The Media Is Normalizing Debt-Ceiling Extortion

[Nevilledog]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/05/debt-ceiling-extortion-historical-republican-congress-hostage-default-threat-kevin-mccarthy.html

No paywall
https://archive.is/ulm3L


Ten years ago, when Barack Obama faced down an attempt by House Republicans to extract concessions in return for lifting the debt ceiling, he explained that he saw this tactic as inimical to functioning self-government. “If we continue to set a precedent in which a president … is in a situation in which each time the United States is called upon to pay its bills, the other party can simply sit there and say, ‘Well, we’re not going to … pay the bills unless you give us … what we want,’ that changes the constitutional structure of this government entirely,” he explained.

For a while, Obama’s perspective mostly carried the day. But as the new Republican-led House seeks to renew the effort to use the debt ceiling as a hostage, a revisionist interpretation has taken hold: This isn’t a new or dangerous tactic, it’s just how Congress operates.

“The House Republicans’ insistence on negotiations and compromise is not hostage taking. It is the ordinary stuff of politics,” claims law professor Michael McConnell. “A standalone clean debt ceiling is dead on arrival … In modern times, the debt ceiling is raised with negotiations,” asserts Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman.

Andrew Prokop of Vox argues, “Historically, it hasn’t been the case that the debt ceiling is a sacrosanct thing that shouldn’t be subject to typical political horse-trading. In 2017, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer bragged to the New York Times that he had used the debt ceiling as ‘leverage’ over President Trump.”

This is all totally false. These arguments conflate negotiation, which is historically common in debt-ceiling bills, with extortion, which isn’t.

*snip*

[TheRealNorth]

1. So, according to some of these media "experts"

Last edited Mon May 15, 2023, 09:42 PM - Edit history (1)

It's okay for Democrats to hold the economy hostage if the Republicans don't pass a constitutional amendment protecting abortion or the right to vote? Because if it's okay to take the economy hostage, then there are some things we should be demanding.



Of course, IOKIYAR. But not if you are a Democrat.