As the debt ceiling crisis has unfolded, there’s been a fair amount of talk about the need for some kind of “compromise.” The idea, of course, is that both parties would eventually reach an agreement, with neither side getting everything they’d like to see in a bipartisan deal.
There is, however, one glaring problem standing in the way of a theoretical compromise: Republicans not only don’t want to make any concessions, they seem genuinely confused about what a concession even is.
This was painfully obvious yesterday when CNN asked House Speaker Kevin McCarthy one of the most important questions of the entire crisis.
McCarthy is trying to relay to his members that he isn’t folding to the White House’s pressure campaign, saying on Tuesday he’s only willing to make one concession in exchange for GOP demands for spending cuts and ways to pare back social safety net programs. “We are going to raise the debt ceiling,” he told CNN when asked what he’d give to the White House in their deal-cutting.
It’s not just the House speaker. The Washington Post asked Rep. Patrick McHenry, a close McCarthy confidant, what the GOP has offered to get Democratic votes for a bipartisan deal. “The debt ceiling,” the North Carolina Republican replied.
Republican Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana, who’s helping take the lead in the talks with White House officials, added, “That’s what they’re getting.”
Let’s be very clear about this, because it’s arguably the single most important detail about the negotiations. Facing the threat of default, GOP officials envision a “deal” in which they get regressive and unpopular policies that hurt struggling families. In exchange, Democrats would get literally nothing — except the satisfaction in knowing that Republicans won’t crash the economy this year.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s not your imagination. If you’ve been reading me for a long time, you might recall my coverage of the 2011 debt ceiling…
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