The dumbest evergreen crisis - the debt ceiling is back!

[malchior]

Might as well fire up a thread to track one the silliest, most idiotic mechanisms in any advanced economy - the mighty debt ceiling. Congress authorizes spending but somehow that doesn't authorize the borrowing for that spend.

So what are the battle lines? McConnell wants the Democrats to lift the ceiling unilaterally so they can claim they weren't involved in the reckless borrowing even they they authorized the $8T of spending under Trump. Courageous!

The Democrats don't want to get beat over the head about raising it alone. They want to do it with the Republican support. Why? Who knows! It doesn't matter! But we're a dumb country and do dumb things so they are running around yelling about it. So serious!

What is the path forward? No one is really too sure yet but the best part is we've started discussing the mysterious $1T coin. The one that the Fed or treasury will create and then deposit into our coffers. Is it legal? Who knows? Should we care? I don't know. We aren't a nation of laws or reason anymore. Let's see what happens. I'm sure it'll be stupid and absurd like our 3 ring circus of a federal government is.

[malchior]

Example A of what awaits us - kvetching about filibusters again. It's like it is a hamster wheel of broken mechanisms going around and around and no one does anything to fix them.

[Alefroth]

I haven't seen anyone that matters mention the $1T coin as an option or a solution. If the Dems do have to go it alone, I hope they at least raise the debt ceiling to an unreachably high number.

[hepcat]

Every time I see Mitch McConnell these days, I just hear Nandor from What We Do in the Shadows muttering “This fucking guy.”

[Kraken]

They want to do it with the Republican support. Why? Who knows! It doesn't matter!

Ooo, I know this one! If the Rs don't drop their filibuster, the Ds have to use reconciliation. They can only do that once a year, so bye-bye spending bill.

The debt ceiling is indeed dumb, but it was an advance over the previous practice of having to authorize a new bond issue every time Congress wanted to borrow more money.

[malchior]

They want to do it with the Republican support. Why? Who knows! It doesn't matter!

Ooo, I know this one! If the Rs don't drop their filibuster, the Ds have to use reconciliation. They can only do that once a year, so bye-bye spending bill.

Nope - that is what I originally thought. That turns out not to be true. The parlimentarian said it will not interfere with the other bill. Worse as the article notes - McConnell has been telling them to do it on their own since July.

I can't help but note that apparently forecasting abilities have completely vanished in the Senate/House leadership. They just stumble from one fight into another. McConnell isn't even trying here. He isn't being helpful at all but he isn't even springing traps on them. They are just walking blindfolded through a yard full of rakes.

[Drazzil]

I'm rooting for the default. A currency crisis? Debt Jubilee and burning down the old dead wood in a way that even the government couldn't bail the financiers out of? A massive banking collapse followed by a glut of bank owned housing becoming a whole lot cheaper?

[hepcat]

Oh goodie, he’s back to blow it all up.

[Carpet_pissr]

Welcome to the thread, Mr. Robot!

[Drazzil]

[Octavious]

Mitch is a Bond villain telling all his plans up front and they are perplexed at what to do? Sigh

[Alefroth]

Not so much a rant as an outburst of ignorance and naïveté .

[Kraken]

They want to do it with the Republican support. Why? Who knows! It doesn't matter!

Ooo, I know this one! If the Rs don't drop their filibuster, the Ds have to use reconciliation. They can only do that once a year, so bye-bye spending bill.

Nope - that is what I originally thought. That turns out not to be true. The parlimentarian said it will not interfere with the other bill.

Thanks for schooling me, I must've gotten hold of some bad liquor. Dems should invoke reconciliation and raise the ceiling to a quadrillion dollars, because this is a dumb evergreen crisis that I would rather never hear about again.

[LawBeefaroni]

I'm rooting for the default. A currency crisis? Debt Jubilee and burning down the old dead wood in a way that even the government couldn't bail the financiers out of? A massive banking collapse followed by a glut of bank owned housing becoming a whole lot cheaper?

That's not how it would go down. Be careful what you wish for.

[LawBeefaroni]

Also, it's time to re-circulate the old $1T coin bullshit.

[Kurth]

Am I right that Senate Republicans using the filibuster to prevent raising the debt ceiling is a first?

Either way, this is it for me: Kill the fucking filibuster.

[Smoove_B]

I posted it in another thread, but this is part of the problem. Apparently the Senate needs to operate like Eyes Wide Shut.

"Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, said '40 or 45' Republicans would be willing to agree to allow a debt ceiling increase to come a vote, as long as they did not have to cast a public ballot. The problem, he said, was the other five."

[malchior]

I'd describe it a little differently. It isn't like total secrecy would help here. The incredibly stupid Senate rules enable bottomless asshole behaviors. The mechanism they'd want to use is unanimous consent. They'd essentially move to pass the debt ceiling increase without objection. The benefit for everyone is that no one is explicitly on the record about it. It'd be sorta secret.

The problem is that <insert Rand Paul or equivalent asshole> would stand up and say no. And then give some dumbass, hypocritical speech. Even if it was totally secret it would happen because he'd walk out and boast about it.

McConnell of course math-ed out this since he might be the only leader in Congress whose phylactery still survives and knows the rules because he wrote them by his own dark hand. Or more factually it was obvious in July when HE TOLD THEM THIS WOULD HAPPEN. Somehow it's October and these incompetent morons managed to get nearly nothing done and also ran into another incredibly embarrassing and potentially destabilizing crisis. Again. In any case, Mitch didn't have to stress too much. He has a heavily dog eared passage in his lich playbook, for this repeating curse 'when the Democrats fuck up again since that too is evergreen, harden the caucus because everything is absurd and hopelessly broken...as you dreamed eons ago".

