You don't need to be a savvy operator at all, you just need to have followed US politics for more than a few years. The parties have been doing this since, what? 2014? We're going on a decade of this. Both parties do it and always compromise just fine in the end. Blaming one party or the other shows a distinct lack of self-awareness.
When have the Democrats refused to raise the debt ceiling without conditions? Maybe they have and I've just missed it.
Reading through history, it seems it has always been Republicans doing it. You could even say they invented it.
Gotta say, the "takes" I've read on HN while this has been going on have been illuminating. If quite a few people believe this is a "both sides" thing and that both parties are playing games with the debt ceiling, it explains how the GOP could possibly think it's sound strategy. I guess maybe they're even right. It would never have occurred to me that a lot of folks are "reading" this as about-equally the fault of the Democrats, but evidently, they are, and that explains some things.
So obviously Republicans would be against raising the debt ceiling, and just as obviously it's the fault of the Democrats that we need to raise it in the first place.
Does that help you understand better what people are thinking? And who they are blaming?
If the Republican-controlled House wants to reduce spending, they can do that during budget talks. That would be an appropriate time. And it's their Constitutional power.
What they are doing now is using the threat of default to try to get spending concessions. So they are trying to reduce spending, but the debt ceiling is not coupled to it. It just happens to be a piece of leverage they currently have. This entire thing is in bad faith.
I mean McCarthy went on the record to say "We won't default". That's like .. the opposite of a threat.
It's so weird to me how Democrats keep thinking there's actually a possibility of a default, while every moderate and Republican knows very well there is zero possibility of it.
There must be something in the mentality of how people view the world that causes this correlation.
It... definitely helps me understand what I'm seeing on here better, yes.
And likewise spending did get reduced, although not maybe as much as Republicans would like.
Basically the two parties need each other. And the best legislation happens from a mixed Congress.