Tangle - Republicans pass debt ceiling bill.

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Starting point is 00:01:30 From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum. Some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. Hope you all had a great weekend. Today, we are going to be covering the debt ceiling, more specifically, the debt ceiling bill just passed by Republicans in the House who offered up a process for raising the current debt limit. Before we jump in, though, a quick note. I want to give a promotion for our Friday edition in which I published 13 pieces of reader feedback from folks who wrote in about various issues related to the Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light controversy and trans issues more generally. The piece was very well received.

Starting point is 00:02:33 One reader wrote in and said, thank you for this incredible addition. I read the whole thing in one sitting. I couldn't stop. I admire your commitment to sharing reader criticism. It must be painfully hard at times, but the benefits of sharing it are immeasurable. I learned so much more not only about the differing opinions and experiences of people across the political spectrum, but also about the facts underlying these stances. This was an emotional read, but also an informative one. I can't wait to share it with my family of all political stripes. Another reader wrote in and said, Isaac, I don't think I've ever seen a more honest form of journalism than what you continue to produce. It's not only refreshing, it's inspiring. You are delivering on a particular kind of genius, and it's one the world

Starting point is 00:03:14 needs. Obviously, these are extremely complimentary comments. I'm not sharing them just to stroke my own ego. But to tell you that this edition is available on our website right now, if you go to readtangle.com, it's titled Your Criticism Published. And you can give the full thing a read if you click in. There's a preview and then you can subscribe if you feel inclined. Thank you all so much for the continued support. And please remember that getting a membership is the best way to support this podcast and our project more broadly. All right, so with that out of the way, we'll jump in today with some quick hits. First up, U.S. regulators took over First Republic Bank and sold the majority of its deposits and assets to J.P. Morgan,

Starting point is 00:04:04 marking the second largest bank failure in United States history. Number two, there is a widening manhunt for a Texas gunman who fatally shot five neighbors and took off on foot into the woods. Number three, West Virginia Governor Jim Justice said he will run for Senator Joe Manchin's seat in 2024. Number four, Russian bombers launched two dozen cruise missiles at Ukrainian cities, killing at least 25 people and injuring dozens more, marking the largest airstrikes in a month. Meanwhile, Ukraine reportedly struck a Russian oil depot in Crimea. Number five, a North Carolina Supreme Court handed the GOP a major victory by throwing

Starting point is 00:04:42 out previous rulings against gerrymandered voting maps and upholding a photo identification voter law. We begin tonight on Capitol Hill, where House Republicans have narrowly passed a bill to raise the nation's debt ceiling. Even party leaders acknowledge the bill is nowhere close to becoming law. The House has just passed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's bill to raise the debt ceiling with spending cuts. The bill passed very tight vote, 217 to 215. House Republicans made changes to that legislation early this morning, very early this morning, to win over holdouts within their own conference. It would cut spending and roll back some big parts of President Biden's agenda, like student debt forgiveness and green energy tax credits.

Starting point is 00:05:36 On Wednesday, House Republicans narrowly passed a bill to raise the debt ceiling to $31.4 trillion while cutting spending and rolling back key parts of President Biden's agenda. The bill, dubbed the Limit Save Grow Act of 2023, passed by a 217 to 215 vote and has no chance of becoming law in the democratically controlled Senate. Instead, the bill is designed to force a Biden to negotiate over spending reductions or face a potential default on the nation's debt as he wants to raise the debt ceiling with no conditions attached. A quick reminder, the debt ceiling is the legal limit on how much debt the federal government can incur. It was established in 1917 during World War I to improve our flexibility to borrow money. Before that, Congress had to

Starting point is 00:06:21 improve every issuance of debt with separate legislation. Because the U.S. regularly spends more than it collects in revenue, Congress has typically raised the debt ceiling every time it has reached it, rather than cut spending. If the government hits the debt ceiling and fails to pay interest payments to bondholders, then it could fall into default, which would lower our national credit rating, increase the cost of our debt, and potentially set off a global economic crisis. The U.S. hit the debt limit in January but has been using extraordinary financial measures to avoid breaching it since then. We explained the debt ceiling in a previous full edition and there's a link to it in today's episode description. This bill was a major win

Starting point is 00:07:00 for new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who had no wiggle room on the bill and had promised to force Biden to the table on the debt ceiling. Inside the bill is a measure to freeze spending at last year's levels for a decade, which would amount to a 14% cut. It would also roll back parts of Biden's health, climate, and tax bill, create work requirements for social programs like food stamps and Medicaid, and expand fossil fuel production. Biden has threatened to veto the bill, and Republicans have little hope of passing it in the democratically controlled Senate. However, the vote was viewed as the first step to make their position clear for negotiations with Biden on the debt ceiling. Republicans are trying to prevent Biden from a clean debt ceiling increase. I will meet with McCarthy, but not on whether or not the debt limit gets extended,

