Debt Ceiling Surrender

 

A very inauspicious start to the lame duck session of Congress:

The White House has largely given up hope of Congress raising the nation’s debt limit during the lame-duck session that runs through late December, increasing the risk of a highly partisan, market-rattling fiscal confrontation next year.

Senior administration officials see little chance of attracting any Republican votes for a bipartisan debt limit hike during the short session. And they don’t believe they have the 50 Democratic Senate votes needed to slam through a hike using the budget reconciliation process that would allow them to avoid a Republican filibuster.

If you can correctly guess the name of at least one Democratic Senator who opposes taking raising the debt limit away from Republican hostage takers next year, you've been paying attention:

The administration has determined that if it were to go the reconciliation route on the debt limit, it would face likely opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). And there could be other defectors. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said he wants a bipartisan vote to raise the borrowing cap during the lame-duck session. But Republicans, many of whom are eager to use the limit as leverage to extract legislative concessions from Democrats in the next Congress, have shown no appetite for any such bipartisan approach.

Tanking the economy and world markets next year in a high- stakes, zero sum game of "leverage" for cuts in Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security?  Republicans think that'll play to their base, who want their crazies to inflict as much damage on the economy in order to harm the Biden Administration.  We also know Republicans only care about government debt when Democrats are in power.

Certain Senate Democrats (see above) are "deficit hawks" who may also think "negotiating" with bad faith Republican hostage takers burnishes their bipartisan cred in their home states.  Sadly, we don't have the Senate now that we'll have next year, nor do we have the House next year that we have now, otherwise there would be a much better shot at taking this leverage away from the hostage- takers.

What a huge missed opportunity.