For months, the political world was stuck in a frustrating ditch. Congressional Republicans — with a minority in the Senate and a narrow majority in the House — launched a debt ceiling crisis, declaring their intention to crash the economy deliberately unless their demands were met.
Democrats then asked GOP leaders what their demands were. “We don’t actually know,” Republicans responded.
After several months of this utterly bonkers dynamic, House Republican leaders — ignoring their earlier commitments to an above-board process — completed a ransom note behind closed doors, skipped the committees, and bypassed any meaningful policy scrutiny. Yesterday afternoon, as NBC News reported, the party managed to pass the ransom note as a piece of legislation — but just barely.
The Republican-controlled House voted Wednesday to pass a bill to raise the debt limit, slash spending and roll back key pieces of President Joe Biden’s agenda after a series of concessions overnight to win over stubborn GOP holdouts. … [P]assage of the bill on a 217-215 vote hands Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., a small and much-needed symbolic victory, underscoring his ability to bring together his razor-thin, often rambunctious majority.
The outcome was by no means assured. The GOP leader introduced his Limit, Save, Grow Act last week, but as recently as earlier this week, he still didn’t have the votes. Just 48 hours before the floor debate, McCarthy expected to muscle the legislation through anyway, telling members his bill would not be changed.
The House speaker soon after realized that several members of his own conference were prepared to kill his plan, at which point McCarthy quietly changed the unchangeable legislation, caving to extremists and making it slightly worse.
Following up on our earlier coverage, the GOP’s hostage note is better described as a right-wing fantasy than a serious piece of federal policymaking. In order to prevent Republicans from deliberately crashing the economy, Democrats are apparently supposed to accept a plan that would push hundreds of thousands of American out of work, take health care coverage from hundreds of thousands of Americans, derail the U.S. manufacturing boom, and gut all kinds of critically necessary public investments on everything from veterans care to education, border security to food security.
Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz told Politico, “The leadership just picked up the House Freedom Caucus plan and helped us convert it into the legislative text.” The far-right Floridian apparently meant that as a compliment.
What’s more, in exchange for paying this ransom, Republicans — who only seem to take an interest in fiscal issues when there’s a Democrat in the White House — would raise the debt limit through March 2024, at which point the party would presumably come up with an additional set of demands as part of yet another extortion plot.
If McCarthy had fallen short yesterday, and his Limit, Save, Grow Act failed, the crisis could’ve moved toward a responsible resolution. After the 217-215 vote, those hopes have been dashed.
All of which leaves the world with a simple question: What happens now?
The short answer is, nothing good. Yesterday’s House vote doesn’t just prolong the crisis, it intensifies the crisis. On the surface, the legislative process will proceed the way it always does: The House passed a bill, which will now go the Democratic-led Senate. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already made clear that the radical hostage note will not be considered in the upper chamber, calling McCarthy’s bill the “DOA Act.” The acronym is ostensibly intended to describe the “Default On America Act,” but the fact DOA also stands for “dead on arrival” was lost on no one. All of which leaves us in an incredibly dangerous situation. Radicalized House Republicans, suddenly emboldened, now believe that they must receive an enormous and devastating ransom, which would, among other things, make life harder for countless struggling families. Those same GOP officials, feeling a renewed sense to entitlement, insist that if Democrats balk, Republicans will have no choice but to deliberately crash the global economy. Democrats, meanwhile, have settled on a straightforward, two-part position: (1) They won’t negotiate with those threatening to harm Americans on purpose; and (2) Congress should simply agree to pay the nation’s bills, just as they did during the Trump era, the Obama era, the Bush era, the Clinton era, the Reagan era, and so on. The threat of the United States defaulting on its debts and causing an economic catastrophe has never been more real. We’ve gone from a frustrating political dynamic to a terrifying one.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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