Tag Debt Ceiling

Ban Extraordinary Measures

Danny Vinik 1 Comment

The past 24 hours have seen a mini-breakthrough in the stalemate over the government shutdown and debt ceiling  with House Republicans looking to pass a six-week debt ceiling hike in return for formal negotiations on the budget and a permanent ban on the Treasury Department’s use of extraordinary measures to extend the debt ceiling. President Obama has already come out against the condition of formal negotiations on the budget so this deal is a non-starter. But Boehner could easily downgrade the “formal negotiations” to a mere resolution seeking Democrats to negotiate, something non-binding and not a substantial concession. In that scenario, would Democrats accept a permanent ban on extraordinary measures? I hope so, not just because it will get us closer to a solution to both crises, but also because it makes policy-sense as well.

A quick recap: We actually hit the debt ceiling of $16.999 trillion in May, but the Treasury Department has been using some strange budgetary gimmicks to extend our borrowing authority. However, those gimmicks, known as extraordinary measures, have a limit and we’ll hit that limit next Thursday. After that, we default. An example of these extraordinary measures including delaying payments for public employee pension funds (more info here). That’s what Republicans want to permanently ban.

This makes a lot of sense. The only thing that using extraordinary measures accomplishes is delaying us from officially breaching the debt limit. But the only time Treasury actually has to use them are when one political party is looking to fight over raising the debt ceiling. Extraordinary measures delays that fight a couple of months. Think about it this way: why is having the debt ceiling fight now better than having it this past May? There never is a good time for these fights (and the debt ceiling should be abolished), but extending them for an undetermined period of time is pointless.

Since Republicans have not put forward an official proposal, Democrats haven’t commented on the idea of banning extraordinary measures. Wonkblog’s Neil Irwin offers one possible reason for White House opposition:

Such a step would give this and future administrations less leeway to influence when the debt ceiling becomes a binding constraint, so it won’t be shocking if the Obama administration opposes the idea.

…

One of the dirty secrets of the Treasury’s cash management function is that very few people on earth understand how it really works, and almost all of those people work for the Treasury. So Republicans on Capitol Hill have felt that they don’t have reliable information on when exactly they really, really need to raise the debt ceiling and when Jack Lew & Co. have more tools in their bag of cash management tricks.

That’s all true, but that doesn’t seem like a good reason to keep extraordinary measures. The minority party should never use the debt ceiling as a hostage, but if they are, it’s better for everyone that they have reliable information on when they need to raise the debt ceiling. If House Republicans want to wait until the last second to strike a deal, they really need to know when that last second is. Otherwise, there is a (small) risk we accidentally default. That’s a risk we don’t need to take.

In addition, it’s much easier for journalists and politicians to explain to the public when we hit the debt limit, instead of when Treasury can no longer use extraordinary measures to stop us from breaching it. It’s an unnecessary complication that confuses the public and simply delays a nasty fight with no real benefits. Let’s get rid of it.

Did the Government Shutdown Stop Us From Defaulting?

Danny Vinik Leave a comment

Ezra Klein thinks so:

But whatever the endgame, the fight now is over a government shutdown. That’s bad. But it’s not nearly as bad as a fight over the debt ceiling. It’s evidence of how far into dysfunction American politics has fallen that this can or should be said, but thank God for the government shutdown. It might just have saved the country.

Hmm I’m not so convinced.

Here’s what the odds of a default would’ve been without a government shutdown: 0%.
And here’s what they are with a government shutdown: 0%.

I’ve held this view for a while. Under no circumstance would Boehner allow us to breach the debt ceiling. It helps his negotiating position to try to convince journalists that he is crazy enough to breach it, but when push comes to shove, Boehner understands the catastrophic consequences of a default. He also understands that he single-handedly has the power to stop us from defaulting. History would not look on him kindly if he had that power and chose not to exercise it.

That doesn’t mean the government shutdown didn’t help him out. On the contrary, Klein is exactly right that it gave the Tea Party a chance to vent their anger. Thus, it gave Boehner political cover. He can choose to fight on the government shutdown instead of the debt ceiling. But don’t think that means that the government shutdown actually helped prevent a default. Boehner was always going to raise the debt ceiling.

Path Set for Ultimate Battle Between Boehner and the Tea Party

Danny Vinik Leave a comment

There’s an interesting dynamic developing in the Republican party over John Boehner’s proposal for a six-week debt ceiling increase. The Tea Party has hesitantly accepted the idea, arguing that it would separate out the debt ceiling and government shutdown fights. They want to use the government shutdown to stop Obamacare and the debt ceiling to enact entitlement reform. For them, keeping the two crises separate is vital and the short-term deal accomplishes that. Here’s how Sen. Ted Cruz described it on KYFO radio:

My understanding is that this is being driven by House conservatives who are quite reasonably saying listen, let’s focus on Obamacare, on winning the fight on Obamacare, on helping remedy the enormous harms Obamacare is inflicting on millions of Americans, and let’s push the debt ceiling a little further down the road so that it doesn’t distract us from the fight we’re right in the middle of now.

What’s amazing is that Boehner and Republican leadership want the short-term extension for precisely the opposite reason that Cruz and Co. want it. Boehner wants to make a larger deal that includes a continuing resolution and longer debt ceiling increase in return for concessions from the president. President Obama says he won’t negotiate until Republicans reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling, but if Boehner offers a deal with few concessions (repealing the medical device tax or a promise to focus on tax reform, for instance), the president will likely accept it. Boehner, thus, needs time to craft an agreement and rally support for such a deal. That’s why he’s proposed this short-term extension. From Robert Costa yesterday:

But the quiet acceptance of a short-term extension among rank-and-file Republicans gives Speaker John Boehner, who heads to the White House later today, a chance to avert default and eventually craft a larger fiscal bargain. “We’re telling folks, help us here, and we’ll work together moving forward,” says a veteran House Republican. “We know this isn’t perfect, but we’re not living in fantasyland, thinking we can get everything we want before the deadline.”

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers, #4 in the House Republican leadership, further emphasized that the six-week deal would give Republican leaders time to “continue this conversation.”

This is going to set up a major battle between Boehner and the Tea Party in the next couple of weeks. I argued yesterday that Boehner’s pivot from demanding a stop to Obamacare to demanding a fiscal concession was a major victory for the speaker. I seem to have spoken to early. This short-term deal gives Boehner much-needed time, but when the Tea Party realizes that he’s using it to craft a larger deal on both the budget and debt ceiling, they are going to be livid. How Boehner then attempts to calm them and pass whatever deal he comes to is his next challenge.