I’m hoping that by the time this essay appears in the newspaper (sent to Charleston Gazette-Mail 5/25), if it does, Congress has fixed the issue and avoided defaulting on our national debt. But even if that occurs, there have already been economic effects from the threat of default that Republican lawmakers are using to attempt to force spending cuts.
Why would Republicans threaten the full faith and credit of the United States and a possible world-wide recession in a stated attempt to reduce federal spending that has already been allocated by Congress and signed into law by a president (yes, some of the spending that could be affected was signed into law by Donald Trump)?
Remember, approving the raising of the amount the US Treasury can borrow to pay our bills (Social Security, Medicare, Defense, Education, etc.) had, up until 2011 been a routine procedure—a job Congress is expected to do. It is in the planning of the budget that Congress gets to negotiate together and with the President on spending and taxation levels that will affect future debt.
Many don’t believe that Republicans really care about the debt. After all, if they cared about debt at all, they wouldn’t have raised the debt ceiling without complaint every year during the Trump administration, spending freely while also lowering taxes on the rich and corporations, which caused the national debt to rise far more quickly than during President Obama’s eight years in office.
So if not spending and debt, what is it they care about? Remember when Mitch McConnell, as Senate President during Obama’s first term, proclaimed that Republicans’ primary objective was to keep him from winning re-election? That was widely interpreted, correctly, to mean that in the midst of the Great Recession, Republicans would do all they could to slow down the recovery, because a President gets blamed for a bad economy whether at fault or not.
Republicans have calculated that a bad economy will hurt Biden’s chances of reelection and therefore the chances of Democrats retaking the House and holding their Senate majority in 2024. The easiest way to tank the economy is to hold out for spending cuts they know President Biden and Democrats cannot and will not agree to and to refuse to raise taxes or even close tax loopholes even one cent to avoid such cuts. In fact, the proposal they passed in the House would further lower tax collections by hobbling the IRS, actually causing greater debt.
To put it plainly, Republicans have shown for many years now that they are willing to harm the US economy, our standing in the world, and American people’s pocketbooks in order to regain the power of the presidency and control of the Congress.
Why didn’t Democrats hold up raising the debt ceiling when Donald Trump was president? Why didn’t they insist they wouldn’t raise it unless Republicans undid the tax cuts they passed to help their wealthy friends and corporations - tax cuts they falsely claimed would result in increased economic growth and a lower debt? Because Democrats actually care about American families and would never risk a damaged economy to improve their chances in the next election.
Remember who is likely to blame if we find ourselves in a depressed economy as the next election looms, and vote out those who only seek power and the money their rich friends and wealthy corporate donors will spend to make sure they keep it.
Paul Epstein is a musician and retired teacher living in Charleston
