Opinion: DC insider: Biden should ignore the debt ceiling
I want to start today with a bit of history that sheds some light on what’s happening in Washington this week and what Biden should do about the debt-ceiling crisis created by Kevin McCarthy’s Republican House.
On October 22, 1985, Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III told congressional leaders that if Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling by the end of the month, the Reagan administration would pay the nation’s bills by taking back Treasury securities in which Social Security had invested.
I remember being stunned at the time. It was an extraordinary move. It meant Social Security would lose interest paid on its funds.
If Congress still didn’t raise the debt ceiling, Baker said the administration would borrow from the railroad retirement and military retirement trust funds.
And if the impasse continued, the administration would begin selling gold from the U.S. gold reserve “even though that could undercut confidence here and abroad based on the widespread belief that the gold reserve is the foundation of our financial system,” Baker said.
Baker’s point was that the Reagan administration would continue to find ways to pay the nation’s bills, come hell or high water.
An agreement was finally reached after the Reagan administration had begun raiding Social Security but before it took any other measures.
The comptroller general of the United States later found Baker’s raid on Social Security technically illegal but concluded nonetheless that Baker “did not act unreasonably” under the circumstances.
I recount this history to give you some perspective on the current debt-ceiling crisis, and what I believe should be Biden’s next move.
First, showdowns over the debt ceiling have been going on for a long time.
Second, they have often been fueled by soaring national debts due to Republican tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations. (The 1985 standoff involved a refusal by Senate Democrats to support a balanced budget, even though Reagan’s mammoth spending on the military and huge tax cut had doubled the national debt in less than five years.)
Finally, fights over the debt ceiling have required Treasury secretaries to do extraordinary things to keep paying the nation’s bills — sometimes technically illegal.
Hence, there have never been “X-dates” at which time the Treasury runs dry. There are just ever more extreme government bookkeeping measures.
And there is no end to the measures the Treasury might use to keep paying the bills. Although their legality of some might be dubious, who is to complain? Who is to say a Treasury secretary acted unreasonably in paying a lawful claim on the U.S. government?
This standoff is different in one respect. Previous standoffs have been carefully crafted dramas in which both sides demonstrate their commitments to their position, knowing full well how the play will end — with the debt ceiling lifted.
This time, though, gonzo lawmakers like Marjorie Taylor Greene and raving nut-jobs like the current Republican frontrunner for president have considerable influence.
And unlike Bob Dole in 1985, these players have no real commitment to cutting the government debt. (Were that their goal, presumably they wouldn’t have supported the massive 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations that fueled the debt, or would now urge its repeal. And they certainly wouldn’t demand cuts in staffing for the IRS, which House Republicans are also now doing.)
Their only commitment is to power — gaining dominance over, and submission from, Democrats, progressives, putative “coastal elites,” and so-called “deep state” bureaucrats.
For them, this is not play-acting. It’s not for show. It’s for real. If they don’t get their way, they’re prepared to blow up the economy.
In fact, as the so-called X-date appears to loom ever closer, their demands have escalated. And as Biden appears ready to give in to some of those demands, the demands will continue to escalate.
Which is why it’s critical for Biden to stop negotiating.
Meanwhile, he should continue paying the government’s bills and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen should continue using every bookkeeping scheme imaginable to find the means to pay those bills.
And they must never declare an “X-date.” And must never default.
If Kevin McCarthy and his band of radicals don’t like this, let them take the Biden administration to court.
Let House Republicans argue in the courts that the 1917 act establishing the debt ceiling has precedence over Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which requires that the “the validity of the public debt …. shall not be questioned.”
Let them claim in the courts that the 1917 debt-ceiling act takes precedence over more recent acts of Congress that require the president to, for example, pay interest on the federal debt, distribute Social Security benefits, and pay bills from defense contractors and everyone else who has relied on the full faith and credit of the United States.
Let McCarthy and House Republicans argue that they have standing to sue Biden for having the audacity to pay the government’s debts as they come due.
Finally, let McCarthy, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and the other loonies demand openly and publicly in court that Biden not honor the full faith and credit of the United States — with the predictable results that the cost of borrowing skyrockets, bond markets crash, the stock market plummets, the global economy is in turmoil, the dollar’s status as the world’s major currency is up for grabs, America is plunged into a deep recession, and millions of jobs are lost.
