The Sorensen Monologues

Negotiating to Nowhere

Trump demolished the budget with tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, and R’s raised the ceiling three times without a peep. And yet, after saying they wouldn’t negotiate over the debt ceiling, it appears the Dems are very much negotiating. Biden has been insisting that these are parallel budget negotiations, but they are, as Joan McCarter of Daily Kos notes, actually about the debt limit. Could this be merely a strategy to appear bipartisan before the Dems unilaterally invoke the 14th Amendment, as many legal scholars argue they are Constitutionally authorized to do? Perhaps. But given Obama’s precedent of caving to extortion in 2011 and the Dems’ long history of squishiness on all matters, I’m not holding my breath.

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