ICYMI: Washington Post (Opinion): "The GOP has no idea what it wants on the budget, but it's definitely not that"

Yesterday, economic columnist Catherine Rampell made it clear that Congressional Republicans have no plan to pass a budget, much less reduce the deficit: "How do you negotiate with someone who has no idea what they want? That's the challenge for President Biden as Republicans say he must (A) satisfy their fiscal demands before they'll raise the debt limit; even though they (B) can't decide what those demands actually are; and they (C) have zero credibility for delivering 218 House votes for whatever those demands eventually turn out to be. … [Republicans] appear to have abandoned any pretense of a counteroffer. They have no budget, nor even the basic outlines of one."

Rampell also pointed out Republican hypocrisy after passing tax giveaways for the super-wealthy and big corporations that have increased the deficit by trillions of dollars: "Republicans were fine with the last president signing $4.7 trillion in new deficits into law even before covid-19 hit (plus, trillions more thereafter). Now that a Democrat is president, though, the GOP's born-again deficit hawks decided that Something Must Be Done about the nation's fiscal health."

Finally, Rampell agreed with recent statements by Speaker McCarthy and other leading House Republicans that "The budget doesn't have anything to do with the debt ceiling," explaining: "Raising the debt ceiling is about making good on past obligations; budget proposals are about future spending and tax decisions. These things should not be linked. Congress should pass a clean debt limit increase or suspension without preconditions, just as Republicans repeatedly agreed to do when Donald Trump was president."

The Washington Post (Opinion): The GOP has no idea what it wants on the budget, but it's definitely not that
[Catherine Rampell, 4/4/23]

How do you negotiate with someone who has no idea what they want?

That's the challenge for President Biden as Republicans say he must (A) satisfy their fiscal demands before they'll raise the debt limit; even though they (B) can't decide what those demands actually are; and they (C) have zero credibility for delivering 218 House votes for whatever those demands eventually turn out to be.

Republicans were fine with the last president signing $4.7 trillion in new deficits into law even before covid-19 hit (plus, trillions more thereafter). Now that a Democrat is president, though, the GOP's born-again deficit hawks decided that Something Must Be Done about the nation's fiscal health.

It's not clear what Something is, however, beyond taking a valuable hostage: the nation's debt ceiling.

That's the statutory limit on how much the government can borrow to pay off bills that previous Congresses already agreed to. Not raising the debt ceiling would force the federal government to renege on some of those commitments, possibly missing payments on obligations such as interest payments, Social Security benefits and military salaries. The other potential consequences of an even accidental default include, in the near term, a global financial crisis; and, in the longer term, higher borrowing costs, because the United States would no longer look like the safe, reliable borrower it has always been.

Higher borrowing costs mean bigger deficits going forward, of course. If Republicans have recently found religion on fiscal responsibility, they seem to still be sorting out the exact theological tenets.

The rest of the GOP plan for reducing deficits is still TBD. Republicans say they want less debt. Unfortunately, they have ruled out virtually every mathematical means for achieving that outcome.

To wit: They won't raise taxes (to the contrary, they have pledged to cut taxes further); they won't touch Social Security or Medicare; they won't slash defense or veterans' programs; and they won't zero out the rest of the nondefense discretionary budget, as would be required if they chose to extend all the Trump tax cuts and took all those other spending categories off the table, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Not to worry: At least Republicans still pledge to cut "wokeism" from the budget! (This apparently means defunding the FBI.)

Biden, for his part, has at least committed fiscal proposals to paper. I have quibbles with some elements of his budget, including some of his math. For example, the president's budget forecasts don't take into account the cost of extending most of the Trump tax cuts, which Biden now officially supports. But at least his ideas are out there for the rest of us to evaluate and for Republicans to counter.

Republicans, on the other hand, appear to have abandoned any pretense of a counteroffer. They have no budget, nor even the basic outlines of one.

In a letter in late March, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) accused the president of being "missing in action" on debt negotiations. Never mind, apparently, McCarthy's lack of concrete positions of his own, beyond platitudes about "reducing excessive non-defense government spending" (which ones are excessive?) and advocating "policies to grow our economy and keep Americans safe, including measures to lower energy costs." (Okay, how?)

The same day, on CNBC, McCarthy defended his caucus's lack of budget by saying, "The budget doesn't have anything to do with the debt ceiling." Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), chair of the Republican Study Committee, used nearly identical language in telling the Hill: "I don't think the budget has anything to do with the spending limit."

To be clear: I agree!

Raising the debt ceiling is about making good on past obligations; budget proposals are about future spending and tax decisions. These things should not be linked. Congress should pass a clean debt limit increase or suspension without preconditions, just as Republicans repeatedly agreed to do when Donald Trump was president. Since then, however, Republicans have tried to bundle the two unrelated things, treating one as a useful hostage to force (again, TBD) changes to the other.

Last week, House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Tex.) let slip the real reason there is neither a detailed GOP fiscal plan nor a concrete set of principles for one. Convincing 218 lawmakers (that is, a House majority) to commit to a budget is not "as easy as when I was a freshman here," he said.

In other words: The GOP caucus is a cacophonous mess. Republicans don't know what they want; they only know they don't want the thing Democrats are offering. Which is reminiscent of the dynamics of many other major policy debates in recent years.

And yet Republicans keep demanding that Biden sit down, negotiate and make concessions. Each time they do, the rest of us should respond: Concessions on what?