President Joe Biden, 80, doesn’t want to negotiate with 58-year-old House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on a new continuing budget ceiling, raising the debt ceiling $1.5 trillion to keep the government running, avoid defaulting to foreign creditors. Biden told MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle that she thought McCarthy was an “honest broker,” but thought he was too indebted to MAGA Republicans, a buzz word Biden uses to refer to 76-year-old former President Donald Trump’s House supporters. Trump signed several continuing budget resolutions [CBRs] during his four years, deferring at the time to Congressional Democrats with big spending priorities. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said May 5 that if the President and House didn’t agree on a new CBR, the federal government would shut down June 1. Biden, who had the House and Senate during his first two years, got spoiled getting his way.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) signaled he would let the House Budget Committee negotiate with Biden, sitting the current negotiations out. “I think he’s an honest man. I think he’s in a position, though, he had to make a deal, 15 votes, where he just about sold away everything that he—at the far, far right,” Biden saud about what hoops McCarthy had to jump through to get his job. McCarthy took 15 rounds of voting, with all the deal making, to finally win House Speaker. But whatever McCarithy had to do to get his job, it’s a whole new ballgame now that Republicans control the House. House Democrats and Republicans insisted that Trump failed to get any traction in the 2020 election but somehow Republicans took back the House. Biden wants to characterize any Republican that wants budget reform as a Trump-Maga extremists, not mainstream Republicans.
Biden’s attitude toward working out a reasonable deal with Republicans reflects a degree of rigidity of someone no inclined at his age for deal-making. Without working out a deal, Biden puts U.S. financial markets at jeopardy, just like he’s done with foreign policy. No one can say under Biden’s watch the country is better off on the world stage thrn it was under former President Donald Trump. Only the Democrat-controlled media pretends that things haven’t gotten worse under Biden. If the country defaults and shuts down the government, it’s Biden’s fault for not negotiating in good faith. When it comes to foreign policy, there’s even less excuses to him starting a unilateral war with the Russian Federation. Biden decided to trash decades of diplomacy and détente with the Russia Federation, all because he couldn’t negotiate a new security arrangement with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Biden suffers from the same rigidity on the economy as he does with foreign policy. One both counts, he’s failed to comprehend basic economic principles especially when it comes to the money supply, where excessive government borrowing competes with the private sector to raise interest rates. Four years under Trump and the economy didn’t overheat, fueling the worst inflation since the stagflation seen during former President Jimmy Carter’s presidency. Biden kept borrowing-and-spending his way out of the Covid-19 crisis, hading cash out to U.S. citizens like M&Ms. “There’s a Republican Party and there are MAGA Republicans. And the MAGA Republicans really have put him [McCarthy] in a position where in order to stay speaker, he has to agree to things that maybe he believes but are just extreme,” Biden said. Does Biden think McCaonnell is a MAGA Republican?
Biden shows, whether with the economy or foreign policy, he’s not fit for duty yet has the temerity to seek four more years. When he took office in 2021, Biden said he would consider his job successful preventing Trump from getting four more years. Now he thinks, like 89-year-old Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), that she perfectly competent to continue in her job, despite het Democrat colleagues saying she suffers from age-related cognitive decline. While Biden’s a little younger, it doesn’t mean he’s fit for duty in another ways. When it comes to foreign policy, it’s crystal clear that his proxy war against the Kremlin has endangered U.S. national security, and, in fact, endangered world peace, potentially igniting WW III on the European continent. Biden shows no awareness, like Feinstein, of his limitation, putting U.S. national security and world peace in jeopardy.
When it comes to negotiations, Biden needs to stop labeling responsible Republicans as MAGA extremists, all because he doesn’t like proposed budget cuts. Senate Majority Leader McConnell is no MAGA Republican but still thinks the government must cut the fat out of the upcoming budget. Biden must take responsibility to creating the current economic mess with his big spending programs, all supported by Democrats and reluctantly acquiesced by Republicans. Now that the government faces default, it’s time for Biden to recognize his tax-and-spending ways must be mitigated to preserve the fiscal health of the nation. If Biden really cared about he budget, he’d immediately end the profligate spending on the Ukraine War, wasting untold billions in U.S. tax dollars on a conflict that can be resolved through discussion, negotiation and compromise at the peace table.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma .
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