US Politics: #Musky DeSaster

[Gaston de Foix]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

@DMC @Tywin et al.

I’m curious as to why you two think no one has challenged the debt ceiling law under the 14th Amendment?  Are they afraid, without an existing default, it would be kicked on standing?  Or do both parties just like having this sword of Damocles to dangle over the other side periodically?

Because the arguments aren't bullet-proof; SCOTUS supposedly doesn't give advisory opinions; and a time-sensitive resolution of the debt ceiling issue is required in months not years.  Also there are standing issues; one House of Congress (through Speaker or ML), or President would have standing, probably no one else.  

I mean the difficulty with the 14th amendment argument is that the debt ceiling's meaning has arguably been liquidated by the long historical practice of congressional authorization.  It's easy to imagine an opinion that reads it as simply a facet of Congress's power of the purse. 

But at some point we will have a Democratic House and a (normal) Republican president, and then the Dems will exact their pound of flesh as well. 

[Gaston de Foix]

5 minutes ago, Fez said:

Right, and if those 3 voted against and the House Dems on the committee voted against it, that's be a 7-6 vote to block the bill from hitting the floor. House Dems weren't involved in these negotiations and one thing that isn't McCarthy's job is whipping Democratic votes. But if the House Dems feel that the White House has given up too much, things can get complicated fast.

I think we've run out of runway for Dem showboating at this point.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

@DMC @Tywin et al.

I’m curious as to why you two think no one has challenged the debt ceiling law under the 14th Amendment?  Are they afraid, without an existing default, it would be kicked on standing?  Or do both parties just like having this sword of Damocles to dangle over the other side periodically?

I'm still on team trillion dollar coin. This whole thing is a joke. Pay your debts. 

Edited May 28, 2023 by Tywin et al.

[Kalbear]

5 minutes ago, DMC said:

I have no idea why you're under the impression any Dem member of the Rules Committee will block a bill their president wants passed.

Because there's been a whole lot of reporting indicating Biden has not been talking with the house dems or including them on this.

[Gaston de Foix]

9 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

Because there's been a whole lot of reporting indicating Biden has not been talking with the house dems or including them on this.

I don't know what reporting you are referring to, but there's no indication of a widespread Dem revolt (as opposed to grumbling).  Will there be stray (and principled) defections? Sure.  

[Ormond]

10 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

Because there's been a whole lot of reporting indicating Biden has not been talking with the house dems or including them on this.

Is there any indication that because of this the particular Democratic members on this particular committee would retaliate by not voting for this bill? Have they threatened this? Has their past behavior in other situations shown they are likely to do this? If not, then this just seems like an irrational grimdark fantasy fear. 

Edited May 28, 2023 by Ormond

[DMC]

12 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

Because there's been a whole lot of reporting indicating Biden has not been talking with the house dems or including them on this.

Aye.  And like I said earlier, I wouldn't be surprised that many if not most of the CPC vote against this -- on the floor.  That's entirely different than blocking it getting out of committee.  There's absolutely no indication that's gonna happen, and it basically never does irt intraparty members of the president.  Let alone when the bill concerns preventing the US from defaulting.  This is all made up inside baseball shit wherein left-leaning political junkies wring their hands.

[Fez]

43 minutes ago, Ormond said:

Is there any indication that because of this the particular Democratic members on this particular committee would retaliate by not voting for this bill? Have they threatened this? Has their past behavior in other situations shown they are likely to do this? If not, then this just seems like an irrational grimdark fantasy fear. 

In a similar situation, with a Democratic president negotiating with a Republican house we got the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. In that floor vote, only 17 House Democrats voted for the bill, while 171 voted against it. McGovern is the only House Dem on the rules committee now who was in the House in the time and he was in the 171. Democratic votes weren't needed in committee since Republican leadership was still strong enough that they could ensure that only their allies filled the Republican seats on the committee.

It is different this time, in that Democratic votes will actually be needed, both on the floor and in the committee. But there is precedent for the House Democrats to near fully reject a deal that their president negotiated with House Republicans. We don't know yet how House Dems are going to come down on this bill.

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, Fez said:

We don't know yet how House Dems are going to come down on this bill.

We know what the minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said about it this morning:

Quote

"I do expect that there will be Democratic support once we have the ability to actually be fully briefed by the White House," the Democratic leader told "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "But I'm not going to predict what those numbers may ultimately look like." 

Jeffries said he can guarantee the U.S. will not default on its debt. 

As for citing ATRA as a precedent, that's misleading.  Of course most Dems were against extending the Bush tax cuts in perpetuity.  The obvious precedent to cite would by the 2011 Budget Control Act - in there were 95 yeas and nays among House Dems.

[Fez]

7 minutes ago, DMC said:

We know what the minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said about it this morning:

As for citing ATRA as a precedent, that's misleading.  Of course most Dems were against extending the Bush tax cuts in perpetuity.  The obvious precedent to cite would by the 2011 Budget Control Act - in there were 95 yeas and nays among House Dems.

It's not misleading, it was a big bill that Obama negotiated and wanted passed, and House Dems were against it. As for the BCA, 95 still means a majority of them opposed it. Unfortunately, House Report 112-190 which allowed for consideration of the BCA passed the rules committee in an unrecorded vote, so I've no idea if the House Dems in the rules committee voted against bringing it to the floor. But again, didn't matter since they had no power to block it anyway.

