Thereâs a difference between Americaâs national debt and our debt limit. Without question, our national debt must be reduced. That can happen only two ways, or by a combination of the two. We can increase taxes, or reduce future spending, or do both.
The debt limit is how much in total the US government can borrow. It uses borrowing (issuing treasury notes and bonds) to meet obligations for previously contracted goods and services. This is what must be increased as soon as possible by both Houses of Congress.
But Republicans say they wonât agree to increase the debt limit without action to reduce the national debt. The national debt is the accumulation of all the annual deficits (and any surplus â thanks, Bill Clinton!) that various administrations have racked up. It currently sits at $31.4 trillion.
The four Republican presidents from Reagan to Trump are responsible for more than half of that debt; they added $17.46 trillion to it by running whopping deficits each year. Trump was responsible for nearly half of that, $8.2 trillion, in just four years. About $3.9 trillion was pandemic relief and $2 trillion was the big tax cut he gave to the wealthy.
Republicans canât explain why they voted to increase the debt ceiling every year of Trump’s administration. Even as he was racking up trillions of dollars of debt by increasing the annual budget deficit from the $665 billion he inherited from Obama, to a whopping $2.1 trillion deficit in just four years  ̶  the highest in US history.
But in the past two years, Biden has cut that $2.1 trillion deficit by 33%, to $1.4 trillion. That isnât stopping the GOP from screaming that spending has to be curbed because there’s a Democrat in the White House. On to cartoons.
A high-stakes game of chicken:
Their plan is to never have a plan:
Alec Baldwinâs on line one Mr. Speaker:
Truth is always in the eye of the beholder:
Floods in California have people looking for new places to stay:
Cold morning on the Snake River, Grand Teton NP, WY – January 2023 photo by Laura Phelps Sundria
We havenât written about discharge petitions in a few years. But with the likely control of much of the Houseâs agenda by the Freedom Caucus, they may become important. From the WSJ:
âDemocrats and some centrist Republicans are in early, informal conversations about dusting off a rarely used parliamentary procedure that could force a vote to raise the nationâs borrowing limit, ahead of a showdown in coming months over government spending. The process, known as a discharge petition, requires 218 signatures, regardless of partyâa majority of the Houseâto dislodge a bill from committee and move it to the floor.â
The tactic is seen as a way to potentially circumvent efforts by House GOP leadership and the Freedom Caucus to block a debt-ceiling increase. Congress must raise the debt ceiling to allow the Treasury Department to issue more debt to pay for existing US government financial obligations. At stake is the governmentâs creditworthiness, which also undergirds much of both the American and global financial system.
A default or even the expectation of a default on the US debt, could trigger a lowering of the US credit rating, raising our governmentâs borrowing costs for years. It could also bring financial panic or tip the economy into a recession. More from the WSJ:
â…McCarthy reiterated Tuesday he wants to use the debt ceiling as leverage to cut spending. âThis is our moment to change the behavior to make sure, that hardworking taxpayer, that weâre not wasting their money,â he said on Fox News.â
Playing politics with the debt limit is stupid. Hold that thought and read this from Ryan Grim at the Intercept: (brackets and emphasis by Wrongo)
âWhen the House Republicans enacted new rules for the 118th Congress on Monday [they included a rule] that preserves the traditional right of rank-and-file members of Congress to bypass House leadership and put legislation on the floor directly if they obtain the signatures of a majority of the chamber. This opens a handful of legislative opportunities for Democrats, despite Republican ideological cohesion.â
He means a discharge petition. Normally, the House Majority Leader sets the floor schedule, in collaboration with the House Rules Committee, but a discharge petition can automatically pull a bill from committee and move it to the floor. Since Democrats currently hold 212 seats in the 118th Congress (one is vacant), if they can find six Republican votes, they could bring a bill to the floor. For most of the Democratsâ agenda, six opposition votes might be a high hill to climb.
But a discharge petition to raise the debt ceiling is one tool that could work. It would give any like-minded Republicans a route around their own leadership and could be the way the House votes to avert a financial crisis (assuming Democrats could find six Republicans who are unwilling to risk a US government debt default).
