Stop Complaining

Democrats Should Stop Complaining About the Budget. They Just Won.

Liberal critics want Democrats to adopt the losing tactics of the congressional GOP. Um, why?

By BILL SCHER

We’ve got a budget deal, it seems, and conservatives are in their usual state of incredulousness that a Republican president and Senate have been squeezed by Democrats to concede spending increases. But this time, progressives are having the vapors as well. The left is still traumatized by how Republicans took the debt limit “hostage” during hardball negotiations with the Obama White House, and they are not soothed by a two-year suspension of the debt limit until after the next presidential inauguration, as negotiated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

Adam Jentleson, former aide to Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, was incredulous: “Dems are going to clear the decks on government funding and debt ceiling for the remainder of Trump’s term, forfeiting all leverage, but set up a major crisis point for Republicans in the first summer of a potential Dem presidents’ term?” Brian Beutler and Priyanka Aribindi of the progressive podcast network Crooked Media wailed, “Only we pay ransom” and scolded congressional Democrats for not demanding a repeal or a decadeslong extension of the debt limit.

They’re talking about the future politics of the deal. But when it comes to governing—presumably, the actual job our elected officials are there to do—this deal was an unalloyed win for the Democrats. It was a big signoff on their policy and spending goals from a Republican White House. And even the politics aren’t likely to be nearly as much of a problem as the critics say.

Democrats generally campaign on expanding the role of government, and Republicans on shrinking it (except when it comes to the military). And for the next fiscal year, this deal increases nondefense discretionary spending by 4.5 percent, more than the military spending increase of 3.1 percent. In other words, Democrats have forced a Republican president to accept bigger government. For progressives who sound the alarm about the risks of government austerity inflicting harm on the poor and middle class, a deal expanding government largesse by any degree is a cause for celebration.

Yet instead of assessing the deal on what it would accomplish for real people in the present, naysayers on the left are wrongly viewing it purely through a political lens, and a cloudy one at that.

Progressives fear the 2019 deal would lead to a repeat of the 2011 budget negotiations, in which Republicans threatened a disastrous default on our national debt obligations in order to win spending cuts. The resulting Budget Control Act established the “sequester”—automatic, crude cuts to both military and nonmilitary spending that went into effect if future Congresses and presidents could not agree on how to budget. The new deal effectively finishes off the sequester, which reduces pressure for future spending cuts. Huzzah!

Further, the future is not preordained. Yes, in 2011 Republicans ruthlessly wielded post-midterm election leverage against President Barack Obama. But things turned out differently two years later, when Republicans provoked a government shutdown as the debt limit approached in an audacious attempt to defund the Affordable Care Act. Obama didn’t budge. Republicans, who were reeling in the polls, flinched.

Obama established a principle during that standoff: “We can’t make extortion routine as part of our democracy. Democracy doesn't function this way. And this is not just for me; it’s also for my successors in office. Whatever party they’re from, they shouldn’t have to pay a ransom either for Congress doing its basic job. We've got to put a stop to it.” That’s true even when Donald Trump is president.

And it’s true even if opposition Republicans decide once again not to adhere to that principle the next time a Democrat is president. But a Democratic president doesn’t have to automatically lose when the Republicans play hardball. The political fallout would be determined by the perceived reasonableness of the Republican demand and the Democratic response.

It would be nice, as the folks from Crooked Media proposed, if this deal could have rendered debt limit threats off-limits forever. But such a proposal would have never passed the Republican Senate. Worse, making it a non-negotiable demand could have easily caused a new debt limit crisis.

Many progressives seem to want Democrats to learn from the scorched-earth tactics of Republicans. But Republicans would be wiser to learn from the bargaining strategy of Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Except for a brief shutdown in January 2018 over immigration that was quickly, and wisely, abandoned, congressional Democrats haven’t tried to take the government hostage during the Trump administration. (The only protracted shutdown of the Trump presidency was instigated by Trump, effectively taking his own government hostage in order to win border wall money. It didn’t work.) Instead, Democratic leaders have negotiated budget agreements with Republicans in good faith, and they have won policy victories in the process.

Some on the left and the right don’t view Republican capitulation on spending as anything new or notable. The last Republican president to actually cut nondefense discretionary spending was Ronald Reagan. President George W. Bush ended up spending more thanks in part to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the expansion of Medicare to include prescription drug coverage. Some progressives like Jentleson argue Republicans like government spending just fine. As he tweeted, “The idea that *only* Dems like to spend government money, including on domestic priorities, is a pretense that has no bearing in reality — but it lets both Dems and Republicans frame normal levels of spending increases as ‘big wins’ for Democrats.”

There’s some truth to that, but it’s not correct to say Democrats and Republicans like government spending equally. Bush tried very hard to cut Social Security spending through partial privatization, and Trump tried to cut health subsidies by gutting the Affordable Care Act. They failed, in large part due to unified Democratic opposition. Republicans may have grown quite comfortable with red ink, but their preferred method of increasing the deficit is tax cuts, not spending on social programs.

In this new budget deal, Democrats have forced Republicans to concede they don’t have the will to fight for cuts on social spending that would have long-lasting impact on ordinary Americans. That is evidence of Democratic strength, and Republican weakness, on a fundamental ideological difference that defines the two parties.

Beyond the short-term win for Democratic priorities, the deal is also a victory for the principle that debt limit votes should not become opportunities for destabilizing brinkmanship. So cheer up progressives! Austerity is dead and functioning democracy is alive.