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Fez said:

But again, didn't matter since they had no power to block it anyway.

....As they don't now.  I've entertained the possibility, but bottom line is you're making this all up.  Please cite anyone even suggesting the Rules Committee is going to block this bill.

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

I'm still on team trillion dollar coin. This whole thing is a joke. Pay your debts. 

I don't pretend to understand the utility of such a coin, but I agree in the end. 

Hacksaw to the MiC, no more subsidies for farmers growing crops that don't make money, make WalMart pay taxes. 

Start paying this shit down.

[Kalbear]

29 minutes ago, DMC said:

....As they don't now.  I've entertained the possibility, but bottom line is you're making this all up.  Please cite anyone even suggesting the Rules Committee is going to block this bill.

I think that's fair. I'll say it this way - it should get enough dem support. But there are enough gotchas - Jeffries not being Pelosi, the house dems not being part of the process, the overall assholishness of McCarthy and his lack of control in general, and Biden giving away too much (at least in perception) that I think its much more at risk than it would have been in 2011.

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

I think that's fair. I'll say it this way - it should get enough dem support. But there are enough gotchas - Jeffries not being Pelosi, the house dems not being part of the process, the overall assholishness of McCarthy and his lack of control in general, and Biden giving away too much (at least in perception) that I think its much more at risk than it would have been in 2011.

Fair enough.  That's why I put it at 70/30 when usually it'd be 90/10 at this point.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

31 minutes ago, Secretary of Eumenes said:

I don't pretend to understand the utility of such a coin, but I agree in the end. 

Hacksaw to the MiC, no more subsidies for farmers growing crops that don't make money, make WalMart pay taxes. 

Start paying this shit down.

That would mean rich people need to pay their fair share. Bitch, this is America, why would we ever do something insane like that! 

[Ran]

12 minutes ago, Secretary of Eumenes said:

I don't pretend to understand the utility of such a coin, but I agree in the end. 

 

See here for an explanation.

Notably, like the 14th Amendment talk, it's all pretty novel theory starting around 2011 that's basically just trying to work out how to get around the debt ceiling as it became a favored hostage of the GOP. It has better standing in terms of the law, but it also has some very likely negative consequences.

[Zorral]

What I don't understand is why now are the fascist party of TX worried about looking bad?  They all have been doing things for decades (everywhere, not just TX) that make Them look bad, and They've never cared before. This particular dude has been under indictment for years!  I still don't understand why now do They want to do something?  So I again inquire why this time around do They worry about being made to look bad, the 'party' look bad?

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/ken-paxton-impeachment-texas-house/

.... What changed, then? Why is there a willingness to hold Paxton accountable now?

Quote

 

Well, there are a few possible answers to that.

The material facts of the case changed in the past few months. The whistleblowers had a slam-dunk case for illegal termination. Some of them sued. Partly in order to shut down the lawsuit quickly—and to prevent the plaintiffs from liberating AG documents via the discovery process—Paxton settled in February 2023, offering them $3.3 million in taxpayer money. He asked lawmakers to fund the settlement. Even though the dollar amount was trivial, this didn’t sit well with many in the Legislature. Paxton was asking them to eat a turd sandwich so he could protect himself from his own stupidity. It made them look bad. It made the party look bad.  ....

 

 

[Gaston de Foix]

3 minutes ago, Zorral said:

What I don't understand is why now are the fascist party of TX worried about looking bad?  They all have been doing things for decades (everywhere, not just TX) that make Them look bad, and They've never cared before. This particular dude has been under indictment for years!  I still don't understand why now do They want to do something?  So I again inquire why this time around do They worry about being made to look bad, the 'party' look bad?

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/ken-paxton-impeachment-texas-house/

.... What changed, then? Why is there a willingness to hold Paxton accountable now?

 

 

I also agree there's something else out there that's not yet come to light. 

But let's not forget that BoJo was ultimately kicked out of office for the Chris Pincher affair which as Boris's enormities go was minnow-sized.  At some point, the damage inflicted tips over.  

[ThinkerX]

Starting to wonder here...

1 - McCarthy and Biden come to a deal on the debt ceiling. 

2 - Said deal gets voted on, slides through the House and Senate, signed by Biden. Nobody on either side is thrilled with it, but...

3 - House Freedom Caucus is extremely pissed off. So pissed off they decide it is time to get rid of McCarthy. (I am assuming they are collectively stupid enough to do this without a plausible replacement lined up.)

4 - This is where it gets a bit tricky. I am assuming that at least some democrats would prefer McCarthy hold the Speakership - 'devil you know' type deal here.

5 - So, these democrats approach McCarthy and tell him that he has their votes - but the price will be allowing/supporting votes on X number pieces of democratic sponsored legislation. Possibilities include tweaking Social Security, giving more leeway to Medicaid, and maybe tightening financial regulations.  

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

5 - So, these democrats approach McCarthy and tell him that he has their votes - but the price will be allowing/supporting votes on X number pieces of democratic sponsored legislation. Possibilities include tweaking Social Security, giving more leeway to Medicaid, and maybe tightening financial regulations.  

This is not logical.  For McCarthy to hold onto his Speakership, he will need a majority of his own party/conference.  Working with the Dems is the last thing he would do to gain votes.  Further, Dems are not going to approach him with such an offer because it'd be pointless.  Further further, Dems do not want to "tweak" Social Security.  That's the other guys.