Starting point is 00:07:43 Biden said at a news conference shortly after the bill was passed. That's not negotiable. Today, we're going to take a look at some arguments about what this bill means from the right and the left, and then my take. First up, we'll start with what the right is saying. Many on the right praise the bill and criticize Biden for refusing to engage on it. Some argue this has disarmed Democrats' talking points that Republicans are holding the debt ceiling hostage. Others say it's time for Democrats to do their job and negotiate. The Wall Street Journal editorial board said House Republicans passed the bill to raise the federal debt ceiling, but Biden is behaving as if it never happened. This means he's now the beltway actor toying with default on the national debt, the board said. The House has done its duty

Starting point is 00:08:40 to prevent a government default. Now it's up to the Senate, and Mr. Biden could help by mediating a bipartisan compromise that can get the 60 necessary votes. Instead, Biden doesn't seem to understand the leverage has changed. Senator Chuck Schumer needs at least nine GOP votes to pass a debt limit increase, but won't get those votes for free. What part of divided government and bicameral legislation doesn't the president understand? Perhaps he's still under the illusion that he can refuse to negotiate and cause Republicans to panic as the debt deadline looms. No doubt the press corps will try to give him cover, the board said. Mr. Biden's refusal even to meet is weird given his long record as a politician willing to talk to the opposition, and if he refuses to work with Republicans, he'll be responsible for the financial calamity he's been warning about. Also in the Wall Street Journal, Kimberly A. Strassel said

Starting point is 00:09:30 McCarthy blew up President Biden's entire operating assumption. Democrats aren't the only game in town after all, Strassel said. The Biden bet was that Mr. McCarthy would never fully unify his caucus around a package of spending reductions and that Democrats would continue dictating policy, including a clean debt limit increase. He lost that bet. Republicans relearned one of Washington's oldest truths. Unity is strength. Now there is only one bill to raise the debt ceiling and pressure is rising on Biden. House Democrats are already calling for him to sit down with Mr. McCarthy. The press is asking why he won't. Wall Street will weigh in the closer we creep to the date Treasury claims it can't pay the bill, she said. It also helps that the bill is eminently reasonable. It focuses on spending reductions, avoiding the urge to use the legislation for more hot-button priorities like tax cuts.

Starting point is 00:10:20 And the provisions they chose have broad public appeal. Average Americans don't see a problem with returning spending levels to those of two years ago or clawing back money for a pandemic that is long over or asking childless able-bodied adults to work for a few hours in return for welfare, especially in light of $31 trillion in debt. In The Federalist, Christopher Jacobs railed against the conventional wisdom that McCarthy's bill is meaningless because it is dead on arrival. As with many things in Washington, the corporate media's conventional wisdom is wrong, he said. Democrats continued to decry supposed Republican hostage-taking, alleging conservatives will ruin the country's full faith and credit. Ignore the not-insignificant question of whether the Treasury Department can prioritize government payments to prevent a default, the Democratic argument rests on the premise Republican

Starting point is 00:11:08 lawmakers would never vote to raise the debt limit. But last week's vote revealed that wasn't the case. Numerous conservatives who had never supported legislation that raised the debt limit voted with McCarthy. Democrats can't claim conservatives amount to legislative nihilists who can't get to yes on an issue. Instead, they don't like the fact that Republicans said yes to raising the debt limit and yes to reforming federal spending, he wrote. Now Democrats need to get in the room and negotiate. It's called legislating. Congress actually doing its job. All right, that is it for the right is saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. Many on the left criticize the bill as political theater and argue it is meaningless posturing. Some say Biden is right to refuse to negotiate based on what happened in 2011.

Starting point is 00:12:01 Others fear the dynamics this bill creates by pitting extreme Republicans against the president. The Washington Post editorial board said House Republicans actually appear willing to allow the nation to default for the first time in its history. The bill is political theater. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the Republican from California, and his colleagues agreed to lift the debt ceiling to March 2024, the middle of an election year, in exchange for sharp spending cuts and a slew of other GOP policy favorites, including calling back IRS funding, putting more work requirements on welfare programs, and rolling back green energy initiatives, the board said. In other words, House Republicans are saying that if Democrats give in on the majority of the GOP's pet priorities, they will agree to lift the debt

Starting point is 00:12:44 ceiling only until right before the next presidential election, when no one in Washington will want to compromise on another increase. This is recklessly unrealistic. In an ideal world, Republicans would lift the debt limit without exacting a ransom, given that this is about paying the money that Congress, in a largely bipartisan fashion, already committed to spend. It's true that the nation is on a fiscally unsustainable course, but holding the debt limit hostage will only backfire. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond

