Extortion paid off, but only a little bit.
Photo: Jonathan Ernst/REUTERS
— unless President Biden and Senate Democrats agreed to cut non-defense discretionary spending. The ostensible rationale behind this brinksmanship was that the United States is on the cusp of a debt crisis, and conservative lawmakers were therefore duty-bound to force a fiscal reckoning by any means necessary. This was malarkey.
It’s quite plain then that, for Republicans, the point of the debt-ceiling standoff was not to advance deficit reduction, but rather, a budget that prioritized low taxes for the rich and high spending on the military over all other fiscal priorities. They won this on the strength of their reputation for nihilism. Biden believed that Republicans just might deliberately make Americans poorer if he did not consent to their desired spending cuts.
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