The "bipartisan" debt deal: at least Joe Manchin got an environmentally destructive gift in the process
The "bipartisan" debt deal: at least Joe Manchin got an environmentally destructive gift in the process
Establishment Democrats are gushing about how wonderful Joe Biden’s surrender to Republican priorities in the debt-ceiling deal is. Progressives are understandably not so thrilled with it. Because it doesn’t offer much to Democratic voters, except those who may be a fan of Joe Manchin’s pet project, the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
Sam Seder and Alex Pereene had a good discussion of the deal and more generally about the various procedural excuses Democrats use when they want to capitulate to Republican priorities, beginning at 21:50 in the video.1
CNN has a summary of the actual provisions of the deal.2 For example:
Non-defense spending will remain relatively flat in fiscal 2024 and increase by 1% in fiscal 2025, after certain adjustments to appropriations are made, according to a White House official. After fiscal 2025, there are no budget caps, just non-enforceable appropriations targets.
But with US inflation in the 4-5% range, that actually amounts to significant cuts in real spending in those “discretionary” programs .
It’s important to keep in mind that the debt ceiling is a blatantly unconstitutional artifice. If the Republicans had refused to lift it - or suspend it, in this case - Biden had ways to keep paying the debt, which is his Constitutional duty and even authorized by Congress.3
He himself had warned that he could use the 14th Amendment requirement to disregard the debt ceiling:
President Biden has repeatedly teased the possibility that he will seek to put an end to the nation’s recurring debt ceiling standoffs after Congress suspends the current limit, as lawmakers are now working to do before the June 5 deadline for a government default.
… Several times this month [May], as the White House and House Republicans negotiated over a deal to lift the current debt ceiling, Biden has said he might at a later date declare the nation’s borrowing limit incompatible with the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which says that the federal government’s debts must be paid. He repeated that idea Sunday, after he and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) reached an agreement.4
But he simultaneously signaled the Republicans that he wasn’t serious about calling their bluff: “White House aides opted not to pursue unilateral action to resolve the current impasse — fearing that such a step could trigger a financial crisis by creating more uncertainty — and instead brokered the bipartisan deal.”
Biden's debt ceiling speech on Friday5 sounds like an announcement that the "Dark Brandon" phase of his Presidency, in which he was willing to enact innovative legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act, is over. Or has least gone into hibernation.
I continue to maintain that the single biggest improvement the Democrats could make in their political marketing is to completely remove all forms of the word “bipartisanship” from their vocabulary.
But Biden started off his first message from the Oval Office this way, "My fellow Americans, when I ran for President, I was told that the days of bipartisanship were over."
Translation: The "Dark Brandon" phase of my Presidency - where I actually pushed for some substantive Democratic polices and got some important ones enacted - is over.
He also promoted the pro-austerity-bogeyman, the federal deficit. Not only do no actual voters make election choices based on the state of The Deficit. It’s another bogus issue. As the economist Stephanie Kelton puts it:
To sell the American people on the idea that it would be irresponsible to raise the debt ceiling without negotiating around the budget, [Republican House Speaker Kevin] McCarthy invoked every deficit myth in the book. Literally.
He took to the podium, Twitter, outdoor spaces, the hallways, and countless talk shows, to complain that raising the debt limit is like allowing your child to go crazy with the family credit card. He said it was “common sense” that the federal government “can’t afford” to spend more than it takes in. He raised concerns about “borrowing money from China” to “pay for” social programs. And he invoked rhetoric that the national debt is a burden on future generations by saying, “Every new child that was born today just got a $94,000 bill.”
In response, President Biden said, “Speaker McCarthy and I have a very different view of who should bear the burden…to get our fiscal house in order.”
And therein lies the problem. After a brief reprieve from The Deficit Myth, we are backsliding into the kind of dangerous rhetoric that led to the hostage negotiations in the first place.6 [emphasis in original]
We shouldn’t forget that this deal includes a big gift to Democratic Senator and coal baron Joe Manchin, the Mountain Valley Pipeline.7
The Mountain Valley Pipeline would stretch 303 miles, from West Virginia to North Carolina. But it would cut through the Jefferson National Forest and cross hundreds of waterways and wetlands — and legal battles have held up those crucial sections of the pipeline have been held up for years.
In an extraordinary move, the federal measure would also quash lawsuits against the pipeline project and send any new appeals to the D.C. Circuit rather than the Fourth Circuit, which has regional jurisdiction and which has blocked numerous permits. [my emphasis]
After torpedoing the Build Back Better bill and voting with Republicans to kill a new voting rights act and to block raising the debt ceiling in the last Congress, Manchin gets this big gift in this deal.
As if that weren’t enough, Jarod Facundo warns, “The political turn of events that passage will set in motion could hold back the cause of clean energy for years, in a boost for the fossil fuel industry.“8
Harold Meyerson comes up with the positive comment: “The deal did far less than the Democrats had feared, while, correspondingly, it did far less than the Republicans had hoped.”9 Which sounds more than a bit like damning by faint praise.
And let’s not forget that no arms manufacturer was left behind in this agreement. “Even a small cut to defense spending would make many domestic cuts unnecessary,” writes John Nichols.
