They have no more hostages left

My Sunday movie was Punch. It’s a New Zealand film, set in a small town. The story focuses on Jim at 17. He has been trained by his father to be a boxer from a young age. Jim is mostly OK with that but dad can be a stern taskmaster and Jim sometimes rebels. The date of Jim’s debut bout is approaching. When out training and shooting video (another passion) along the ocean Jim is stung and Whetu, the local gay kid, rescues him. Whetu, who is Maori, has a cabin near the shore to which he escapes when life in town is rough (which is most of the time). Jim and Whetu become friends and they begin to ponder what comes next in life, usually starting with getting out of this little town. Of course, there are complications along the way. There is also some homophobia to deal with, mostly directed at Whetu. And an ending I thought was quite good. I enjoyed it. Lots of debt ceiling news, most of it quite good. I begin with a bit of explanation by economist Paul Krugman with a chart of the percent of the federal government 2024 budge in broad categories – Defense 14%, health care 24%, Social Security 24%, Interest 12%, everything else 26%. He adds: “So your regular reminder that the federal govt is an insurance company with an army.” That everything else is what the fight is about. When the debt ceiling deal was announced on Friday Joan McCarter of Daily Kos called it a dud and explaining why the Republican position is based on lies. Work requirements for assistance programs don’t get people into jobs. They prompt people to go without needed food and medical care. Taking money from the IRS allows more rich people to cheat, which raises, not lowers, the deficit. On Sunday Kos of Kos wrote that the deal is actually a pretty good one. He can tell because the House Freedom Caucus, the far-right guys, are livid. Kos listed the major points of the deal, which I won’t repeat. In a second Sunday post Kos explained in more detail.

The reason Republicans are angry is that they have just neutered their chamber for the rest of this congressional term. ... This deal supersedes the appropriations process for this year and next, removing yet another hostage from the Republican Party’s toolbox. For a House caucus with dreams of austere and severe government cutbacks, this is a devastating fizzle. None of this is great for us, of course, but we lost the House to a bunch of nihilists. We were going to lose all of this and probably more in budget negotiations later this year anyway. This deal guarantees that the cuts won’t be anywhere as deep as Republicans hoped, while removing a dangerous weapon from their hands ahead of the 2024 election. We can argue that Biden shouldn’t have engaged in this battle when the 14th Amendment seems as clear as it is. But invoking it would’ve crashed the markets (they hate “uncertainty”), and that economic uncertainty would’ve lasted through the whole legal process, only to end up at an arch-conservative and hyperpartisan Supreme Court.

Kos then reviewed some of the heated conservative tweets and noted how muted the Democratic response has been. In a third post just after midnight this morning Kos noted the Democratic response is mild relief and surprise, expecting it could have been much worse. He wrote:

But as the Semafor headline noted, “The Democrats (mostly) won the debt ceiling fight.” Or as progressive journalist Josh Marshall put it, Republicans walked into a Denny’s at gunpoint, demanded money, and walked out with nothing more than breakfast. It’s okay to both be disappointed at some of the concessions, while also celebrate Biden’s major negotiating victory in a government in which Republicans, with the House, unfortunately do have a say. Many conservatives remain furious.

With the ability to hold the budget hostage Freedom Caucus members are ranting that they cannot force action on border security or demand further spending cuts. George Takei tweeted an imagined conversation between Kevin McCarthey and Joe Biden about the negotiation. Joe essentially said, let’s do the budget early. There would have been no tax increases anyway, a spending freeze anyway. So we good? In a pundit roundup for Kos and in between quotes about the deal, Greg Dworkin wrote:

I don't want to be one of those people, but pending passage, this looks like Biden played his hand well and McCarthy didn't. Oh, the Republicans get stuff, but that was inevitable. They control the House. What they've done is get a little bit and given up their leverage for the time being. That's a deal the WH will be satisfied with. They called the House Freedom Caucus bluff and said we aren't negotiating with you. We're negotiating with old fashioned institutionalists. Find me some, preferably not Speaker McCarthy, but him if we have to. We'll ignore HFC and pretend they aren't there. It's far from ideal, not "good' in the sense of good policy, but good in the sense of good politics. It went from an existential catastrophe to a "yawn - what's happening in TX, anyways?" Again, I suspect the WH is happy with that. The 14th amendment and the platinum coin had their role, but it wasn’t as a viable alternative to an old fashioned compromise that neutered the GOP House for the rest of their term (they have no more hostages left). It was a “In case of House Freedom Caucus agenda, break glass” safety feature.

Dworkin included a tweet by Sahil Kapur, a political reporter for NBC News, responding to far right Rep. Dan Bishop:

House Republican hardliners see the debt limit not as a shared responsibility in divided government but as a weapon to wield when a Dem is president.

In a post from this afternoon Kos reported both sides are frantically spinning the deal. He also quoted Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post who discussed why the grab from last year’s big boost in funding for the IRS isn’t that big a deal. Rampell explained the IRS boost was for money to be spent over 10 years – one usually can’t hire everyone in one year. So as long as there is a quarter of that money they don’t spend in the next two years, no problem. Dave Whamond tweeted a cartoon of news reporters asking an elephant and getting his reply:

You wan to cut Social Security, end Medicare, stop same sex marriage, ban books, control what history we learn, take away LGBTQ+ rights, control what gender we are, take away a woman’s right to choose … But what are you actually for? Freedom

Beyond the irony, as I’ve mentioned before freedom for them is the freedom to oppress. John Darkow of the Columbia Missourian tweeted a cartoon:

[Poor person holding a bowl:] More please. [McCarthy:] Sorry, but we have to make sacrifices so we can pay for the Trump tax cuts! [Rich man holding a bag of money:] Hurry up! This is getting heavy!

Mark Sumner of Kos wrote about the season for book murder.

A book that can’t be read is a dead book. It doesn’t matter if that book is locked away in a storage locker or reduced to a pile of ashes any more than it matters if a person is buried or cremated. Dead is dead. A book is a tool for moving ideas between two minds—not just ideas, but perspectives, empathy, and understanding. We cannot see through someone else’s eyes … except that we can with books. They are the defining instrument of civilization. Repressing them is the defining act of barbarism. Those who murder books always have their reasons. They are always the same reasons. In May 1933, several thousand people gathered in Berlin’s Opera Square. They brought with them books—25,000 of them—from authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Helen Keller, Jack London, and Albert Einstein. At the end of the evening, they piled the books into a great mound, and then—with a band playing the background and universal applause—they burned them. As the flames roared up, the crowd heard a speech from German Minister of Enlightenment Joseph Goebbels. The era of critical race theory is now at an end, Goebbels told them. Then he shouted that the flames would put an end to wokeness. Actually, Goebbels didn’t mention CRT. He said “Jewish intellectualism.” And he didn’t say “woke.” He talked about “the Un-German Spirit." But it’s the same thing. It’s exactly the same thing. ... Book murder is about closing minds and ending opportunities. Most of all, it’s about ensuring conformity. That’s why DeSantis is out to keep the children of Florida from reading about those degenerate Jews and their anti-German depravity. Oh, sorry. I mean trans youth and wokeness. And … wait. Can you smell it? That rising smoke. And at the corners of your vision, the flickering light of torches.