In other words, let McCarthy and House Republicans seek to enforce their dangerous nonsense about the debt ceiling — so that Americans can see clearly what they’re up to.
https://www.rawstory.com/dc-insider/White House Steps Up Antisemitism Monitoring in New StrategyA slate of new actions comes as anti-Jewish episodes increase: Biden, Emhoff headline a White House event on ThursdayPresident Joe Biden directed federal law enforcement agencies to better monitor anti-Jewish and other bias cases, and urged social-media companies and schools to crack down on hate speech, as part of a first-of-its-kind national strategy to combat antisemitism.
The White House on Thursday released a 60-page strategy, which includes more than 100 new actions federal agencies are taking to address a rising number of incidents. The White House said all will be completed within a year.
“This US national strategy to counter antisemitism is a historic step forward,” Biden said in a recorded video message introducing the plan. “It sends a clear and forceful message: in America, evil will not win. Hate will not prevail. The venom and violence of antisemitism will not be the story of our time.”
The strategy aims to bolster education on antisemitism and Jewish-American heritage, improve security for Jewish communities, reverse the “normalization” of antisemitism and counter antisemitic discrimination, according to the strategy document. The White House is partnering with organizations including the National Basketball Association Players Association, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other faith and civil-rights groups.
Antisemitic episodes in the US reached a four-decade high in 2022, according to the Anti-Defamation League, up 36% from the previous record a year before. The ADL started tracking antisemitic incidents in 1979.
Biden rolled out the strategy at live-streamed event along with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, the first Jewish spouse of a US president or vice president, and other senior administration officials who worked on it. Emhoff has been the public face of White House efforts on antisemitism.
“This plan will save lives. Our work to counter antisemitism will not stop with the release of this national strategy. We are dedicated to its implementation,” Emhoff said.
Earlier: Emhoff Urges ‘Bold Action’ From US, Europe to Fight Antisemitism
The plan is the White House’s most sweeping policy response yet to a surge of hateful rhetoric and violence against Jews in the US. It faced calls from lawmakers and civil-rights groups to do more to crack down on hate crimes and counter public expressions of hatred against Jews.
The White House plan includes:
- An annual threat assessment by the FBI and National Counter-terrorism Center on “antisemitic drivers of transnational violent extremism” to be shared with technology companies and others.
- Eliminating obstacles to reporting hate incidents to the federal government.
- Including antisemitism in diversity, equity and inclusion training for federal workers.
- Urging online platforms to ensure that their terms of service explicitly cover antisemitism and adopt zero-tolerance policies for hate speech.
- The Education Department will establish an antisemitic awareness campaign directed at K-12 and college students that also reminds schools of their legal obligation to address bias complaints.
- The US Holocaust Memorial Museum will launch a new education and research center.The focus on social media could put the White House on a collision course with Twitter Inc. owner Elon Musk, who has removed speech restrictions from the platform. Studies have shown that hate speech has increased on Twitter since Musk’s purchase.
An interagency group formed last December, led by outgoing domestic policy adviser Susan Rice and homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall drafted the strategy. Rice said the administration consulted with tech companies, along with a thousand Jewish leaders and other stakeholders, in drafting the plan.
“They know very clearly where we stand on on these issues,” Rice said in an interview. “So this won’t and shouldn’t come as a surprise to them when they read it in the national strategy.”
The plan adopts a definition of antisemitism in line with one used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The US uses that definition, which also considers certain forms of anti-Zionism as antisemitism. Some liberal groups opposed it, arguing it could stifle criticism of the Israeli government.
“When Jews are targeted because of their beliefs or their identity, when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hatred, that is antisemitism. And that is unacceptable,” the strategy reads.
“There has been no change in our posture on this and the strategy will be clear,” Rice said.
Biden indicated that confronting antisemitism was a priority when he said the 2017 white nationalist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which tiki-torch carrying marchers chanted “Jews will not replace us,” helped motivate him to run for president. But the problem has persisted.
More recently, high-profile figures including former President Donald Trump; the performer formerly known as Kanye West and basketball star Kyrie Irving have made antisemitic comments or shared antisemitic content.
Musk last week likened billionaire George Soros to the Jewish comic book supervillain Magneto. Soros is a Holocaust survivor, and some of his critics have turned his liberal political activism into antisemitic conspiracy theories. Musk denies that he was attacking Soros over his background.
Deborah Lipstadt, the US special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism, said no administration would be able to extinguish an ancient hatred, but the plan could still make inroads.
“We won’t solve the problem. But if we can contain it, if we can reverse it, if we can get people to say this is serious, for me, that will be sufficient,” Lipstadt said in an interview.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-25/white-house-steps-up-monitoring-of-antisemitism-in-new-strategy
