“To reduce the national debt and help ensure people’s needs, this country needs to cut military spending, take back the tax giveaways that have been given in recent years to billionaires, and spend that money instead on human needs.”
As we go to press, the U.S. Congress is considering whether to approve the “compromise” deal to raise the debt ceiling announced May 27 by the White House and Republican leaders in Congress.
The more the public learns about this agreement, the worst it is revealed to be. The so-called “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023” is not a compromise. It is a betrayal of the workers of this country by the corporate wing of the Democratic Party and their Republican counterparts.
Across the country, concerned activists are speaking up. More and more people are demanding that members of Congress who call themselves progressive do the right thing and defeat this bill.
It’s important to understand that when the U.S. Congress votes to raise the debt ceiling, it is not spending new money. It is simply allowing the government to pay for spending that has already been agreed on. The U.S. Congress has voted to raise the debt ceiling 78 times since 1960, usually without fanfare or even debate. Given these facts, there was no need for Biden to negotiate with Republicans holding the economy hostage by threatening to plunge the country into default. He could simply have invoked the provision in the 14th Amendment which says that the validity of the public debt of the United States shall not be questioned.
The tentative debt ceiling agreement cobbled together by Biden and the Republicans would needlessly slash nutrition aid, rental assistance, education programs, and more – all while making it easier for the wealthy to avoid taxes. It would take back $30 billion of unspent pandemic relief money. It reduces by $10 billion new enforcement funding for the IRS to crack down on wealthy tax cheats.
The deal would dramatically curtail the authority of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), important legislation which safeguards the country’s air and water. The deal includes provisions explicitly approving the Mountain Valley Pipeline. This pet project of U.S. Senator Joe Manchin has previously been denied multiple permits by courts due to concerns about its effects on water quality and the environment. The Biden-GOP deal would require the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to issue all remaining permits for this 303.5-mile interstate natural gas pipeline that will emit the equivalent of more than 89 million metric tons of carbon. The “Fiscal Responsibility Act” would also fast-track other pipelines and dirty fossil fuel projects.
This agreement worked out in secret, late-night negotiations would also end the pause on student-loan payments and make it more difficult for families to get food stamps.
“For no reason at all, hungry people are set to lose food while tax cheats get a free pass,” wrote Angela Hanks, chief of programs at Demos, shortly after the bill’s provisions were announced.
Ariel Moger, government and political affairs director at Friends of the Earth, pointed out: “This agreement is far from a compromise. It’s a surrender to Big Oil and Republican hostage-takers in Congress. Democrats should vote NO on this disgraceful deal and force a vote on a clean debt limit increase.”
Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement shortly after the agreement was announced that “this is a punishing deal made worse only by the fact that there was no reason for President Biden to negotiate with Speaker McCarthy over whether or not the United States government should pay its bills.”
The massive public relations campaign now being waged by the White House and the Republican leaders to force this “compromise” through Congress is extremely ominous. It sets up a situation where the public (and our elected representatives) have to support either impoverishing millions of people or hurling the country into default.
We, the American people, must not accept either of those false choices. Across the country, people are raising concerns about the deal. They are demanding that progressive forces in the U.S. Congress vote against it and that Congress simply raise the debt ceiling without conditions. Outrage is especially high among young people concerned about the provisions in the deal which will devastate both their education and the environment.
Let’s all support the environmental organizations and anti-hunger groups mobilizing against the Biden-GOP scheme. It will take a massive movement of ordinary people to stop the deal and to defend the interests of the working class now and in the battles that will inevitably follow this one.
And let’s never forget who schemed to foist this pact on the American public. The debt ceiling drama in Washington proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that we cannot rely on the corporate wing of the Democratic Party to defend the interests of the working class.
Many people are understandably concerned about the size of the national debt, but it’s critical to remember that the reason this country has billions of dollars in debt is not because of relatively limited social programs. It’s because this country has spent billions of dollars on endless, unfinanced wars such as the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and because of the massive tax cuts for billionaires which have been approved in recent years.
To reduce the national debt and help ensure people’s needs, this country needs to cut military spending, take back the tax giveaways that have been given in recent years to billionaires, and spend that money instead on human needs.
To do this, we need to build a massive movement of ordinary people. We’ll need to force the elected officials to follow the lead of those they claim to represent – the millions fighting for jobs, education, and environmental justice. Ultimately, that is the bitter lesson of the debt ceiling debacle of the spring of 2023.
