BIDEN'S CRITICAL MISTAKE

As soon as the Republicans won the House last November, everyone with a brain knew they would try to take the economy hostage by refusing to raise the federal debt limit. That’s what they did in 2011, and the Tea Party Republican crazies were sober and sane compared to this crew of MAGAts. Voices were raised that the Democrats should head off the crisis while they still controlled both houses of Congress, but when it became clear the Republicans would force Democrats to do it on their own and then attack them as “big spenders,” the Democrats claimed it was the responsibility of both parties to solve and they would therefore allow the incoming Republican majority to act responsibly and would then work with them to deal with things.

I still ask myself, what in the name of God were they smoking?

Given the past history since 2011, given the resulting changes in the Republican Party since 2016, how could they not see that the revolutionary nihilists would “go there”?

How could they be such fucking COWARDS??? Whether they did anything or not, the Republicans were going to attack them as “big spenders” in 2024!

It was thus obvious the Biden administration needed a strategy to head off the oncoming crisis.

Despite all the proclamations of having “learned the lesson of 2011" that one does not negotiate with political terrorists, despite all the proclamations there would be no negotiations this time, that only a “clean” debt ceiling bill would be accepted, after the events since the president announced he would meet with Quiverin’ Qevin a week ago, it more and more looks like the only operational strategy that this White House has is wishful thinking.

I’d like to be wrong about this; I hope that President Biden will finally realize the nature of his opposition after they completely rejected every White House debt proposal yesterday, that he will at the last minute unveil an effective counter to this far right blackmail.

But I am starting to have a sick feeling about all of this. It may really be that Biden is too set in his ways, too deeply committed to a method of governing that no longer comports with reality or has any relevance; that he is indeed the 2023 version of French Marshal Gamelin, sittting there watching German tanks cross the Meuse River on May 14, 1940, unable to comprehend that nothing he knew how to do, no “right move” he could make, was going to stop the German Blitzkrieg that would see him defeated in 28 days.

“Go along to get along” no longer works. Not when one party can’t be trusted any further than they can be seen when the president closes his eyes.

Our crazy spending system, which requires a second vote to authorize borrowing to cover a deficit, in which if even one house of Congress refuses to raise the debt limit, the entire government of the strongest nation on earth will go into a voluntary, uncalled-for default, one that leads directly to world-wide catastrophic financial and economic results, thus allows a party sufficiently ruthless, sufficiently indifferent to the havoc it will wreak, to try imposing through extortion policies it could never enact through the normal legislative process.

Yes, raising the debt ceiling during the lame-duck session would have been hard in an evenly-divided Senate; requiring big concessions be made to two Democratic senators least supportive of Biden’s agenda.

But a hostage negotiation with Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema makes better sense and has a better outcome that one with Marjorie Traitor Goon and Paul Gosar.

So unless there was a plan to deal with the coming confrontation, there should have been a major effort to raise the debt ceiling. The fact that there was no such effort suggested at the time that maybe there was such a plan. Which goes to show that “assume” really does make an “ass” of “u” and “me.”

Since January 3, when the House majority changed hands and the weakest Republican Speaker in history - a man without a majority he can control even if he was intelligent enough to have a workable plan - became Speaker For Now, all we have seen from the Biden Administration has been repeated assertions that a default would be catastrophic - said to opponents who actually want it to happen - combined with denigration of any and all possible end runs around the debt ceiling.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen repeatedly rejected the idea of minting a platinum coin as a “gimmick.” This despite the fact it would be a harmless gimmick that amounted to carrying out normal borrowing through a “back door.”

Yellen argues that the administration cannot use any strategies that sound silly or unorthodox; in the face of the Republican blitzkrieg, she wants to mount a cavalry charge.

Joe Biden might as well be wearing a sign on his back that says “Kick Me” so long as he is blind to the reality he faces, or unwilling to re-examine strategies that might allow him to effectively counter those tanks crossing that pontoon bridge over the Meuse. He’s going to lose because he cannot comprehend how to win. This is the result of too much of the wrong kind of experience.

On one side, the administration has signaled that it is terrified of the consequences of default. On the other, it has made it clear it is unwilling even to consider any alternatives to a not-gonna-happen congressional vote to increase the debt limit.

They obviously expected moderate Republicans - the “Biden 18" - or business groups or Wall Street leaders or nonpartisan advocacy groups to somehow pressure the lunatics in the Republican Party to produce a clean debt ceiling bill. How anyone who has been alive since 2008 could fail to see there is no chance of this happening is beyond me.

Sure enough, after months of proclaiming it would never negotiate over the debt ceiling, that only a clean increase was acceptable, they are now … negotiating over the debt ceiling.

And yesterday they were informed in so many words that the only decision they can make that the other side will accept is complete surrender. “Surrender or we will shoot the hostage.”

Now that Republicans see an administration on the run, we can expect them to keep escalating their immediate demands - to the point where no deal is possible.

“Surrender or we will shoot the hostage.” And if you do this, know that you will destroy the support of enough of your voters that you will insure that the nightmare comes true in November 2024, when the greatest threat to the American republic in all its years of existence returns to office dedicated to a program of revenge

Nobody really has any idea what happens next. I hope there’s a real possibility that Biden will in the end be forced by sheer Republican intransigence to adopt unconventional methods after all. Sadly, that task that will be much harder than it would have been since the administration has spent months trash-talking the approaches they may now need to follow. Had they done otherwise, the leaders of Wall Street and the banking industry might be willing to hold fire long enough when such action is finally taken that it might have gained some momentum toward success.

Right now, I’m just glad I unloaded Jurate’s 401-K Disney stock last Tuesday rather than waiting for the godawful second quarter report on Wednesday that added 10% to the losses since she departed; There was only a 40% loss overall, and I’m left with enough cash on hand that I can weather the failure of Social Security payments to arrive on time in June. Lots and lots of people aren’t that fortunate and quite frankly we wouldn’t be either, if she was still here.

But there is no way to regard this whole episode as anything but a disastrous failure on the part of a guy with too much of the wrong political experience to face up to the reality of an opposition party controlled by extremists who will never “do the right thing.”

The only question is how bad things are going to get.

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