Congress endorsed the highly contentious debt ceiling suspension deal reached last week between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). The bill was signed into law and will lift the nation’s borrowing limit for two years.
The default-saving deal was no surprise. Nor was it surprising that neither Republicans nor Democrats were happy with it. But everyone recognized that some resolution was necessary for the United States to avoid a catastrophic and unprecedented default in paying its financial obligations.
So, Republicans agreed to a cap on non-defense discretionary spending that was higher than the 2022 level that they wanted to maintain, and Democrats agreed to add work requirements for certain categories of adult food stamp recipients and to cut back on increased funding to the IRS to go after wealthy tax cheats, modernize aging technology and improve customer service. And then each side claimed victory — telling its faithful that the other side made the more consequential concessions to reach a deal.
The political brinksmanship over the periodic process to raise the country’s debt ceiling when one party controls the White House and the other controls at least one house of Congress has become predictable. One party articulates its expected positions and issues demands, threats, promises and ultimatums. The other side does the same. And then, when both sides realize that they don’t have the votes to force their views or back up their threats, they agree to a compromise. This year’s spectacle was no exception.
For the Jewish community, which has sought funding increases in several areas, including U.S-Israel defense programs, the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and the Holocaust Survivor Assistance Program, there was a mixture of concern and cautious optimism.
There was concern that the freeze on increases will undo previous commitments for funding increases in 2024, and some comfort in knowing that at least 2023 funding levels will likely be honored. There are even those who expressed wishful optimism that pre-compromise increased funding commitments will be honored. But no one really knows.
The last time the U.S. faced a debt ceiling “crisis” was in 2011. Then, as now, the White House and Congress negotiated a major deficit reduction bill to raise the debt limit. But many of the cuts enacted were quickly reversed in subsequent legislation since the changes weren’t permanent or even binding. The same thing can happen with respect to last week’s deal following the next round of elections.
But there is one significant takeaway from the griping, finger pointing and unending kvetching about how each side gave away too much in negotiating the debt ceiling compromise. And it’s a simple point: The single “winner” in this deal appears to be McCarthy, who promised a deal, negotiated a deal and parlayed a bipartisan vote in support of that deal notwithstanding his right flank’s grousing about his failures and threats of a recall vote which could be triggered by a single member’s motion. That didn’t happen.
We can speculate over whether that means that the Freedom Caucus is toothless or that McCarthy has generated enough goodwill and leadership credit to make the effort to remove him futile. Either way, McCarthy can celebrate his success, even as everyone works to figure out how to undo the consequences.
Undo the consequences, wow. Here’s the real consequence that cannot be undone since the Democrats control the presidency and the Senate. With this cost-cutting deal, we’ll be 2 trillion in more debt two years. My math says that we’re increasing spending due to the unhinged COVID spending, by 2 trillion per year. That’s unsustainable, irrational, and total irresponsibility by the fools in the Democratic party. When this bubble births, and it will sooner than we think, both party’s are responsible. While there is a small truth contained in that, it’s the Democrats who have brought us to the brink of disaster. Only the foolish refuse to see the coming disaster.
You don’t need 87,000 new IRS agents to track down a few wealthy tax cheats. You need that many to go after the location of the real money in the country, the tens of millions that make up the middle class. Biden can’t tax them directly, otherwise he’d be attacked for breaking his pledge on not taxing those under $400,000 incomes. Therefore he’s going to squeeze every dollar out of the tens of millions of us who are already suffering under his inflation, by doubling of the number of IRS agents. Somebody has to pay for his spending of trillions on his transformation of America into a “Socialist Utopia,”and its not going to be the rich who will bring their tax preparers with them to face the IRS.