October 7, 2021
No need to worry: the ruling class, the haute bourgeoisie and their co-dependent military industrial complex, are firmly in control
Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) backed down from his theatrical obstructionism, agreeing to let the Demopublicans raise the debt ceiling by a simple majority rather than by the 60 votes they needed when the Republicrats kept filibustering their bills.
A quick recap: the issue at stake was whether the United States would default on its debts, which it has never done before. The threat to default was purely a theatrical ploy to satisfy the petite bourgeois populists currently at home in the Repubicrat party.
How it started: Congress originally created a flexible debt ceiling for borrowing in the era of World War I for efficiency: instead of passing specific revenue measures for particular projects—imagine having a debate and bond offering for each military project (not a bad idea, actually)—a cap was instituted on how much money the government could borrow through all of the different instruments it used.
How it’s going: follow the money…the debt ceiling has become a political drama because Congress spends more than the Treasury has cash on hand, the country will default on its debts if it doesn’t authorize itself to raise the US debt limit to borrow more (or raise taxes immediately but none of the bourgeoise wants that option). This game of chicken with government shutdowns has been played since the 1980s.
Analogy: it’s as if you spent money over the limit on your credit card and needed your credit company to increase your limit after you spent your money—only, in this case, Congress self-authorizes its own spending, and its own limit. The cap has been raised repeatedly since it was first imposed; indeed, the Republicrats raised it three times under president Trump. Once again, it is too low, and by October 18, the Treasury will run out of money. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has voted to raise or suspend the debt ceiling 32 times in his career, including the three times under Trump, refused to allow Republicrats to vote to raise the debt ceiling. The Demopublicans for their part insisted that the Republicrats should join them in raising the ceiling, which would have enraged the Repubicrat’s petite bourgeois populist wing.
Realize: this isn’t a question of what McConnell and the Republicans “want” per se. They are only foot soldiers and performing theatrics for their sponsors, as are the Democrats.
The drama built: weighing in for the Demopublicans was Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warning that defaulting would crash the economy and with financial services firm Moody’s Analytics warning that a default would cost up to 6 million jobs, create an unemployment rate of nearly 9%, and wipe out $15 trillion in household wealth, the Demopublicans tried to pass a measure themselves.
Republicrats continued the game. They filibustered the bill, trying to force the Demopublicans to raise the debt ceiling through a bill that can’t be filibustered, a process called reconciliation, which would make it harder for them to use reconciliation for their own infrastructure bill since Congress can pass only one of that type of reconciliation bill per year.
Finally, the troops step in: Biden’s military handler Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin underlined the position of the co-dependent military industrial complex when he took the step of weighing in on politics. He warned that a default would “undermine the economic strength on which our national security rests.” Paychecks for 1.4 million active duty military personnel and veterans’ benefits for 2.4 million veterans, as well as payments on military contracts, would stop. Fiscal instability would undermine the military industrial complex "as a reliable and trustworthy economic and national security partner."
Demopublicans were clearly starting to consider getting rid of the filibuster, at least for this particular issue, to enable them to pass a debt ceiling bill by a simple majority rather than by 60 votes.
The inevitable result: McConnell offered, with as much Sturm und Drang to the populists as possible, to “allow” Democrats to use normal procedures—that is, the Republicans won’t filibuster them—to extend the ceiling into December.
Predictably, Trump and his populists were unsatisfied: the former president has been pushing Republicans to use the threat of default to get what they want, and he was not happy that McConnell had backed down. He issued a statement blaming McConnell for “folding” and added “He’s got all of the cards with the debt ceiling, it’s time to play the hand.”
The major takeaway from this manufactured crisis: the haute bourgeois and their co-dependent military industrial complex are firmly in control over the petite bourgeois populist Republicrat faction.
Sturm und Drang: