real heartburn among Conservatives on this debt deal. It seems that spending in this thing merely goes from “catastrophic” to “really bad.” And for most Conservatives, that is simply not enough.
So the primary argument against it is that this still sends the country to Hell, only a bit slower.
The question for me is whether this thing will even have the votes to pass. And honestly, do we want it to? Or, is it a good thing–at least, the best that could have been done?
But others are not so sure that this isn’t an outright “win” for Conservatives. They say that McCarthy ate Biden’s lunch. And there is reason to say that:
As for the second, Biden is certainly stupid – he’s unquestionably the dimmest bulb of any American president, and that was even before the dementia set in – but he’s [also–ed.] not sincere. He hasn’t a sincere bone in his body. Sincerity was crowded out long ago by grift, graft, greed, avarice, hair plugs, self-aggrandizing lies, bribery, tax-cheating, plagiarism, tooth caps, his hatred and disowning of his own granddaughter, and the sweet smell of other little girls’ hair.
Predictably, when the Republicans called out Biden on his refusal to negotiate the debt ceiling, and even the media couldn’t spin his refusal as anything but a lazy Biden bluff, he reversed course and started negotiating. But caving on your promise not to negotiate is not exactly the strongest card with which to start negotiations. His caving not only weakened him in the negotiations, but weakened him in the eyes of the people, if that’s possible.
The ultimate outcome of the belated negotiations was a deal where Biden lost both substantively and politically.
For me, I want to wait a bit and see how this shakes out. There are strong Conservative objections to the deal. But McCarthy has NOT been a weak negotiator. He seems NOT to be in the wimpy chump RINO mold of Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney.
So I tentatively lean toward thinking McCarthy is the one who has actually prevailed. But let’s see how this all goes down…
But there is no question that Biden was negotiating from a weak position. Why? Two reasons: a) The House had already passed a bill with a debt ceiling increase. THAT put tremendous pressure on Senate Democrats and on Biden himself.
But there in another reason: His refusal to negotiate revealed him as a “bad guy,” and suddenly he needed a deal. McCarthy had no such restriction. He already HAD a viable proposal in place (the House bill). And so, McCarthy was sitting in the catbird seat.
I mean, can you just imagine what it would look like if Republicans had been called on to press those two issues? It would have looked unbelievably bad for team Biden. Biden was frantic to avoid that. And THAT, my friends, is how “Biden” got taken to the cleaners!
So maybe Biden brought unbelievably good negotiating skills to the table. And maybe he was able to both get out of the mess he was in and to rook McCarthy.
But I wouldn’t bet on it…