That may be possible since there are 18 House Republicans who were elected last fall in districts Biden won in 2020.
If a discharge petition is to be used as a workaround for the looming debt crisis, Democrats would have to move fairly quickly. The rules to bring a bill to the floor of the House require that first, the bill would have to be introduced and referred to committee, according to House rules and precedents. Then 30 legislative days have to pass. A legislative day is one in which the House is in session and then adjourns.
If 218 signatures are collected, an additional seven legislative days need to pass, at which point a motion to discharge the bill would come to the floor on either the second or fourth Monday of the month.
Any motion to discharge filed in February or March ought to be ready for a floor vote by summer. Although the Treasury Department hasnât given an exact date when default will occur, the expectation is that it will occur in the summer.
Weâll see if McCarthy will stand up to his cobbled together majority and bring a clean debt limit bill to the floor. If not, weâll see if there are at least six Republicans in the House who have backbones and love their country.
On the fifteenth ballot of the new year, the House finally selected Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), as its new Speaker. What ended the impasse? In addition to the list of âconcessionsâ that we know about, what other promises did McCarthy make to Freedom Caucus?
When selecting a new Speaker, the House operates more like a parliamentary system than America is used to or expects. When the Party in power has a slim majority, and if there is contention within that Party, coalitions must be built, promises are made, and concessions are extracted.
It seems that McCarthy relinquished all the power and authority of the office in order to win the title of Speaker. But a weak Speaker leading a fractured caucus is actually dangerous. The Republican House can frustrate Bidenâs legislative agenda. It can conduct endless oversight hearings and investigations. It can restrict government spending.
When you look at the demands of the 20 anti-McCarthy holdouts and consider what he conceded to them, the next two years will be fractious. Over the past four days, they made demands in four areas. First, they object to funding Ukraine. They also object to the size of the omnibus spending bill that passed at the end of the last Congress. Third, they donât want the US debt ceiling extended. Lastly, they want to hold investigations. Many investigations.
Since the bill funding Ukraine and the omnibus spending bill passed with bi-partisan support in both Houses, any action they try to take on those two are likely to fail. But they have the right to investigate anything and everything, so we need to be prepared for that.
The debt ceiling is a problem. There will be bi-partisan support in both Houses for increasing it, but McCarthy will control whether a clean debt ceiling increase ever gets to the House floor for a vote. There will be a bi-partisan group of House members to support that bill, but if McCarthy goes to Democrats for the needed votes to pass a debt ceiling increase, the anti-McCarthy faction will attempt to remove him from the Speaker position.
Itâs very possible that McCarthy will be successfully deposed if Democrats arenât inclined to save him. It was this kind of behavior that convinced John Boehner to retire.
McCarthy almost certainly made concessions about Ukraine and the debt ceiling and government spending in order to win the job. He will either break these promises, or heâll lead the country to financial ruin. Or the moderates in the House GOP will try to kick him out. The Republicans have a majority but itâs not a functional one. On to cartoons.
McCarthyâs headaches are just beginning:
Heâs a weak GOP Speaker, not a Pope:
Itâs way past time for the GOP to hit the target:
What is it with our national politicians? There are only a few days left for the House and Senate to increase the countryâs debt limit, but both Parties have been screwing around, and now it looks like they may punt the problem to the incoming Congress.
âCongressional leaders have all but abandoned the idea of acting to raise the debt ceiling this month before Democrats lose control of the House, punting the issue to a new Congress when Republicans have vowed to fight the move, and setting up a clash next year that could bring the American economy to the brink of crisis.â
The plan had been for Democrats to act during the lame-duck post-election session to increase the legal borrowing limit. That would take advantage of the Demsâ final month of control of both Houses of Congress. It would head off a pissing contest with Republicans when they take over the House in January. Republicans have threatened to block the increase once they are in charge of the House. They plan to hold it hostage until the Democrats agree to substantial cuts to domestic spending and Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
There are several problems here. The debt ceiling which the US will reach sometime next year; the expiration of the last stopgap funding bill that expires on Dec. 16; and passing an overall budget for the current fiscal year.
