Until you mentioned him today, I had forgotten E.J. Dionne existed.
But now that you have refreshed my memory, I think I stopped following his work because I felt he was nothing more than a political hack who spins current events into a democrat political narrative. Throw a rock in DC and you'll hit a dozen just like him.
I think this latest round of the debt ceiling drama teaches us that the basic dynamic of the thing hasn't changed: President in power waits as long as possible, party in power in Congress conditions passage on things it can brag about in the upcoming election cycle, and no significant progress towards debt stabilization or reduction is made.
In this case, I commend McCarthy for doing what I haven't seen any republican Speaker since Newt to: explain in plain English what the debt ceiling is and why it is silly to set spending limits without budget discipline. The analogy he gave to a teenager's credit card resonates.
Washington is the only place in the US where a "cut" is actually an increase in spending, and spending increases year over year no matter what the general economic conditions are and what government revenues look like.
I also commend him for publicizing the types of useless things money is spent on, the gravity of the national debt, and the impact of government spending on inflation and interest rates. The irony is that while "cutting the costs" of American households has been the tag line for the Biden Administration, Crooked Joe has done nothing but find ways to put upward pressure on the costs of food, energy, transportation, and all manufactured goods, and devalue the retirement savings of Americans who don't enjoy the assurance of government pensions.
It was an "A" effort, and though it produced "C" results, it does send a positive message to the financial markets.
It also teaches us that commentators like Dionne don't have a clue. He comments that the GOP champions issues important to blue collar voters (whatever that means anymore), but serves the wealthy. Stipulating that he's right, and that the democrat party has abandoned that same cohort, who in Washington is championing the prosperity and security of working people?
What Dionne writes is what Democrats believe to their core. My Dad still claims that certain friends of his like Trump because they are rich. And all Democrats with just a few exceptions (like the Liberal Patriot for example) believe that cultural issues are ginned up by Republicans to trick the rubes. They will continue to believe this until they lose 4 out of 5 elections by landslides. Or the modern equivalent.
Overall, I agree with this post. However, in fairness to Dionne his characterization would have been au courant as recently as 2020-21. Only with the collapse of the Biden administration, the refusal of DJT to go quietly into that good night, and the demonstrated success of DeSantis running on a Trumpian platform on steroids has it suddenly become acceptable in the GOP to consider a path brilliantly illuminated by Trump in 2016. Quick learners they are not. Putting Trump aside, it is not clear to me that establishment types in the GOP are at all comfortable with DeSantis and his political emphasis on social as opposed to economic issues. For decades it was CW that GOP politicians campaigned to the base in primaries and immediately "moved to the center" - an ever leftward shifting target over the years. The base tolerated but never liked it. But what choice did they have until Trump blew it all up? No one could conceive of a militant response to the left that would NOT wilt in response to the usual ad hominem and vicious charges of fascism and racism. It was simply not conceivable until Trump and now DeSantis demonstrated the possibility. Both are utterly intolerable to the Democrats and to not a few in the "bipartisan" wing of the GOP. If anything, Dionne is expressing the view of the way things should be based on the way things have been until very recently.
Until you mentioned him today, I had forgotten E.J. Dionne existed.
But now that you have refreshed my memory, I think I stopped following his work because I felt he was nothing more than a political hack who spins current events into a democrat political narrative. Throw a rock in DC and you'll hit a dozen just like him.
I think this latest round of the debt ceiling drama teaches us that the basic dynamic of the thing hasn't changed: President in power waits as long as possible, party in power in Congress conditions passage on things it can brag about in the upcoming election cycle, and no significant progress towards debt stabilization or reduction is made.
In this case, I commend McCarthy for doing what I haven't seen any republican Speaker since Newt to: explain in plain English what the debt ceiling is and why it is silly to set spending limits without budget discipline. The analogy he gave to a teenager's credit card resonates.
Washington is the only place in the US where a "cut" is actually an increase in spending, and spending increases year over year no matter what the general economic conditions are and what government revenues look like.
I also commend him for publicizing the types of useless things money is spent on, the gravity of the national debt, and the impact of government spending on inflation and interest rates. The irony is that while "cutting the costs" of American households has been the tag line for the Biden Administration, Crooked Joe has done nothing but find ways to put upward pressure on the costs of food, energy, transportation, and all manufactured goods, and devalue the retirement savings of Americans who don't enjoy the assurance of government pensions.
It was an "A" effort, and though it produced "C" results, it does send a positive message to the financial markets.
It also teaches us that commentators like Dionne don't have a clue. He comments that the GOP champions issues important to blue collar voters (whatever that means anymore), but serves the wealthy. Stipulating that he's right, and that the democrat party has abandoned that same cohort, who in Washington is championing the prosperity and security of working people?
What Dionne writes is what Democrats believe to their core. My Dad still claims that certain friends of his like Trump because they are rich. And all Democrats with just a few exceptions (like the Liberal Patriot for example) believe that cultural issues are ginned up by Republicans to trick the rubes. They will continue to believe this until they lose 4 out of 5 elections by landslides. Or the modern equivalent.
Overall, I agree with this post. However, in fairness to Dionne his characterization would have been au courant as recently as 2020-21. Only with the collapse of the Biden administration, the refusal of DJT to go quietly into that good night, and the demonstrated success of DeSantis running on a Trumpian platform on steroids has it suddenly become acceptable in the GOP to consider a path brilliantly illuminated by Trump in 2016. Quick learners they are not. Putting Trump aside, it is not clear to me that establishment types in the GOP are at all comfortable with DeSantis and his political emphasis on social as opposed to economic issues. For decades it was CW that GOP politicians campaigned to the base in primaries and immediately "moved to the center" - an ever leftward shifting target over the years. The base tolerated but never liked it. But what choice did they have until Trump blew it all up? No one could conceive of a militant response to the left that would NOT wilt in response to the usual ad hominem and vicious charges of fascism and racism. It was simply not conceivable until Trump and now DeSantis demonstrated the possibility. Both are utterly intolerable to the Democrats and to not a few in the "bipartisan" wing of the GOP. If anything, Dionne is expressing the view of the way things should be based on the way things have been until very recently.