Debt Deal: Did Biden Find Reasonable Middle or Give Away Too Much?
This is not a moment, however, in which bipartisanship is valued in the way it was when Mr. Biden came up through the Senate in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. His desire to position himself as the leader who can bring together a deeply divided country is at the heart of his case for a second term next year. But it conflicts with the interests of many Democrats who see more political benefit in standing firm against former President Donald J. Trump’s Republican Party and prefer to draw a sharper contrast for their own elections in 2024 when they hope to recapture the House.
“The agreement also represents a compromise that means no one got everything they want, but that’s the responsibility of governing,” Mr. Biden told reporters at the White House on Sunday evening.
Most importantly from Mr. Biden’s point of view, the agreement averts a catastrophic national default that could have cost many jobs, tanked the stock markets, jeopardized Social Security payments and sent the economy reeling. He is banking on the assumption that Americans will appreciate mature leadership that does not gamble with the nation’s economic health.
But many on the political left are aggravated that Mr. Biden in their view gave into Mr. McCarthy’s hostage-taking strategy. The president who said the debt ceiling was “not negotiable” ended up negotiating it after all to avoid a national default, barely even bothering with the fiction that talks over spending limits were somehow separate.
Liberals were pushing Mr. Biden to stiff the Republicans and short-circuit the debt ceiling altogether by claiming the power to ignore it under the 14th Amendment, which says the “validity of the public debt” of the federal government “shall not be questioned.” But while Mr. Biden agreed with the constitutional interpretation, he concluded it was too risky because the nation could still go into default while the issue was being litigated in the courts.
Source: The New York Times