The Dems had planned to attach a series of other priorities to the big funding package, including the reform of the Electoral Count Act (ECA), a critical reform that helps prevent election denier shenanigans in 2024. On December 3, Wrongo warned that this was a high risk gambit: (emphasis by Wrongo)
â…the Democrats need Mitch McConnell and other GOP Senate leaders to agree to attach ECA reform to a spending bill and enlist the 10 GOP Senators to support it. That means the GOP controls whether this bill is enacted.â
Now weâre hearing that the leadership of both Parties canât get to an agreement on the big package. More from the NYT:
âRepublicans and Democrats remain at odds over how to split funding between military and social programs. Talks are set to continue through the weekend ahead of the Dec. 16 deadline, though aides said lawmakers could pass a one-week stopgap bill to give negotiations additional time.â
So Americaâs Christmas present from Congress will be no Electoral Count Act reform and no new budget, and no debt ceiling increase. Instead, weâll get another Continuing Resolution that will fund the government until early in 2023 when the Republicans will try once again to toss the US credit rating off a high cliff with their far Right ideological theories on US government debt.
Under the last debt limit increase passed late in 2021, the federal government can borrow $31.381 trillion. Total national debt has been slightly above that level, but since a small portion of the debt is exempt from the debt ceiling, weâve stayed in compliance. As of last week, total debt subject to the debt limit got as close as $31.345 trillion.
The consequences of failing to extend the debt limit are immediate and bring great risk. For example, it could force the government to choose between paying Social Security checks or paying the interest due on the countryâs debt. That happened in 2011, when Congressional Republicans pressured President Obama to accept similar spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt limit.
That standoff led to downgrading the credit rating of the US. It rattled American investors and the US economy. This time, it could have global economic implications, given that the world is facing a global recession.
Before you say: Well, these birds learned this lesson back then, so they surely will make a deal this time. Consider that Goldman Sachs reports that less than a quarter of Republicans and less than a third of Democrats who will serve in the House in 2023 served there in 2011.
Time to wake up, Congress! Sure, some of you are very old, and want to go home for the holidays. But we pay you to fix things, not to make them worse. Schumer and Pelosi should make them all stay in DC until they vote on what the country needs.
To help them wake up, watch, and listen to a live version of the Allman Brothersâ âMidnight Rider” with Vince Gill, Gregg Allman and Zac Brown from a 2014 performance at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. One of the wonders of live music is what happens when artists collaborate in a live setting:
Weâre also seeing Chuck Leavell on keyboards and Kenny Aronoff on drums.
Sample Lyric:
And I don’t own the clothes I’m wearing
And the road goes on forever
And I’ve got one more silver dollar
But I’m not gonna let ’em catch me, no
Not gonna let ’em catch the midnight rider
Early fall foliage, Long Pond, Rutland, MA – September 2021 photo by Jurgen Roth Photography
Charlie Sykes, talking about what will be a jam-packed week in Washington DC:
âThis is going to be a helluva week. Democrats in Congress may not be able to save the Biden presidency, but they can destroy itâŠâ
There are clear differences among Democrats on social spending priorities and the correct size of the pending human infrastructure spending bill. Several Democratic House members have vowed not to support both of Bidenâs bills, unless they get what they want included. Along with threats by Sens. Sinema and Manchin not to stand with Democrats in the Senate, both House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Schumer canât be happy trying to lead their fractious caucuses.
And among these efforts to thread the needle, are the twin crises of a Thursday cut-off of federal spending and a subsequent (possible) default on the nationâs debt.
Funding for the federal government is set to run out on Thursday at midnight. Senate Democrats will move a stopgap spending measure forward to position for a vote on the House-passed short-term funding bill. That would keep federal agencies open until Dec. 3, while suspending the debt limit until Dec. 2022.
Suspending the debt limit for another year is a great idea, but Senate Republicans are certain to tank that proposal. The likely scenario is that Senate Dems will remove the debt-limit provision and pass the bill with bipartisan support. Then, the House passes the bill, Biden signs it, and a government shutdown is averted for another two months.
But that leaves the debt-limit problem unresolved. We will reach that in early-mid October.
Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans wonât support an increase in the debt limit. They say that Democrats should lift the cap on government borrowing on their own, as a part of their reconciliation package. But that creates a political advantage for the Republicans. And besides, it could take weeks, enough time to bring the country close to defaulting on its obligations. And it isnât certain that Schumer has the votes to pass it without Republican help.
Only one thingâs certain: No one knows whatâs really going to happen.
On infrastructure, Pelosi announced that debate on the Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill would start on Monday. A House vote on it is slated for Thursday. House Democrats are also trying to make progress on the big reconciliation package.
Pelosiâs challenge is to keep progressives from walking away from the big bill and tanking the infrastructure bill. Democratic leadership also must appease Senate centrists about the size of the big infrastructure bill, which they say is too large.
House Democrats will meet late on Monday, (shortly after Wrongo posts this). Pelosi wants the members whoâve drawn lines in the sand about the human infrastructure bill (and who havenât shown up for caucus meetings lately) to be there. From Politico:
âI urge the fullest participation of Members and hope that as many of us can be there in person as possible…â
These are strange days for Democrats. As a Sunday WaPo article said, âPolitical Suicide is not a Strategyâ. In addition to the obsessive focus on securing the necessary votes in the House and Senate, the focus on the human infrastructureâs price tag is the essence of bad political messaging. Few Democrats stand up to say that the $3.5 trillion will be spent over 10 years, amounting to only 1.2% of GDP over that period.
Worse, focusing on the dollar amount takes attention away from the value in the bill for children, families, education, health care, housing, and climate. From Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT):
âWhen Democrats allow a debate to be only about a number, itâs like talking about a Christmas party and only discussing the hangover.â
The WaPo quotes Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) as saying that the discussion is getting things exactly backward:
 âWe should work from what policies we want to enact, rather than an arbitrary number.â
No one can forecast how this will all work out. It would be dandy if Republicans supported the debt ceiling increase.
It would also be dandy if they accepted the results of the 2020 election, got vaccinated and stopped passing voter suppression laws. A rational and patriotic Party would do those things. But those are a bridge too far for todayâs Republican Party.
So, Democrats are on their own. Weâll soon see if they can stand together as a team to avoid disaster and deliver on Bidenâs promises.
Unexpectedly, Wrongo found the time to post a few cartoons. Yesterday, we saw the musical âSixâ on Broadway, along with a very enthusiastic packed house. The audience had to show proof of vaccination, and wear masks for the performance.
The story is about the six wives of Englandâs King Henry VIII, if they had turned into pop stars, and were speaking today about their lives with fat Henry.
We saw it two years ago in London, arranged by Connecticutâs invaluable Goodspeed Musicals. It has made a fine relocation to New York. We thought the castâs singing was better here, as was the all-woman backing band. The message, of a transition from female victimhood to female empowerment was very well received by the audience, which included many teen and pre-teen girls.
It appeared that most theater district restaurants were doing acceptable business, although some that we had frequented in the past had permanently closed. The parking lot we always use had fewer than half the cars we would normally see. This is probably explained by the fact that many of Broadwayâs shows wonât reopen for a few more weeks. On to cartoons.
The Arizona recount didnât go well for the GOP. And never call it an “audit”:
Republicans think blowing up Americaâs credit rating is hilarious:
This is who McConnell and GOP are. They’ve become terrorists, trying to kill us by blowing things up.
Itâs the Republican playbook: Block everything no matter the consequences and then blame someone else:
Bidenâs tough trick:
Biden said he knew how to forge consensus. Weâll soon see:
After Hurricane Ida, Grays Beach, Cape Cod MA – photo by Casey Chmieleki
With all the screaming headlines about Afghanistan, Texas anti-abortion laws and the march of the Delta variant, you probably missed that the US government is running out of money. Reuters explains it:
âLeaders of the Democratic-led Senate and House of Representatives are expected to force votes to lift the $28.4 trillion debt limit in late September. The limit was technically breached on July 31 but is being circumvented by Treasury Department “extraordinary” steps.â
This is an unavoidable political issue for both Parties, because while people dislike the idea of more government debt, they really like the goodies that come along with that debt.
