One great strength of our American political system is the capacity to compromise, conciliate and work things out when the issues involved are truly serious. That strength is reconfirmed, dramatically, in the just-concluded agreement between Congress and the White House to remove the debt ceiling of the nation for two years.
This permits paying commitments already made.
On May 31 and June 1, the House of Representatives and then the Senate passed the deal negotiated between President Joe Biden, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and their staffs. Emphasis should be placed on staffs, who bear the brunt of the complex, detailed give-and-take that is essential for an agreement that is realistic and workable.
The agreement suspends the current debt ceiling of $31.4 trillion until Jan. 1, 2025. This puts off any serious future crisis until after the 2024 elections, an important consideration in particular for President Biden, up for reelection next year and now consistently relatively low in popularity measured by opinion polls.
Both sides agreed to retrieve, or “claw back” in the current vernacular, approximately $27 billion dollars that has been appropriated to combat the COVID-19 public health challenge but remains unspent. This has been an irritant for Republicans for some time.
Another Republican win was to include work requirements for people receiving food stamps and other federal economic assistance. Such requirements for able-bodied recipients of aid was part of a similar, comprehensive budget and debt deal negotiated during the Clinton administration in the 1990s.
Enormous sums spent for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are sealed in law and therefore nondiscretionary. However, a true cash flow crisis, meaning the government literally could not pay bills, would theoretically put these extremely popular — and therefore politically very powerful — programs at risk, at least over the short-term.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s most recent statement on government funds indicated June 5 as the fail-safe date, after which the federal government would have difficulty in paying bills. The agreement was in these terms reached just in time.
As indicated above, staff members deserve credit for the long hours and disciplined discussion that resulted in this successful agreement. However, especially in politics, the boss gets the credit. We should keep both groups in mind.
The biggest winner here is Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The Republicans recaptured the House of Representatives in 2022, but by the barest of majorities. An anticipated Republican “Red Wave” in the Congressional elections failed to materialize.
A nearly equal balance of representation between the two parties in the House almost guarantees that partisanship will be intense, and makes bipartisanship more difficult. Additionally, McCarthy had to suffer through numerous votes, and make many concessions to the right wing, over a grueling four days before House Republicans finally elected him their speaker in January of this year.
Unavoidably therefore, while victorious eventually, he assumed the gavel of the speakership appearing to be beleaguered and perhaps compromised. In the intense rough world of Washington politics, cynics sneered his tenure might be weak and brief.
Given this background, McCarthy gains considerable standing, and no doubt influence, that should be of great help in coming political and policy conflicts within Congress. By inference, he clearly has picked effective staff members. He has also managed to overcome the rigid and radical far right of his party.
President Biden also benefits politically, at least over the short-term. However, he faces multiple electoral difficulties, including the disastrous mishandling of Afghanistan withdrawal.
Arthur I. Cyr is author of “After the Cold War.”
Contact acyr@carthage.edu
