Republicans Killed Bill, Like Elon Musk Wanted. But Then They Killed Bill Like Elon Musk DIDN'T Want!
This is all working out very well for them.
On Thursday, December 19, 2024, President-elect and convicted felon Donald John Trump publicly suggested, dare we say, a good idea. Possibly the only good idea that has ever leaked from the yawning abyss inside his skull and out his mouth hole in vaguely word-shaped sounds. We should make the day a national holiday.
What Trump suggested was that America should finally get rid of the albatross around the neck of good governance that is the debt ceiling.
Y’all remember the debt ceiling, right? The amount of money Congress authorizes the Executive Branch to borrow in order to fully pay for all of America’s commitments and keep the government running? And because Congress can’t really cut spending enough to balance the budget, the executive has to keep borrowing, so the legislature has to keep raising the amount it is allowed to borrow.
The next debt ceiling increase needs to happen around June, a fact that Trump and his advisors apparently only fully grokked on Wednesday, just as Congress was putting the finishing touches on a spending bill that will fund the government through mid-March. A debt ceiling fight immediately after a fight for a bill to keep government funded would consume the first six months of Hairplug Hitler’s administration. This would hinder his desire to quickly implement his very expensive plans for stuff like mass deportations while slashing taxes for rich people.
Simply put, the self-described King of Debt is going to need the government to borrow a metric fuckton of money beginning almost immediately after his inauguration, and he doesn’t want to get bogged down by middling details like whether the money for it all exists. Those concentration camps aren’t going to pay for themselves!
So Trump and his owner, Elon Musk, seized the initiative and demanded Republicans in Congress not pass the funding bill they just spent months negotiating with Democrats unless it included a debt ceiling increase. And because congressional Republicans are weenies, they immediately agreed to renege on their deal with Democrats and kill the bill.
Amazing. A functional political party would have said, “You’re not the president yet. Call us in January, we have a country to run right now.” The Republicans are handing all their power over to someone who is technically still unemployed and spending hours a day golfing in Florida.
Then on Thursday Trump went one step further and suggested getting rid of the debt ceiling altogether:
In a phone interview with NBC News, Trump said getting rid of the debt ceiling entirely would be the “smartest thing it [Congress] could do. I would support that entirely.”
“The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge,” Trump added.
To which we say, hell yeah, that thing has been a thorn in Democrats’ sides for over a decade, ever since Barack Obama was elected to the Oval Office and Republicans realized they could cynically use the threat of not raising the debt ceiling to extract policy and spending concessions. (You’re remembering the Bill Clinton-era government shutdown under Newt Gingrich, but that wasn’t about the debt limit. It was about Bill Clinton stuck Newt Gingrich in the back of the plane on the way home from Israel on Air Force One.)
Thus has America spent the last 14 or so years careening from one funding crisis to another as hard-right Republicans have used the threat of defaulting on the national debt to try and extract spending cuts from Congress, because the hard Right is perfectly fine with the government shutting down no matter how many people in America would lose paychecks and assistance and be completely immiserated.
A few Democrats immediately pounced on Trump’s statement. Elizabeth Warren said Congress “should terminate the debt limit and never again govern by hostage taking.” David Dayen in The American Prospect, among others, suggested Democrats go along with this idea, but only after extracting concessions of their own:
Since Republicans can’t agree on how to resolve this standoff, Democrats should roll up their asks into one: If Republicans kill the debt limit, they would get Democratic votes for a so-called “clean” continuing resolution.
Oh, that would be nice. We’d still have spending fights over funding the government, but at least using the debt ceiling to hold a metaphorical gun to America’s financial head could be a thing of the past. That would make negotiations between the parties much calmer.
Then — and you’re never going to believe this — Trump reversed himself on the debt limit again. The Republicans came up with a new funding bill that would have suspended the debt ceiling until January of 2027, along with some deeper funding cuts that satisfied Trump and his co-president Elon Musk. On top of that, Republicans would put the debt ceiling back in place immediately after the midterm elections, when Democrats could win back Congress, thus eliminating a potential source of fighting and contention for the first two years of Trump’s term, which is generally when administrations get the most accomplished.
What a setup.
Trump was very enthusiastic about this bill. Possibly more importantly, Musk was very enthusiastic about the bill. Among the cuts the GOP was trying to muscle through to satisfy everyone in their caucus was $190 million that had been earmarked for a pediatric cancer research program. Ain’t that some shit? The wealthiest person in human history, a man whose net worth has reportedly jumped to nearly half a trillion dollars recently, did some angry tweets, and the next day Congress yanked $190 million from research on child cancer.
And yet, the cuts still didn’t go far enough for some Republicans, 38 of whom voted against it on Thursday night as it went down to defeat. Elon Musk, obviously, immediately blamed the looming shutdown on the nearest Democrat, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Elon had called for Republicans to kill THAT bill, not THIS ONE! It was like the malfunctioning police robot in Robocop, throwing all the bills through the Ren Cen window. No! Stopppppp!
So here is where things stand: There is still no plan to keep the government open past midnight on Friday. The Republicans are in their usual state of chaos. The Democrats, who had actually managed to find ways to work with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson this year, are super-pissed. If he’s having trouble earning the votes to be speaker in the next Congress, Dems are unlikely to bail him out like they did a few months ago when a handful of Republican nutters tried to give him the boot.
All of this sets us up perfectly for Rand Paul’s proposed solution to the chaos:
Sure, the country is going to suffer in all sorts of horrible ways. But at least we’re going to do it in the absolute funniest ways possible.
[American Prospect / NBC News]
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I'd buy THAT for a dollar!
This level of chaos bodes real well for government functioning in the next four years, or maybe forever after. I mean, the roller coaster car hasn’t even left the station yet!