I should begin by admitting my ignorance of some legal matters that might prevent my proposal from working. But part of the boldness is that it would be just doing it— and leaving it to the other side to make an issue of it.
Because this nation would be foolish to leave things in a position where the Republican Party can regularly take the nation hostage to gain some political advantage.
I propose:
The Democrats pass a measure — using reconciliation, requiring just a majority vote — that eliminates the need for a separate step to raise the debt ceiling.
No more debt ceiling: henceforth, what Congress votes to spend the Treasury writes the check to cover.
The Democrats should just assert the right to take such action, i.e. to use reconciliation to change that process.
(The refusal to pay bills surely seems budget-related. And since the Constitution says that “the full faith and credit of the United States will not be questioned,” it might even be argued that the oath of office — to protect the Constitution — requires the Democrats to put an end to the Republicans’ calling into question that full faith and credit.)
After claiming the right, the Democrats should Just do it and declare it done.
The Democratic majorities in Congress pass it and the Democratic President enforces it— thus ending not only the present crisis, but preventing all future such crises the Republicans so irresponsibly create by weaponizing the debt ceiling.
Regardless of whether the Republicans protest and challenge the Democrats on the debt ceiling reform, the Democrats come out ahead:
1) If the Republicans just acquiesce — hard to imagine — the Democrats will have succeeded in taking out of Republican hands the means of extortion that they’ve repeatedly wielded over the past decade or so.
2) If the Republicans challenge the action, the Democrats gain an excellent opportunity to shine a spotlight on the ugly spirit that animates today’s Republican Party. For what kind of a political party is it that takes the nation hostage for political advantage? What is the moral spirit of a party that chooses to hold a gun to the nation’s head and threaten: “Give us what we want or we’ll blow her head off!”?
1) The much-needed reform.
It never made sense to create a separate step of deciding to pay the bills after having decided to spend the money. Other nations don’t operate like this. Payment should be automatic, once the decision to spend has been made by Congress.
But lately it’s become worse than useless. When — over many decades — both parties pretty automatically raised the debt-ceiling without incident — that step was just useless. But when the Republicans weaponized that unnecessary provision, and used it in destructive ways, it became much worse than useless.
The nation is far better off to eliminate that step that a morally bankrupt political party has figured out how to abuse. (One more form of Republican power-grabbing by illegitimate means.)
2) Exposing the Republican darkness: It is not normal — nor should Americans find it acceptable — for a political party to threaten openly to inflict disaster on the nation. (And even by their threats, these Republican-generated crises have inflicted detectable damage on the nation’s economy, causing a downgrade of U.S. bonds?)
It was back when Obama was President that the Republicans first used the debt-ceiling in this unprecedented and destructive way, threatening the good of the nation for their partisan political advantage. That unprecedented action revealed a political party unprecedented in its moral bankruptcy.
The evil of such hostage-taking should be readily comprehensible, and the more the Republicans object to its abolition the more the spotlight can be shone on their blatant indifference to the nation they’re supposed to serve.
(This can be brought together with the Republicans’ disgraceful conduct on Covid — siding with the virus, and against the health of the people — for partisan advantage. The Democrats should stress what it says when a party is willing to hurt the nation, just to increase its power.)
The Times Call for the Democrats to Change (Still Further) into Warriors
Democrats in recent years have at last begun to fight back as if they’ve recognized that today’s Republican Party is not a normal party, that it represents an exceptionally urgent danger to the American republic we’ve had for more than two centuries.
And therefore must be countered with something other than “politics as usual.”
This is a call for the Democrats to do something that’s not their usual way:
- Asserting their right — assuming a decent case can be made;
- Ending this and all future debt-limit crises, and
- Daring the Republicans to make an issue of their right to extort the nation by threatening to put the nation into default, refusing to pay bills already incurred.
The extraordinary conduct of the Republicans (in taking the nation hostage) calls for a bold response.
Everything about today’s Republican Party is rancid. The darkness of this party is shown in virtually everything it does (Covid-aiding, Climate Change-denying, Insurrection-inciting, Voter Suppression legislating, across-the-board obstructing, from:
- Covid to the
- Insurrection to
- across-the-board obstructionism, to
- climate change denial, to voter suppression, to
- making it a prerequisite for Republican office-holders to endorse the Big Lie about a legitimate election outcome being fraudulent and
- to generally make themselves lackeys of the former President who showed nothing but contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law.
The debt-ceiling abuse is just one of many forms of the destructiveness of the Republican Party. But it’s got one thing going for it:
- there’s an emergency coming up about it, which sets the stage for bold action, and considerable public attention; and
- if what I’m proposing can be pulled off, it presents a strategically powerful way of exposing the Republican Party for the dark thing that it has become. (For it’s not complicated to show how holding a gun to our heads shows them not the kind of party to whom a sane electorate would entrust the power of our government.)
Their indifference to the good of the nation is down not only by their willingness to hurt the nation to get power but, when it gets power, the Republican Party shows a shocking lack of interest in moving America forward into a better future.
Such conduct is not normal in an American Party. The dark nature of this pathologically abnormal political party should be exposed.
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How This Fits in with the Broader Democratic Strategy
Exposing today’s Republican Party for the destructive, dangerous, unAmerican thing it has become should be part of the core of the Democrats’ Campaign for 2022.
(See “The Extraordinary Democratic Campaign Called for by Today’s Quite Extraordinary Republican Party.”)
Today’s GOP represents a serious threat to American democracy like we have not faced in our lifetime: a threat that a truly dark force might take over this nation in the coming several years. Fundamentally changing the nature of America’s power system, from one ruled by “the will of the people” who control their government to an authoritarian system where a minority can dominate the majority, and government is not accountable to the rule of law.
Trump was defeated, but the threat to the survival of American democracy is still out there in a whole variety of forms, from
- the Big Lie, to
- the “domestic terrorism” the FBI has identified as presently the nation’s biggest terrorist threat, to
- the Republican-controlled states working to disenfranchise groups of voters who are our most vulnerable citizens, and who tend to vote Democratic, to
- the Republican Party’s ongoing purge of every member who had the audacity to put truth and integrity — honoring their oath of office to protect the Constitution — above loyalty to a lawless President willing to do anything to overturn an election to hold onto power, to
- a Republican base, of which the great majority buy the Big Lie, despite how blatantly false it is.
The task is to show this darkness so that every American not in a Trump-trance can see it.
Voters should be moved by the picture of the GOP’s use of the debt-ceiling as a gun for them to hold to the nation’s head.
(Like the bad guy in the old movies who, in the climactic scene, grabs the girl to use as a shield, shows just how bad he is, what the Republican Party has done with the debt ceiling shows the dark thing it has become.)
“Voter, don’t hand power to people who make it clear they really don’t care about the good of the nation. Strip them of their power and hand it to us, who are actually interested in your well-being and the future of the nation.”