Starting point is 00:13:22 Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions

Starting point is 00:14:02 can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. Also in the Washington Post, Catherine Rample said Biden learned his lesson from the last debt ceiling standoff in 2011. A debate on the nation's fiscal issues would be worthwhile, but preferably this debate wouldn't happen under the threat of blowing up the global financial system, Rample wrote. The problem is that Republicans have pledged to reduce debt, but have ruled out virtually every other mathematical path for doing so. They refuse to raise taxes, but cannot agree on what spending programs to cut or by how much, which is not super surprising. Almost every program is backed by a constituency that would object to its being cut. That's how we ended up with long-term fiscal challenges in the first place.

Starting point is 00:14:49 This is why McCarthy proposes across-the-board funding cuts without detailing what gets targeted. McCarthy has cited the 2011 debt standoff to say Biden is unreasonable for refusing to negotiate, but that episode should teach Democrats that repeating the same negotiations and resolutions would be exactly the wrong course of action. The short-term consequences were a downgrading of the nation's debt for the first time in history, and the long-term consequences were years of fighting, more hostage-taking, government shutdowns, and general chaos. In The New Yorker, Jonathan Blitzer argued that McCarthy is pitting his most extreme members against the president. Their bill would include strict work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps,

Starting point is 00:15:34 major slashes to discretionary spending, and the elimination of unused pandemic aid, he said. In exchange for some $130 billion in cuts to next year's budget, the Republicans would agree to raise the debt ceiling until March 2024. Yet the Freedom Caucus's demands kept mounting, and eventually the bill turned into an attack on the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden's crowning legislative achievement. This bill would gut the IRA's green energy tax incentives, endangering at least 100,000 jobs, the vast majority of which were bound for Republican districts. McCarthy had to pare back some parts of the bill because of members' objections, but the crux of it remained intact. This current course is much more worrisome than the showdown of 2011 because the Republican majority is far slimmer than it was in 2011,

Starting point is 00:16:14 meaning the extremists have more sway. All right, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So Republicans' position is more defensible now than it was before when they were essentially refusing to pay the nation's credit card bill. Still, this bill doesn't actually define where spending cuts could come, which makes it hard to take seriously. We absolutely need to pay our debt and we need to reform and cut our spending. So first and foremost, I'm still quite confident that Republicans and Democrats are going to strike a deal for something close to a clean raise of the debt ceiling. History suggests the forces that be are going to push them there, even though this particular episode definitely seems more uncertain than past shakedowns. So much of the commentary around this has been about the surprising victory of

Starting point is 00:17:09 McCarthy to rally together 217 votes, but I think not enough has been said about the deep divisions within the Republican caucus it revealed. Most of the Capitol Hill journalists reporting on this episode suggested McCarthy had to promise his colleagues what was inside the bill did not matter and should be ignored since it won't ever become law. Instead, he got to this vote where he lost the most members possible without the vote failing by promising the symbolism of the bill itself was a win. Even then, public infighting and late-night demands from the so-called five families that make up the Republican House continued until the last minute. As I wrote in our previous coverage of the debt ceiling, I think the best analogy here is that Republicans have been essentially refusing to pay a credit card bill, not actually budgeting

Starting point is 00:17:53 future spending in the first place. Now that this bill has passed, that analogy changes. They've offered a new budget, albeit a vague and kind of unserious one, and that budget deserves a meaningful response. Just as Biden called out Republicans for not having an answer to his fiscal budget, Republicans can call out Biden for not having an answer to their debt ceiling legislation. The two seemingly opposing issues are simultaneously true. First, we absolutely need to meet our debt obligations or else we will face a serious economic catastrophe. Whether we actually default on our debt is almost beside we will face a serious economic catastrophe. Whether we

Starting point is 00:18:25 actually default on our debt is almost beside the point. The legitimate threat of a default, the downgrading of our credit rating, and or the push from other countries to turn away from the U.S. dollar would all be damaging enough. Second, we do need to reform our spending. I know it isn't a sexy talking point and some liberals seem more and more keen on accepting the idea that we can just keep spending however we want, but the debt does matter, and we are on a fiscally unsustainable path. Reforming social security and Medicare costs is an absolute necessity. So too is addressing our military spending, which now amounts to more than the next 10 countries on earth combined, is absurdly wasteful, and cannot continue the way it's going.