This is happening while the Democrats are jousting with each other, trying to find 50 Dem votes for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, a budget resolution, and a budget reconciliation bill. But they also need to work on increasing the debt limit. From Ed Kilgore:
âThe debt limit was suspended in 2019 as part of a two-year budget deal between Congress and the Trump administration intended to postpone major fiscal fights until after the 2020 elections. The deal expired on August 1, 2021, with the effect that the debt ceiling was adjusted upwards to the level of debt as it exists right now.â
Accruing debt above $28.43 trillion requires an increase in, or suspension of, the debt limit. At current levels of expenditure, the governmentâs checking account, called the Treasury General Account (TGA) at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, will hit zero in mid-October. It can be extended by âextraordinary measuresâ into November, which is when the US government would begin defaulting on its bills.
The politics of government funding and increasing the debt limit are always a farce, and itâs no different this time. Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already announced that Democrats cannot expect a single Republican vote for a debt limit measure right now.
Thatâs a political problem for Democrats, because a debt limit increase or suspension is subject to the Senate filibuster, requiring 60 Senate votes unless thereâs some way around â like including it in a filibuster-proof budget reconciliation measure.
McConnell helpfully suggested that Democrats should just include a debt limit increase in the Fiscal Year 2022 budget-reconciliation bill. But that would guarantee Republicans could âblameâ Democrats in the 2022 mid-term election for an increase in government debt.
The foul Republican tradition of trying to hold Democrats hostage when an increase in the debt limit is required, only goes back to the odious Newt Gingrich in 1996. We all know how the farce ends: Congress will avoid default at the last possible minute, just as it has done 78 times without fail since 1960, after concessions are extorted from the other side.
Itâs a farce because Congress has already appropriated the funds to be spent and to be borrowed. It has told the Administration in detail how to spend those funds. Now Republicans in Congress want to say (again): âNope, you canât borrow the money to cover what we told you to spendâ.
Republican Congress critters know we must pay our bills, but for myriad cynical reasons  ̶ or just plain political incompetence, they keep the issue alive budget year after budget year, and vote after vote.
The debt limit shouldnât be increased; it should be repealed. The passage of a budget or any other legislation has an implicit expectation that the government will need to raise x and/or spend y. Itâs really that simple. Congress should bite the bullet, and never again need to fight about it.
When they debate the debt ceiling, remember the only reason itâs happening is because one half of our government is good at politics but has no ethics, morals, or sense of patriotism, while the other half of our government is breathtakingly bad at politics.
Eventually, it will be obvious that the Republicans are really fighting about increasing taxes on corporations and the ultra-rich.
We all would be better off if this bullshit ended, and Congress got on with real work.
Depression Bread Line by George Segal, 1999, at the NJ Grounds for Sculpture â 2017 photo by Wrongo
There are two political imperatives facing America by the end of September: The House, Senate and the president must extend the Federal borrowing limit, and pass a budget. When Obama was president, extension of the borrowing limit was a dicey thing, as was passing a budget. From 2008-2016, we largely avoided government shutdowns, we passed spending bills, but not an entire budget.
And we never even considered tax reform, but itâs the third item on the GOPâs 2017 to-do list.
Republicans and Wall Street used to have concerns about the consequences for America if we didnât get our finances under control. They said that the growing federal debt could eventually drag down the economy, burden future generations, and even threaten national security. CEOs of corporations and the biggest banks joined a campaign called Fix the Debt, arguing that the size of our debt was our most pressing issue.
But now these same people are all in on Trumpâs plan to cut taxes for corporations and high earners, saying it is the way to fuel economic growth. That, despite estimates that Trumpâs plan could reduce federal revenue by $3.9 trillion over 10 years, thereby increasing the debt that CEOs used to hate. From Bloomberg:
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, a Fix the Debt supporter…in 2012 told CNBC heâd be for higher taxes if they helped mend the fiscal gap. After the 2016 election, Blankfein told colleagues…that Trumpâs proposals, including tax reform, âwill be good for growth and, therefore, will be good for our clients and for our firm.â
Hmmm. Aren’t Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Trump’s Economic Adviser Gary Cohn both from Goldman?
They [CEOs] were yelling, Deficits, deficits, deficits… [and] as soon as George W. Bush gets in the White House? Oh, weâll have a big tax cut.
