Mitch McConnell led the charge against raising the U.S. debt ceiling in 2011, waging an all-out fight against the Obama budget that led to the country's first-ever drop in international credit ratings. Now McConnell said outright that he will do anything he can to block a debt limit increase by the Biden administration. Never mind that McConnell cheerfully agreed on raising the debt ceiling in 2019 under then-president orange-utan.
Nobody likes the idea of having the U.S. buy new debt, but the U.S. budget is a strange creature wholly unlike a household budget, where incoming and outgoing money tot up to equal. You'll recall that Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary, has warned that she has fewer tools at hand to keep the U.S. solvent than were available in 2011 because the Covid situation has made government expenditures less predictable than before.
But McConnell intends to dig in his heels against the budget bill at the same time -- the $3.5 trillion bill that was written under reconciliation rules so that Republicans wouldn't be able to block it. The bill doesn't have an increase in the debt limit written into it.
McConnell is acting as if using reconciliation rules is a personal insult. “Let me make something perfectly clear: If they don’t need or want our input, they won’t get our help," McConnell said in a recent floor speech. He says that Democrats should lift the debt ceiling on their own if they intend to pass a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, vowing they would receive no GOP help to do so.
It also sounds as if McConnell has roped DINOs Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema into voting against the bill. We sure hope not.
What is it that makes Kentuckians keep voting for McConnell and Rand Paul? It's an ongoing mystery.
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