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During a CNBC appearance last week, Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman insisted, “In modern times, the debt ceiling is raised with negotiations.” The idea was that the ongoing crisis might be scary, and might put millions at risk, but it’s become a normal part of the American political process.
As we discussed on Friday, the observation was plainly incorrect, though he wasn’t the only one making this mistake. Over the weekend, The New York Times published an op-ed from Michael McConnell, a law professor and a former federal appeals court judge. The opinion piece was largely focused on rejecting the 14th Amendment solution, but it also included this argument:
[T]he House Republicans’ insistence on negotiations and compromise is not hostage taking. It is the ordinary stuff of politics.
No, it’s not.
I can appreciate why there are elements of the larger debate that are subjective, but this isn’t one of them. The question of whether debt ceiling crises are “the ordinary stuff of politics” is not a matter of opinion. The underlying question is an entirely knowable thing: In recent history, have these tactics been common or not?
The answer is readily available — and I have no idea why anyone would deny its accuracy.
As New York magazine’s Jon Chait explained yesterday, “It is true that, historically, debt-ceiling bills have also been wrapped together with other measures. But what [House Speaker Kevin] McCarthy is doing is not that. He is threatening to refuse to lift the debt ceiling unless President Biden grants him concessions.” Chait added that the claim from Michael McConnell’s op-ed is “totally false.”
Indeed, it was especially surprising to see the opinion piece dismiss the idea that the ongoing Republican-imposed crisis “is not hostage taking.” We know the opposite is true because Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already admitted as much.
In fact, in 2011, immediately after the original debt-ceiling fiasco was resolved, the Kentucky Republican offered a chilling assessment of the crisis he helped create. “What we did learn is this — it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming,” the GOP leader said.
If this were “the ordinary stuff of politics,” observers would obviously be able to point to a series of other modern examples. That’s impossible, of course, because reality is stubborn.
Circling back to our earlier coverage, there were debt ceiling talks in 2011 — though at the time, Barack Obama saw this as an opportunity to engage in budget negotiations, not make ransom payments — which participants, including then-Vice President Joe Biden, soon recognized as a messy mistake not to be repeated.
Throughout the remainder of Obama’s presidency, he refused to engage in such discussions. Republicans grudgingly acquiesced and Congress received no treats for agreeing to pay the nation’s bills. During the Trump era, there was also no need for debt ceiling negotiations — because Democrats didn’t ask for any. (Donald Trump actually praised Democrats for not launching a debt ceiling crisis.) The same was true during George W. Bush’s two terms.
In other words, in the 21st century, before this year, these “negotiations” happened a grand total of once. It’s hardly “ordinary stuff.”
Sure, fiscal debates have unfolded around earlier debt ceiling increases — see the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings process in 1985, for example — but there’s a qualitative difference between budget talks and hostage standoffs.
Let’s not miss the forest for the trees: The Republicans’ 2011 fight was the first time a major American political party used the debt ceiling to threaten to deliberately crash the economy. This year, GOP officials are doing it again. Policymakers have historically steered clear of such extortion tactics, but as the Republican Party has become more radicalized, we’re now experiencing their second such effort.
As for why anyone should care about some in the media getting this wrong, there are consequences to public confusion: The more GOP leaders feel no pressure to follow a responsible course, the less likely it is Americans will see a sensible resolution.
Or put another way, when major news organizations publish false claims about extraordinary and dangerous circumstances being “the ordinary stuff of politics,” it contributes to public complacency, and makes it easier for voters to buy into the ridiculous idea that both parties bear responsibility for this Republican-imposed fiasco.
This post revises our related earlier coverage.