The same thing is happening now. Bloomberg reports that according to Seth Waugh, chairman of wealth adviser Alex. Brown, many in finance have moved on from the debt: (brackets and emphasis by the Wrongologist)
Itâs not a fun, sexy thing to talk about…Waugh, another Fix the Debt member, recalls playing golf with a private equity executive…Waugh told his friend it would be nice if Congress addressed deficits… [but]…The private equity executive said nobody was talking about that. It was a dead issue, and they should take the good news: Paying less in taxes, the friend reminded him, means getting richer.
Itâs probably a distant dream. The GOPs plan for tax reform involves using the budget reconciliation process, which allows them to pass it with just 51 votes, that is, without Democrats. Otherwise, they face a filibuster. Reconciliation starts with passing a budget resolution for the coming fiscal year. In that budget resolution, they need to include special budget directives or instructions:
To start the reconciliation process, the House and Senate must agree on a budget resolution that includes âreconciliation directivesâ for specified committees. Under the Congressional Budget Act, the House and Senate are supposed to adopt a budget resolution each year to establish an overall budget plan and set guidelines for action on spending and revenue.
So they need to pass a budget, but before that, Republicans need to vote to raise the borrowing authority of the government. That may be impossible without support from Democrats.
Weâll know very soon if Dems are willing to get on board with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell on any of this.
Itâs Saturday again, and despite the brief three-minute respite from politics brought by the solar eclipse, Trump had another successful week. (If success is his continued destruction of what remains of Americaâs psyche).
We are now in desperate need of something soothing to kick off next weekâs war for truth. So grab a couple of Trader Joeâs Cold Brew Latte Dessert Bars (40 calories and 7 grams of sugar each), put on your best Bluetooth headphones, and listen to the late guitarist John Abercrombie, who died this week. Here is Abercrombie with Dave Holland on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums doing âHomecomingâ live in 1995. Letâs hope itâs not the best few minutes of your week:
Pay attention to Abercrombieâs remarkable and airy technique.
Bald Eagle with Great Blue Heron – photo by Bonnie Block
(The Wrongologist site was hit by a Denial of Service attack on Sunday, April 23. If you had difficulty accessing the site, Wrongo apologizes. We are working with the hosting company to sort it out, but the problem may continue until the end of day today.)
Congress returns today. They will try to pass an increase to the Debt Ceiling before the April 28th funding deadline. After that, at least a partial government shut-down looms.
The Republicans are not in agreement about their stance on the extension. The Orange Overlord complicated the negotiations by saying that he wouldnât sign a Debt Ceiling increase unless it contained funding for the Wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for.
Consider the exchange between Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday and Trump Budget Director Mick Mulvaney. Mulvaney said that it was the Democrats who are guilty of “stunning” obstructionism because they will not negotiate on a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Wallace noted that President Trump had offered Democrats a deal: If you fund the border wall, payments to Obamacare would not be cut. Wallace:
You are holding hostage health insurance for millions of lower-income Americans.
Mulvaney replied:
Actually, what I would say is they’re holding hostage national security…
Then he brought up obstructionism by Democrats:
The Democrats will oppose everything that this president wants to do, which is stunning to us, especially when we are offering them something they want in return.
Wallace countered:
You’re saying, âgive us what we want. And if you don’t, we’re going to cut off funding that would provide health insurance for millions of lower income Americansâ.
The laugher was that Mulvaneyâs logic is that Trump is trying to build a border wall to protect millions of low income Americans who may lose their health care benefits in the trade-off.
So Mexico wonât pay for the wall, and Republicans donât want to pay for the wall either. They would prefer that Democrats agree to pay for Trumpâs wall to give the GOP cover for those Republicans who wonât fund Trumpâs ghastly promise of a wall.
On the obstructionist claim, everyone knows that the Republicans made obstructionism an eight-year strategy when Obama was president. Now, Mulvaneyâs pearl-clutching about obstructionism canât possibly sound legitimate to anyone other than people who watch Fox News. We need to remember that it was the Republicans who picked the 100th day of the (now Trump) administration for last yearâs Continuing Resolution that funded the government, to expire. The idea was to make Hillary Clinton look bad after she won, and then couldnât get a Debt Ceiling increase passed without Republican help.
