Right
and Left Populisms and the Debt-Ceiling Bill
Whew! We narrowly avoided defaulting on the national
debt and risking wholesale economic calamity with the passage of the
bi-partisan debt-limit deal on Thursday. In my last post I asked that we wait and
see how right-wing populists led by Kevin McCarthy would fare against President
Biden’s centrist pragmatism.
Score one for pragmatism! And not just on Biden’s
part, but OMG! Kevin McCarthy compromised too. In April House Republicans
passed a debt ceiling bill that would have extended government borrowing authority
but reduce deficit spending by roughly $4.8 trillion over the next
decade. That bill would’ve ravaged social programs Democrats care about.
In late May House Democrats behind leader Hakeem Jeffries
dusted off an arcane parliamentary move called a discharge petition. It allows
the minority party in the chamber to force a vote on an issue if their caucus
unanimously votes for it. In this instance Democrats sought to force a vote on legislation
to increase the debt ceiling and avoid default. When all 213
Democrats supported the discharge petition, McCarthy and company got nervous.
That was because all the Dems would have had to do was find five Republicans to
sign on in order to steal the legislative initiative from McCarthy and make his
negotiations with the White House irrelevant.[1] And there were plenty of
House Republicans, however fiscally conservative they may be, who believed that
a default would be insanity.
The final package still reduced funding to improve I.R.S.
enforcement. imposed new work requirements on welfare recipients aged 50-54,
diminished the National Environmental Policy Act and approved the Mountain
Valley natural gas pipeline: all things most Democrats opposed. But these moves
left intact virtually all of the legislation passed by the Dems last year when
they controlled both houses of Congress and the Presidency. Here is how the
vote in each chamber went.[2]
Senate
Yes Democrats 44 Republicans 17 Independent 2 = 63
No 4 31 Independent 1 = 36 No
Vote 1
House
Yes Democrats 165 Republicans 149 = 314
No 46 71 = 117 No Vote 4
Leader Jeffries reported to the media that Dems were
committed to offering as many votes as needed to get the bill passed. This
allowed populist stalwarts like the Squad to take votes on principle they could
show their constituents back home and nationally.
Most of the 71 Republicans wo voted against bill are
members of the populist Freedom Caucus which has 53 members. Although people
like Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor-Greene were the most high-profile of the
populist firebrands forcing McCarthy through fifteen votes to become Speaker,
they voted yes. Turns out they didn’t want to see the economy undermined
either! But as was the case with their Democratic populist counterparts, most
Freedom Caucus members could vote against the bill on their principles.
On both sides of Congress pragmatism prevailed. This
may be frustrating for true populist of the right and left. Since its inception
in the American Revolutionary period populism has sought to shake up business
as usual in politics. The big question is whether populists simply wish to
disrupt so they can be heard and get a better deal within the process, or
really wish to blow things up and stage a full-on revolution. My sense is that
some populists simply want the better deal, while others want the revolution.
I will take up
this issue of the relationship of populism to revolution in upcoming posts.
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