“The agreement keeps non-defense spending flat next year, with a 1 percent rise in 2025, explained the BBC. “Defense spending would increase to $886 billion, which amounts to a 3 percent rise on this year.”
Of course, there are Republican hawks like South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham who want even bigger Pentagon outlays. But they needn’t worry. By the time the 2025 fiscal year rolls around, according to Defense News, the defense spending top line is expected to rise to $895 billion — a figure that puts it right on track to pass the $1 trillion line that Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord says is likely to be surpassed well before the end of the decade.10
Not to be pessimistic. Because Biden did show in the first half of his term that he can govern like a Democrat when he puts his mind to it.
But this debt-ceiling deal was a really bad one.
Much of the media commentary and that of Democratic partisans has reflected Biden’s rather absurd praise of it. Liberal Jonathan Capehart and conservative Gary Abernathy competed on the PBS Newshour over who could praise it more.11
Larry O’Donnell seemed to think it was one of the greatest political deals for Democrats ever achieved.12 (Though he didn’t have much to say about its actual contents!)
The usually sensible Heather Cox Richardson almost seemed like she was looking at some other political deal entirely.
The solution to the debt ceiling crisis is a major victory for Biden’s team not only because it happened, but also because it leaves Biden’s key priorities intact, not least because they are popular and Republicans did not want to go into 2024 having demanded unpopular cuts. [my emphasis]
She was evidently impressed by all the Bipartisanship:
While [Biden] noted that he has signed more than 350 bipartisan laws in his time in office, his major focus today was on the bipartisan budget agreement passed by the House and Senate after months of wrangling to get House Republicans to agree to lift the debt ceiling.
The Bipartisanship did not impress Luke Savage, who accurately observes that it is “a deal that prioritizes Republican cuts, adds Dickensian work requirements to food aid programs, and worsens climate change.”13
Trump DeSantis Tango; WGA Strike w/ Adam Conover, Alex Pareene. The Majority Report YouTube channel 06/02/2023. <https://www.youtube.com/live/zd-OvE9DLHY?feature=share> (Accessed: 2023-03-06).
Luhby, Tami (2023): Here’s what’s in the debt ceiling package. CNN 06/02/2023. <https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/30/politics/whats-in-the-debt-ceiling-deal> (Accessed: 2023-03-06).
Galbraith, James (2023): More "Dangerous Nonsense" From The New York Times on the Debt Ceiling. The Nation 05/18/2023. <https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/debt-ceiling-mcconnell-treasury/> (Accessed: 05/18/2023).
Stein, Jeff (2023): Biden suggests using 14th Amendment to stop future debt ceiling standoffs. Washington Post 05/31/2023 [Updated: 06/01/2023]]. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/31/biden-debt-ceiling-14th-amendment/> (Accessed: 2023-03-06).
Biden delivers Oval Office address on debt ceiling deal – as it happened. The Guardian YouTube channel 06/02/2023. <https://www.youtube.com/live/59qAJugcMjY?feature=share> (Accessed: 2023-03-06).
Kelton, Stephanie (2023): The Deficit Myth is Hanging On for Dear Life. The Lens (Substack) 05/30//2023. <https://stephaniekelton.substack.com/p/the-deficit-myth-is-hanging-on-for> (Accessed: 2023-03-06).
Chappell, Bill (2023): The debt ceiling deal bulldozes a controversial pipeline's path through the courts. NPR 06/01/2023. <https://www.npr.org/2023/05/31/1179201992/mountain-valley-pipeline-west-virginia-debt-ceiling-deal> (Accessed: 2023-03-06).
Facundo, Jarod (2023): Manchin’s Pipeline Payoff Strangles Future Permitting Reform Negotiations. The American Prospect 06/02/2023. <https://prospect.org/economy/2023-06-02-manchin-pipeline-payoff-future-permitting-reform/> (Accessed: 2023-03-06).
Meyerson, Harold (2023): Why Democrats Rescued the Deal. The American Prospect 06/01/2023. <https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-06-01-why-democrats-rescued-debt-ceiling-deal/> (Accessed: 2023-03-06).
Nichols, John (2023): There’s Never a Debt Ceiling for the Military-Industrial Complex. The Nation 05/31/2023. <https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/debt-ceiling-military-spending/> (Accessed: 2023-03-06).
Capehart, Jonathan & Abernathy, Gary (2023): Capehart and Abernathy on the debt deal and race for the GOP presidential nomination. PBS Newshour 06/02/2023. <https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/capehart-and-abernathy-on-the-debt-deal-and-race-for-the-gop-presidential-nomination> (Accessed: 2023-03-06).
Lawrence: The Biden debt negotiating team did an ‘incredibly good job’. MSNBC YouTube channel 06/01/2023. (Accessed: 2023-03-06).
Savage, Luke (2023): The Debt Ceiling Deal Is Not a “Victory”. Jacobin 06/02/2023. <https://jacobin.com/2023/06/debt-ceiling-biden-democrats-gop-deal-cuts> (Accessed: 2023-03-06).