It never occurred to them that if the Republican nominee won, that he wouldn’t be able to get much done without support of Democrats.
So itâs time for Republicans to wake up, and pass a Debt Ceiling increase. After all, they control the House, Senate and White House. It is their job to avoid a government shutdown.
To help them wake up, here is the UK group Stone Foundation, a modern UK soul band with a tune from their new album, âStreet Ritualsâ. The song is âYour Balloon is Risingâ, featuring Paul Weller formerly of the punk rock group The Jam, and later, Style Council.
Here is âYour Balloon is Risingâ, a blue-eyed soul tune that allows Weller to show all of us that he still has it:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
(Many Glacier, Glacier National Park, August 2016 â photo by Wrongo)
Whatâs next for the White House? Many are saying that the collapse of the Republicansâ failed effort to pass Trumpcare demonstrated that the ideological cleavage within the House and Senate Republicans will not be easy to overcome. This could make it more difficult for Trump to get much of his agenda passed in the immediate future.
Trump wants to move on many things, including tax reform and passing a budget, but the biggest challenge facing Republicans is the Debt Ceiling. The clock started ticking on the need to raise the debt limit, because it already expired on March 15th. That was a âsoftâ deadline, since the Treasury department can fire up a well-used arsenal of âextraordinaryâ measures to delay a reckoning, meaning that Congress can take until the early fall to enact a debt ceiling increase.
More time may not mean that a solution will be forthcoming, since the main adversaries to increasing the debt ceiling are the same people who helped derail Trumpcare. The House Freedom Caucus and their allies in the Senate have in the past, expressed a willingness to let the country default, rather than increase the level of the Treasuryâs debt.
Since they were able to face down Trump on health care, they may well be emboldened to stand up to the president and Congressional leadership again on an issue that is so close to their hard hearts.
If America were to default on its debts, Trump would be presiding over the Bananaization of our Republic, and our ability to lead in the world would be eclipsed. Wrongo plans to write more about this in the future, but it will take real management by Trump to head this off, at a time that his management skills have been called into question.
So far, he has shown himself to be little more than a salesman for his ideas.
The famed management guru Peter Drucker, who wrote about management for corporations, non-profits and governments, at one point wrote management rules for presidents, in a 1993 article for the WSJ:
It’s hard to imagine a more diverse group than Bill Clinton’s predecessors in the American presidency — in abilities, personalities, values, styles and achievements. But even the weakest of them had considerable effectiveness as long as they observed six management rules. And even the most powerful lost effectiveness as soon as they violated these rules.
Wrongo has condensed Druckerâs management rules for presidents for your convenience:
What Needs to be Done? Is the first thing the President must ask. He must not stubbornly do what he wants to do, even if it was the focus of his campaign
Concentrate, Donât Splinter Yourself. There usually are half a dozen right answers to “What needs to be done?” Yet unless a president makes the risky and controversial choice of only one, he will achieve nothing.
Donât Bet on a Sure Thing…Roosevelt had every reason to believe that his plan to âpackâ the Supreme CourtâŠwould be a sure thing. It immediately blew up in is face â so much so that he never regained control of Congress
An Effective President Does Not MicromanageâŠthe tasks that a President must do himself are already well beyond what any but the best organized and most energetic person can possibly accomplish
A President Has No Friends in the AdministrationâŠthey are always tempted to abuse their position as a friend and the power that comes with it
Just how many of these rules does Trump follow, and how many does he violate? Discuss.
Perhaps if he followed all of them, the country would avoid Trumageddon, be less divided, and get a middle of the road agenda enacted.
So hereâs a wake-up call for Donald Trump and his advisors: FOCUS!! To help them wake up and get focused, here is the Canadian group Bachman Turner Overdrive with their big hit (#12 in the US) from 1973, âTakinâ Care of Businessâ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdf04jVOHmM
Wrongo used to take the 8:15 in to the city. Working from home is a major improvement.
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Sample Lyrics:
And I’ll be taking care of business (every day)
Taking care of business (every way)
I’ve been taking care of business (it’s all mine)
Taking care of business and working overtime, work out
