MrDollarBills wrote:j4remi wrote:Clyde_Style wrote:
Yes. A sitting president without the House and barely holding the Senate will get pressed for concessions. Still don't see anyone saying what Biden was supposed to extract as a gain from the GOP in his position. It was a matter of how much he had to give up, not how much he could get. That's just common sense.
This is defeatist and requires completely ignoring that the sitting president has been in his position long enough to have both the House and Senate. He COULD have pushed to get a budget done while he had that advantageous situation.
NOW Biden is saying that they'll look into workarounds for the debt ceiling “No, I think it would cause more controversy getting rid of the debt limit,” Biden said. “Although I am exploring the idea that we would, at a later date a year or two from now, decide whether or not the 14th Amendment, how that actually would impact on whether or not you need to do the debt limit every year.
“But that’s another day,”
But, because the Biden Admin was too shortsighted to address this obvious oncoming issue; they had "no choice" but to negotiate. But in a good-faith negotiation there's give and take. This deal is all give, no take. So the administration stumbled into a hostage situation that anyone with a "common sense" could have predicted was coming; and then they were forced to give stuff up without getting JACK.
They even queued this up to occur again in 2 years unless they can hold the executive and legislative branch entirely...which ironically, THEY ALREADY HAD
It's just a bunch of excuses. "But Joe Manchin...but it could have been worse...but the judges might block it" and yet, there’s no will to make necessary changes to avoid any of it.
You want to stop judges from castrating the country? Plenty of candidates suggested judicial reforms.
Joe Manchin is controlling legislation? At a minimum remove his committee seats and influence as punishment (like Reid threatened Lieberman with back in the day).
It could have been worse? That doesn't mean it's suddenly good.
re: Manchin
The ass hole is probably using the razor thin Senate margin as leverage over Schumer, he basically gets all the hand outs for West Virginia that helps to line his pockets (there's pork in this bill for a gas pipeline project that he directly benefits from) in exchange for not defecting to the GOP or doing what that piece of **** Sinema did by going indy and caucusing with Republicans.
I totally would love to see him tar and feathered by the Senate Dems for his behavior since Biden took office, but I don't think they want to push him over to the GOP before he eventually gets booted out anyway next November in R+22 West Virginia, you know, for not wanting 10 year olds to push out rape babies.
Either way, the Senate map in 2024 looks shaky for Dems, so I don't have much hope for substantial legislation being passed over the next 4 years, nevermind getting the debt ceiling abolished.
The Manchin problem has been obvious and brewing for a long time. They should have dealt with it during the Infrastructure bill negotiations, but they split the bill up and gave him what he wanted. They still had time to reel him in over those oil permits if they'd handled it properly and pushed through a budget while they had both majorities.
But that's the issue here. It's easy to look at these debt-ceiling negotiations in a vacuum, but they're an amalgamation of crappy decisions along the way. One feckless decision begets the next. This debt ceiling crap is especially dumb. Everyone should have seen it coming.
Substantial Legislation is dead. The Dems don't have any willpower to fight for it. They didn't with a majority; they certainly don't without the House. On top of that, Biden's been flirting with his all-time lows in approval, and the voting public thinks Trump did a better job with the economy. On the material side of things, the Dems have been weak and on the electoral side of things, their saving grace is that the Republicans have fully embraced bigotry without much else backing it. But if Americans don't feel material gains from the Biden presidency, then the Dems are playing with fire.