The 2023 Budget Fight As An Ongoing War

Well, I just wrote a few days ago about how the current Republican Congressional push to force a debt ceiling default just to make Biden's re-election hopes go up in smoke, but somehow during this weekend Biden was able to get Speaker McCarthy to sign off on a budget deal. Some details via Claudia Grisales, Ximena Bustillo, Franco Ordoñez, and Joe Hernandez at NPR:

President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached an agreement in principle to avoid a potentially disastrous government default and raise the nation's debt ceiling. But as details – and criticism – of the deal began to trickle out on Sunday, both sides moved to rally support for a plan that negotiators concede will not please everyone...

The deal follows weeks of negotiations and a tense creep toward a deadline to raise the government's borrowing limit. The final package is expected to have opponents on the extremes of both parties, but the announcement Saturday indicates that Republican and Democratic leaders believe they will gain enough bipartisan support to pass the legislation. That confidence will be tested over the next few days as the measure makes its way through the House, where Republicans hold a slim majority.

The proposal holds nondefense spending for fiscal year 2024 at roughly current levels and raises it 1% in 2025, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. The agreement separately raises the debt limit for two years.

Overall, it's something that sticks to the current fiscal path that the federal government was on. There doesn't seem to be a lot of deep cuts to social aid, the restrictions Republicans are getting on food stamps may not create massive consequences (the work requirements are going to be affecting people who are already working). This deal can be considered a win for Biden since it kicks any further debt ceiling fight past the 2024 elections (providing of course Biden wins re-election and the Dems can at least retain partial control of Congress) and because it plays up to the national media's expectations of "bipartisan" deals getting done.

Thing is, the fight isn't over. Digby at her website has more on that:

It’s not over yet, because Kevin McCarthy still has to round up enough votes to get past the Hastert Rule (GOP can’t bring a bill to floor with a majority of Democratic votes) and he might still face a motion to vacate the chair when all is said and done (which is his problem, not ours) it appears that creaky old Joe got the best deal we could have expected, most importantly an agreement to extend the debt limit until after the next election...

Digby quotes from Dave Dayen at the American Prospect:

With one potentially major exception, the relative harm and help was kept to a minimum in the final agreement. It will only be a little bit easier to commit wage theft, or to sell defective or poisoned products. It’ll only be a little harder to get rental assistance or tuition support. Only a few people will be freer to pollute the environment; only a few will find it more difficult to get food. The Internal Revenue Service will only be a little worse. A lot of things will stay the same. Almost nothing will get any better...

The goal here was to allow both sides to say contradictory things to their members. Republicans can say they achieved the target of the Limit, Save, Grow Act to limit discretionary spending to FY2022; Democrats can say they only froze spending at current levels. And both are sort of right.

Digby then cites Dan Pfeiffer over at Message Box News (what the hell is that? nevermind, keep reading):

I want to hold out judgment on the work requirements until I see the details, but based on what we know, Biden limited the damage demanded by the GOP.

There’s not much to love in this deal for progressives, but Biden seems to have preserved all of the climate funding from the Inflation Reduction Act. If that’s the case, it’s a big win.

The deal is not great, but it’s a far cry from what the Republicans wanted. Notably, the Republicans played their best card, and all they got was a suboptimal budget deal...

Joe Biden played a very tough hand well. He got a better deal than many thought possible, and he forced the Republicans to adopt a series of very unpopular positions that they will have to own on the campaign trail next year. 

There is nothing inspirational about “could’ve been much worse.” No one will run to the polls or volunteer to make phone calls because Democrats “limited the damage.” But the debt limit was President Biden’s first showdown with the MAGA Republican House. All things considered, he navigated it quite well.

Again, Biden got the best of this - and will still likely get hammered by Beltway Media for some reason or another to keep their "horserace for 2024" narratives going - while McCarthy has to face his own House factions and keep them from turning on him or each other.

I mentioned it before: There is that Freedom Caucus faction that came into this budget fight wishing for a government default who are going to be livid that the debt ceiling will be addressed with this deal. These are the congresscritters who WANT to drive the nation over that cliff, and if McCarthy is putting the brakes on that act of destruction that caucus is going to lash back.

As Digby pointed out, the current House rules are that the "majority of the majority" (that Hastert Rule) requires that enough Republicans agree in principle on this deal, and there's no guarantee McCarthy has those votes. He's working with around a 5-vote majority: If enough Far Right Republicans say no, then this can't even get to a floor vote where the Democrats could agree to it as a bipartisan act.

And that's not even addressing the possibility of one of the Freedom Caucus members calling for a "Vacate the Chair" vote of No Confidence to force McCarthy out as Speaker. I dunno if that can happen before this deal can come to a vote, but if it does the whole thing becomes a clown show.

All of that would definitely become a major Biden win, because he made the bipartisan effort to avoid economic catastrophe while McCarthy and the House GOP couldn't. Enough House Republicans could arguably go with this deal to avoid that public debacle, but then again this modern Republican Party has a history of napalming everything instead of taking the sensible option. And then Biden can step in and invoke the 14th Amendment clause anyway and resolve the debt ceiling matter altogether.

This is going to be a crazy week ahead, America.

Hope you got the popcorn popping.