Starting point is 00:19:03 Each of these ideas is very unpopular with either the left or the right or both, but cutting some of all of the above paired with the always unpopular tax increases seems like the only way out of the mess we are in. This is not how I think budget cuts and reform should happen, but it's apparently the only way to get everyone's attention. Republicans may extract some compromise on permitting reform or modest caps on future spending, and that'd be a much preferable outcome to whatever we are barreling towards right now. House Republicans deserve credit for firing the starting gun in negotiations, but they'll need to be a lot more specific about where their $3 trillion of cuts are going to come from if they want to be taken seriously. In the meantime,

Starting point is 00:19:43 it's May 1st, and economists estimate we edge up to our fiscal cliff sometime in July. That means Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer need to pick up the phone and do their jobs. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from Dave in Austin, Texas. Dave said, I'm writing an ask about why you think that Marianne Williamson is not a viable candidate. Everything I've seen from her so far seems to be inspiring and well thought out. Aside from a few public flubs, she seems to be able to appeal to a lot of people sitting in the middle, ideally those people who ended up voting for Trump based on his promises to clean up Washington from corruption.

Starting point is 00:20:25 She seems to be the Democratic version of this idea, and she doesn't have a long and questionable past of corrupt adjacent acts to back it up, unlike the other guy. So my answer here is actually quite simple. She isn't qualified. She isn't close to qualified. If I'm totally honest, I think Marianne Williamson's presidential aspirations are about raising her public profile, and I think if you take a look at her career arc, you'll see someone who has floated between various interests and mostly not been very successful at any of them besides being an author. She's best known as a writer, having published 14 books, including some bestsellers, but aside from briefly leading a church as a pastor, she has

Starting point is 00:21:03 basically zero experience successfully leading any organization's government bodies or anything else. Her few major bullet points as a co-founder or leader of cause-based organizations seem beset by chaos and poor organization. I know it is kind of in vogue to run for president these days, and Trump made it seem like any old outsider could step into the fray, but running the most powerful country in the history of the planet should be reserved for serious people with serious experience and deep understanding of government and clear qualifications to oversee, I don't know, nuclear weapons and the bureaucracy of a few million employees. Do you honestly think Williamson has

Starting point is 00:21:41 that? Because I don't. I'm certainly not opposed to outsider anti-establishment candidates. In fact, I welcome them. I think business leaders or tech innovators or activists with a storied history of leadership and organization can and should run and be taken seriously. But I don't see anything on Williamson's resume or in her experience that makes me think her presidency would be anything but chaos. Even in her few failed attempts to run for office, what we've heard from her staffers is an ugly picture of disarray. All right, that is it for your questions answered, which brings us to our under-the-radar story.

Starting point is 00:22:19 Colorado's Governor Jared Polis signed four pieces of gun control legislation last week, marking one of the largest government responses yet to gun violence. Colorado in particular has been home to several high-profile mass shootings. One bill expands the state's existing red flag laws to allow educators, attorneys, and health professionals to request the seizure of someone's firearms. The other bills raise the minimum wage to buy guns from 18 to 21, impose a three-day waiting period on the purchase of guns, and make it easier to sue gun and ammunition manufacturers. There's a link to this story in today's episode description.

Starting point is 00:22:58 All right, next up is our numbers section. The total U.S. debt as of Monday morning when I'm recording this podcast is $31.7 trillion. The total U.S. debt as of Monday morning when I'm recording this podcast is $31.7 trillion. The total U.S. gross domestic product in 2022 was $25.46 trillion. The percentage of Americans who said reducing the federal deficit should be a top priority of Congress, according to a February Pew survey, was 57%. The percentage of Americans who said it should be a top priority a year ago was 45%. The percentage of voters under 30 who voted in last year's midterms was 27%, the second highest in three decades. The percentage of Americans who said they opposed the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was 59%, according to an NPR-PBS Marist poll.

Starting point is 00:23:45 All right, and last but not least here, have a nice day section. An eclectic new study on parrots has found that the domesticated birds really seem to benefit from and enjoy video calls with other parrots. Researchers helped pair together domesticated parrots on video calls, teaching them how to dial up and chat with each other, and then watched in awe as the birds showed off their toys, learned new skills, sang, and chatted away with each other. The parrots even formed strong friendships with specific birds, picking certain birds to call on a regular basis from a list of over a hundred options.

Starting point is 00:24:16 In the wild, parrots move in flocks, but many in US homes live alone, and the calls were a fun way to give them the social connections they apparently crave. Smithsonian has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. Like I mentioned at the top, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website if you're curious to read Friday's special subscribers-only edition. We'll be right back here same time tomorrow. Have a good one.

Starting point is 00:24:50 Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by John Law. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bukova, who's also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more on Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. We'll see you next time. who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web,

Starting point is 00:25:47 his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Thank you.

Tangle - Republicans pass debt ceiling bill.

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