[Smoove_B]

I'd describe it a little differently. It isn't like total secrecy would help here. The incredibly stupid Senate rules enable bottomless asshole behaviors. The mechanism they'd want to use is unanimous consent. They'd essentially move to pass the debt ceiling increase without objection. The benefit for everyone is that no one is explicitly on the record about it. It'd be sorta secret.

I'm personally not sure that unanimous consent is the right option for a vote like this. As a point of reference, we use unanimous consent when approving board meeting minutes. Voting on $28.5+ trillion? I'm going to need you to go on record for that - or hear me out, engage in some debate as one does in “the world's greatest deliberative body" (pauses for laughter).

Maybe it's technically an option, but you're right - there's still going to be someone that objects so it's useless.

[malchior]

Maybe it's technically an option, but you're right - there's still going to be someone that objects so it's useless.

FWIW it is how they traditionally did it. It became untenable as the Senate went off the rails. In this case, Schumer even tried to use it just to bring it to the floor and said...y'all can vote no on the actual vote. McConnell blocked that even. He knows his caucus. The GOP is pretty much throwing objects in their path while telling them they can go around the mess if they want. All to score some mid-term points. It's beyond absurd. I'm so fed up with the whole thing.

[malchior]

McConnell is purportedly in talks to give the Democrats a 2-4 week extension on the debt ceiling. We'll know more if this pans out but I'm guessing the big donors are telling them to cut it out with the full extent of this type of nuclear politics.

Edit: And we have a statement and oh what a statement it is. He is minimizing his part and emphasizing the Democratic leadership incompetence while opening a new front - reconciliation helps....socialism China! The dark master at work.

[Smoove_B]

McConnell is purportedly in talks to give the Democrats a 2-4 week extension on the debt ceiling. We'll know more if this pans out but I'm guessing the big donors are telling them to cut it out with the full extent of this type of nuclear politics.

McConnell told his colleagues he’s concerned about pressure on Manchin and Sinema to gut filibuster in order to raise debt ceiling, I’m told. He pointed to this as reason why he is floating short-term increase in order to ease pressure on and push Democrats to use reconcilation

[malchior]

Reports are coming in now that McConnell may have lost his caucus potentially. The rumor mill is that Ted Cruz and others are revolting and refusing to go along with his deal.

[Smoove_B]

The rumor mill is that Ted Cruz and others are revolting

Not a rumor at all. I find Cruz and so many other GOP Senators quite revolting.

[malchior]

The rumor mill is that Ted Cruz and others are revolting

Not a rumor at all. I find Cruz and so many other GOP Senators quite revolting.

Same here.

[Isgrimnur]

[malchior]

The guy who is supposed to be whipping the votes can't even commit to it. So serious!

[El Guapo]

Reports are coming in now that McConnell may have lost his caucus potentially. The rumor mill is that Ted Cruz and others are revolting and refusing to go along with his deal.

To be clear, they're refusing to give a 2 - 4 week extension, instead of running off the cliff now?

[Isgrimnur]

BBC

Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said on Thursday that lawmakers had reached a deal to extend the debt ceiling until early December.

The announcement came after what Schumer's Republican counterpart Mitch McConnell said were negotiations "in good faith" that had continued through the night.

[Drazzil]

BBC

Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said on Thursday that lawmakers had reached a deal to extend the debt ceiling until early December.

The announcement came after what Schumer's Republican counterpart Mitch McConnell said were negotiations "in good faith" that had continued through the night.

Shoot the hostage Mitch! Shoot the hostage!!

[malchior]

[Zarathud]

Remember how I said December? The current date is December 3 — for everything. They’re not going to come back to fix everything in a few days after Thanksgiving. Add in 2 weeks of overtime and we’ll have a Christmas deal.

[malchior]

So they kick the can and what are we treated to this morning? Stories about how the Republicans and Joe Manchin thought Chuck Schumer gave a mean speech about this. Cancel this show already. These people live in the dumbest alternate reality. Is the air in the Senate just full of hallucinogens?

[El Guapo]

So they kick the can and what are we treated to this morning? Stories about how the Republicans and Joe Manchin thought Chuck Schumer gave a mean speech about this. Cancel this show already. These people live in the dumbest alternate reality. Is the air in the Senate just full of hallucinogens?

Yeah, that's thoroughly stupid. It reminds me of how in 2008 after the first TARP bill failed in the House, Boehner and other Republicans blamed the failed vote on Pelosi supposedly giving a partisan speech attacking Republicans ahead of the vote. So Barney Frank said basically, "ok, give me a list of Republicans who voted no because of that, and I'll speak uncommonly nice about them".

[malchior]

I don't know how this is going to work. More I worry that Manchin will dig in because he knows he has them over a barrel on reconciliation *and* this.

[malchior]

A rare positive. The hostage has been released and the evergreen crisis is mostly in the past! My take is that even McConnell is spooked by our decline and wants to take the nuclear trigger out of the rebels' hands.

[coopasonic]

A rare positive. The hostage has been released and the evergreen crisis is mostly in the past! My take is that even McConnell is spooked by our decline and wants to take the nuclear trigger out of the rebels' hands.

I don't know the details, but I see "one time" there and am less hopeful.

[Octavious]

I guess Lindsey wasn't able to convince everyone to nuke the US in Trumps name. Did he vote for it?

[malchior]

A rare positive. The hostage has been released and the evergreen crisis is mostly in the past! My take is that even McConnell is spooked by our decline and wants to take the nuclear trigger out of the rebels' hands.

I don't know the details, but I see "one time" there and am less hopeful.

Fair enough. There was a real chance they were going to trip over the line here.

[Daehawk]

Bet Trump is pissed. Why do people care? He is a nothing.