In some ways Biden has been better than my expectations for his Presidency, but my expectations were really low. When I cast my vote in November 2020, the best thing about Biden was that he was not Trump. And that alone has been a huge improvement.
But when Biden fucks up he really does fuck up. I don;t always like Jonathan Chait, but he is 100% correct on this one:
Last week, a reporter asked President Biden if he would support a repeal of the debt ceiling. “A permanent repeal of the debt ceiling? … Just say we don’t have a debt limit?” he asked with a laugh, as if the notion were fantastical. “No. That’d be irresponsible.”The reality is in fact just the opposite. Repealing the debt ceiling, or raising it to a level at which it is practically repealed, is the responsible course of action. Leaving the debt ceiling in place invites political chaos and creates the risk of a global economic meltdown with absolutely no benefit whatsoever. Biden’s dismissive comment was the most irresponsible act of his entire presidency.
I think this encapsulates the biggest problem with Biden. He has been around too long. He is reflectively attached to ideas that no longer have any utility. Actually, I don't know if the debt ceiling really did ever have any utility. But for most of its existence it wasn't a tool for blackmail and a constant threat of default that it has become now.
Biden is capable of switching gears. But it seems like he only does that if it is planned switch. He can change his thinking about an issue if he sits down with his advisors and hashes out a new policy. But when he is asked about something on the fly, his first reflex seems to be what might have been a reasonable answer in the late 1980s. Which is kind of shocking when it comes to the debt ceiling issue. That thing was weaponized by the Republicans during the Obama administration. Biden was there. He was presiding over the Senate watching it happen.
Probably the window for fixing the debt ceiling before it is too late has already closed. I can't imagine that SeneManchin would support a stand alone bill to abolish it, so it would have to be slipped into some other legislation or made part of some bigger legislative deal (like the IRA or infrastructure bill were). I don't think there will be any more of them before the new Congress gets sworn in.
I guess there's always the trillion dollar coin. But that seems too out of the box for a guy like Biden. Still, I can't believe he wouldn't choose a wacky coin idea over a default and the destruction of the economy. (Plus if Biden added $1T to the monetary supply, people would be screaming about inflation)
