Debt limit deal shows why Republicans should reject Trump
Hugo Gurdon
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The debt ceiling fight should teach Republicans a lesson about how to pick their 2024 presidential nominee. It’s a lesson about unity, the limits you face when you’re out of power, and the stupidity of self-inflicted and self-righteous powerlessness.
For tactical reasons, President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) have emphasized what’s in the deal for their own party but avoided excessive boasting that could alienate the other side and jeopardize passage through Congress.
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But both know it’s a hands-down Republican victory, the first in recent memory. The GOP traditionally enters such confrontations bursting with bravado, then slinks away at the end defeated by Democrats who tag them as recklessly risking the nation’s credit and economic ruin.
This time, McCarthy turned the tables. He united GOP troops and passed a bill raising the ceiling and cutting spending. It was the only measure giving Biden legal authority to borrow above $31.4 trillion, so Democrats’ usual attack line didn’t work. They looked dumb or dishonest accusing Republicans of intransigence when it was they who, for five months, refused to budge. The blue team demanded what it self-righteously called a “clean” debt hike, by which it meant a total GOP capitulation — and the public didn’t buy it.
This forced Biden to back down, to negotiate when he’d said he never would, and to accept two principles — that spending is tied to debt and that the House majority has a legitimate role in government.
The deal claws back $30 billion in unspent COVID funds, caps nondefense spending, increases money for the Pentagon, and reforms permitting. These aren’t home runs, but they are GOP singles worth having. The deal will also impose work requirements on adults receiving food stamps, which was a red line drawn by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and quickly smashed by McCarthy. That’s why “the Squad” and other left-wing Democrats are squealing and trying to stoke street rebellion.
But some fiscally hawkish Republicans oppose the deal, too, saying it should have gone further. Or course, it could, but that’s the nature of divided government. McCarthy and Biden get it right when they point out that it was a compromise. Republicans didn’t and couldn’t get everything they wanted. They hold only half of one-third of the three branches of power in Washington. It would be vacuous virtue-signaling by the hawks to torpedo the deal in a fit of pique because McCarthy didn’t achieve unconditional Democratic surrender.
The hawks are right that much more needs to be done to get the nation’s finances in order. As Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) declared, “Our country will still be careening towards bankruptcy.” But that’s inevitable when Democrats hold the Senate and White House. The deal plugs some leaks so the ship won’t sink so fast, but righting it and getting it underway again is work that can be done only if Republicans take over Washington.
Describing politics as “the art of the possible” can be a trite excuse for lack of principle. But it is hackneyed also because it is true. If you want freedom to govern as you think best, you need victory and must hold the presidency and Capitol Hill. If not, get ready to compromise.
Republicans need to remember this as they decide whether to pick or reject former President Donald Trump for 2024. The political wilderness is a bleak place where you get nothing you want. It’s full of self-righteous curmudgeons who think they’re standing up for principle. But they are fooling themselves. There is no merit in it. You look good only to yourself, but to everyone else, you look a fool.
Biden is ripe for defeat. Only 42.1% of the public approves of his job performance, compared to 55.6% who disapprove, in the RealClearPolitics average. But Trump is just as unpopular, with 53.8% disapproving and 42.4% approving. Democrats love running against him because he has beaten them only once, by a narrow margin in 2016, and then lost everything else, again and again.
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He boasted eight years ago that with him as president, America would “win so much [that the public] may even get tired of winning.” After defeats under his leadership in 2018, 2020, 2021, and 2022 (for the presidency, Senate, and House), one can be forgiven for wondering if Republicans will at last get tired of losing. One can hope.
Passage of the debt ceiling bill, a compromise largely dictated by Republicans, perhaps shows that the party wants to win and is finally realizing that 75% of something is better than 100% of nothing. They’ll get the latter if they choose Trump. He brought freshness and the promise of greatness when he arrived on the political scene in 2015. Now, he offers staleness and grievances.