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Catherine Rampell Profile picture
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29 Sep, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Oy. They could do it. It is just very time-consuming, with lots of steps required. Which is why they should get started ASAP rather than continue this futile attempt to shame R's into behaving responsibly
D's seem to assume R's will be blamed if we default on our debt and the s*** hits the fan, because R's have childishly obstructed attempts to suspend the debt limit through regular order. But...
A) s*** hitting fan would REALLY bad, whoever takes the blame
B) not clear that public would actually assign blame to R's, especially since
C) D's control govt and do have power to avert calamity w/o R help
Yes this would be another option - and one I have heard multiple Dem officials suggest is attractive. Manchin would need to sign off though; maybe he would do it, if the alternative were financial Armageddon, but he has not publicly indicated that so far.

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More from @crampell

Catherine Rampell Profile picture
29 Sep
Dems right now have WAY too much in their reconciliation bill -- not only too much to please Manchin/Sinema, but also too much to conform to original parameters the party set for itself ($3.5T in new spending/tax cuts). washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Gross cost is prob closer to $4.5T-$5T, when you include all the stuff lawmakers want to add to Biden's original plan, such as Medicare expansion & SALT repeal. (Dems also chickened out on some of Biden's pay-fors, so achieving promised deficit impact of $0 is even harder)
Dems have a few options to get (gross) costs down. They could decide to prioritize the things they most want to do, and leave some programs on the cutting room floor. They could also keep ~everything and do an across-the-board haircut of some kind, so each program is smaller
Read 8 tweets
Catherine Rampell Profile picture
27 Sep
Are these people willfully stupid?
We don't have simple Senate majority rule anymore because GOP filibuster abuse means every bill requires 60 votes to pass
Everything *except* reconciliation bills. So every remotely budget-adjacent priority ends up in a huge reconciliation bill
Our legislative system is ludicrously convoluted. It makes no sense. So I understand why the general public might not know the ins & outs of something this byzantine.
But people who pretend to be journalists? Isn't it your job to understand how this stuff works?
I genuinely cannot tell if these people are too lazy to learn how our convoluted legislative & budgetary process works, or if they understand, but are choosing to exploit public confusion because they know the system is so hard to follow.
Complexity rewards the demagogue
Read 4 tweets
Catherine Rampell Profile picture
27 Sep
Ah, so this is why I am getting so many angry emails right now. Because Fox does not understand the difference between net and gross costs
this one appears to be from a CPA. Wouldn't recommend taking tax advice from this dude
How long has this guy been a so-called journalist? And he still doesn't understand how congressional budgeting works?
Read 4 tweets
Catherine Rampell Profile picture
22 Sep
the cost of child care increased by half during the pandemic because of new health regulations, including additional staff to keep small groups of children in stable cohorts. nytimes.com/2021/09/21/ups…
I wonder if there is something of a negative feedback loop happening now. E.g., some people who used to work at restaurants/stores now can’t work because they have no childcare; so, restaurants/stores raise wages to attract more workers...
But childcare employers can't raise own wages commensurately, because other expenses have risen + families they serve already barely afford the cost. So, more childcare workers exit for higher-paying restaurants/stores, leaving even more staff vacancies at childcare facilities…
Read 4 tweets
Catherine Rampell Profile picture
20 Sep
The answer is complicated and a little bit silly. If Congress acts through "regular order" (i.e., the normal legislative process, requiring 60 Senate votes), they can vote to *raise* debt limit to a specific dollar amount, or they can *suspend* it for some specific period of time
In recent years lawmakers have repeatedly decided to *suspend* it. This avoids bad (misleading) headlines about how Congress raised debt to $30T or whatever -- since voters are confused about what debt limit is and don't realize it's about paying off bills already committed to
If on the other hand Congress deals with the debt limit through reconciliation, their only option is to raise the debt limit to a specific dollar figure, NOT suspend it. Dems are afraid that scary # will show up in attack ads (b/c of voter confusion mentioned in previous tweet)
Read 7 tweets
Catherine Rampell Profile picture
18 Sep
Yes, and that circuitous route Dems must take is time-consuming, since Dems (foolishly) didn't include debt limit instructions in their budget resolution. Advancing a revised budget resolution takes serious floor time (15 hrs of debate in Senate & vote-a-rama & House vote)…
…and then putting standalone debt-limit reconciliation bill on the floor would take another 20 hours of debate plus a vote-a-rama.
They could bundle with other reconciliation (safety net + climate) legislation, but that requires sorting out huge differences on that agenda first
No one knows drop-dead date for when the federal government would default absent a debt ceiling hike; there's always some uncertainty on this, even more so today because of pandemic. Latest estimates suggest "X Date" is sometime in October
Read 6 tweets

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