Quite so.
There is the old Woody Allen joke or repeated by him about - slight paraphrase- the guy who goes to the psychiatrist and says "Doc, my wife thinks she is a chicken and I can't take it anymore. Whereupon the psychiatrist says: "Why don't you get rid of her?" And he says: "I can't. I need the eggs."
The debt-ceiling dance is a nutty little game and drama that both parties use to turbocharge some other goal they are trying to get passed. It is 100% DC created and driven- unlike other problems that are truly difficult.
Gotta have those eggs.
Meanwhile the dems and the hardcore Hannity types are declaring defeat for the republicans and that Mitch caved.
Heh, that remains to be seen. In any deal that gets dragged out, time accrues to the benefit of one of the parties. Pocahontis thinks it accrues to the benefit of the dems. "Now we can get back to working on.....blah, blah, blah." But Mitch figures he can remove some of the poison pills from the process and just let time more time erode their bills more while watching the dem party do nude mud wrestling." One must admit that time has not strengthened their position. We know that the big bill will end out around 1.8 or 2.1 and the dems will declare victory because they got something. But it will NOT be the 6 trillion that Bernie and the Squad wanted. Those numbers are already long gone.
Mitch also knows that inflation will rise harder and faster in the near term and that that works against the big lefty bill which allegedly will drive even uglier inflation. We all know how the American psyche works, Joe Sixpack does not follow whether programs are in the billions or the trillions- they all look alike in the dark. But, by gawd, he can spot a fifty cent increase in gas on the sign a mile away. The dems extracted some more time. As discussed, it remains to be seen whether that time will help them or hurt them.
And not to beat this to death but, Mitch also knows that in the American pysche, particularly the American political psyche, the midterm elections begin BIGTIME after November so some little backroom deal that congressional reps were churning as a DC sport in August will be a life or death issue in their face with their survival on the line as we get toward the end of this extension.
I don't bet against Pelosi as we are all advised to not do so for good reasons. Don't bet against Mitch either. He has already extracted more than a pound of flesh out of the progressive budget goal and time is on his side to either cap it in the range it is being tinkered with now or even less.
Also, and I will just leave this under the heading of MORE TO COME, Joe Manchin said that any bill that does not include the Hyde Amendment is "DEAD ON ARRIVAL." Not sure he has said "if the bill is reduced by X amount, that issue goes away for me." Yeh, would not play well back home in W.V. Not at all. So just because no one is talking about that does not mean it will not blow up at some point. I think his plan has been that he is not going to fund the larger bill that includes all the health care programs so the issue will be moot. But if the dems try for a bill that includes everything but get the dollars down by just funding it for five years, rather than ten, then that issue gonna rise up again BIGTIME.
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