

This dynamic seemed likely to imprison McCarthy as well, but he has found a different way of dealing with it: He has invited some of the bomb throwers into the legislative process, trying to turn them from platform-seekers into legislators by giving them a stake in governance, and so far, he has been rewarded with crucial support from figures such as Greene and Thomas Massie, the quirky Kentucky libertarian. And it’s clear that part of what makes this possible is McCarthy’s enthusiasm for the actual vote-counting, hand-holding work required of his position, and his lack of both Gingrichian egomania and get-me-out-of-here impatience.


digital.olivesoftware.com/olive/odn/albanytimesunion/default.aspx

[indy]

He didn't get a buy-in. They defeated an attempt to bring a GOP bill to the house floor. First time that has happened by a house majority since...Newt Gingrich was forced out of the speakership. Assuming this stand-off continues any bill must have Democratic support to reach the floor for a vote. Even if it is resolved for now, it's yet another quiver in their arrow for the rest of this Congress. There are 4 votes on the rules committee from these folks than can prevent bills from proceeding, and then any 5 of them can prevent the bill from coming to the floor for a full house vote even if the rules committee votes for it. Two opportunities for them to hold GOP bills hostage and we should know by now that is exactly the kind of situation they will exploit.

[indy]

Jun 6, 2023 18:37:58 GMT jackd said:

And now Cornell West thinks it would be a good idea to split the progressive vote. They never learn.

I am wondering who will vote for him. One thing I have learned is that black voters are way more disciplined and strategically smarter than white voters.

As for Kennedy, he seems more likely to draw away GOP votes than any Democratic ones.