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Comment by no_wizard | Hacker News Reader

Part of me wants the democrats to keep playing chicken with the Republicans. I generally back the liberal policies outlined in the democrats version of the bill (it’s focused on closing tax loopholes to pay for things).

More importantly Republicans have shown time and again they are willing to consistently hold their positions without any expectation they'll have to compromise and berate other legislators and bully around to get what they want, I don’t want to see democrats give in to that again and again and again

EDIT: Couldn't Biden do an end run around the Republicans by strategically calling an emergency session after hours via Article II, Section 3 of the constitution? It has no requirements that the majority leader be there to start quorum, only that the session has been declared. Then attending democrats could just vote this thing through and call absence on the rest

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The problem with a game of chicken is that eventually everyone loses. This is why having that kind of debt limit is a mistake: the only thing it does is allow one party to unilaterally force the other into games of chicken.

I'm by no means opposed to taking steps to reduce the deficit, but the debt limit has had the above undesirable effect while simultaneously failing to actually reduce anything.

There was a theory posted that democrats will cave at the last minute to republican demands when it's really the powers that be want those concessions and are just using this as cover for democrats.

If you think it's optically positive to keep playing chicken, wouldn't you want them to fold now and then run off the edge next year? If you do it next year, you're six months away from the election and it will be fresh in voters' minds. If you do it now, everyone will forget but will be vaguely aware that the Democrats played irresponsible games with the economy and remember none of the nuance.

> Couldn't Biden do an end run around the Republicans by strategically calling an emergency session after hours via Article II, Section 3 of the constitution

Of all the nuclear options I've seen proposed, this seems the most nuclear.

Yeah, we've definitely begun exploring all the various ways our system is broken & vulnerable if too many people in the wrong positions decide to behave in bad faith and ignore all notions of the spirit of rules & laws or of fair play, but I'm not sure I want us to speed-run that process.

It would only work once. The only thing you need for this to be stopped is having the speaker of the house present to deny the quorum under rules. you're basically counting on absence for this to work. Its a one shot deal (the end run around this is just having the majority speaker camp out near the house at all times)

Best case IMO is that the deadline passes, Biden picks one method or another to pay for the already-budgeted-by-Congress spending anyway, that's affirmed as OK by the courts, and I get to never hear the words "debt ceiling" ever again.

This seems like an optimistic view of the courts.

Sure, there's a chance the "original intent" contingent says it's limited only to gov pensions and military. In that case go with the $1T platinum coin. There's also some option for the Fed to buy treasuries maturing during that period.

I think that they rule based on their political preferences and come up with post hoc rationalizations afterward. Therefore, it doesn’t really matter which method is chosen.

Oh, it's definitely an "... and also, I want a pony!" kind of wish.

Yep. Shut down these silly games of chicken.

Which methods have been affirmed by the courts? Congress controls the budget/purse by constitution right? I heard somewhere that the tech doesn't even exist to prioritize spending beyond a pure FIFO spending approach.

I believe they meant that they wish whatever method Biden chooses is affirmed by the courts when the eventual case challenging it comes. Some believe the debt limit is unconstitutional due to the 14th amendment which states, "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." I think it is a shaky argument, but I'm not a constitutional lawyer or any other kind of lawyer.

I think they are saying they would like to have the debt limit as a concept taken to court by Biden ignoring it. The debt limit itself is not explicitly in the constitution.

Biden should just take the nuclear approach and challenge the constitutionality of the debt ceiling (really good argument for it) and also threaten to "mint the coin" if the GOP doesn't stop the game they are playing.

I want to see Biden invoke the 14th ammendment and keep paying the bills. This will be challenged in the Supreme Court. If the Court goes with the 14th amendment then we don't have to do these debt ceiling hostage crises anymore. There's a possibility that the "original intenters" on the SCOTUS will say that the 14th amendment only applies to military and gov pensions (a very narrow reading)... then it's $1T platinum coin time.

No. They should concede and raise the debt limit now, then abolish it through legislation the next time they have power. That's the responsible thing to do. This fiasco should make that possible, even with the majorities they had during the last congress.

Of course, "never give an inch" is now the motto of both parties, so it'll never happen and all we'll get is gimmicks.

> the next time they have power.

This action would require a simple majority in the House, a 3/5 majority in the Senate, and either the presidency or increasing both of those to 2/3 majorities. The last time the Dems had that much power was 2010. Is it really surprising that folks are unwilling to accept a decade or more of giving the GOP whatever they want?

> Is it really surprising that folks are unwilling to accept a decade or more of giving the GOP whatever they want?

That's the political reality. If they don't want to deal with reality, then I guess we'll see what happens.

The political reality is quite a bit more complicated than that, but frankly I don't want to get into it both because this isn't the right place and because it's depressing. Cheers, though; hopefully we can still find a way to avoid that worst case.

Conceding means rolling back legislation that is meant to speed up our path to renewables[0] and cutting spending (in many cases, quite drastically) across the board.

The democrats on the other hand, want to close tax loopholes[1] which is what the GOP is opposing

[0]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/heres-whats-in-the-gop...

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/15/debt-ceil...

If indeed there is a conflict between the budget ceiling law and the 14th amendment the courts are the appropriate place to get that settled. Sure, given the makeup of the current SCOTUS it seems more probable that they're going to side with the GOP, but that's not a given. And if they decide that the 14th amendment negates the budget ceiling law then we'll be done with these silly games of chicken over the debt ceiling.

If the demands were reasonable, I'd agree with you. But cutting 33% from discretionary non-military budgets is not a reasonable demand.

> If the demands were reasonable, I'd agree with you. But cutting 33% from discretionary non-military budgets is not a reasonable demand.

Changing that figure are what negotiations are for, but (at least) one side has loudly and publicly refused to negotiate.

No, that's what budget negotiations are for. The debt ceiling is about servicing the debt that has already been incurred. Biden submitted his budget proposal for next year like almost 2 months ago. The GOP has yet to outline their budget proposal, but when they do then both sides sit down to workout that budget.

> No, that's what budget negotiations are for. The debt ceiling is about servicing the debt that has already been incurred.

That's a false distinction. It's all just legislation, and there's no real reason this needs to be here and that needs to be there except all the branches of government agree they want to do it that way.

If you think I'm wrong, point to the Constitutional provision that spells out debt ceiling increases are not the place to negotiate budget.

That's not true. Biden has already accepted one of the demands, to remove unspent portions of the stimulus bill.

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