Biden and McCarthy, President and Speaker of the House, have agreed on a deal in which the federal debt ceiling will be raised and the United States will avoid defaulting on its loans. This blog has pointed out that default would be catastrophic, not merely in millions of missed payments, but in obliteration of credibility of free people to govern themselves, and possibly in a cataclysmic freeze of basic economic life.
The only objections any legislator has voiced to a prospective deal has been that it cedes too much to the other side, or that some genre of program or spending gets shortchanged. These stakes are petty and political in nature, geared either to a particular member’s specific interest or, most often, to Washington’s overriding focus on partisan political combat. Both pale in comparison to what’s at stake, of course. And while the special interest of any given congressperson may reflect shortsightedness or ignorance of the larger stakes, the partisan motive is inexcusable. If somehow we default because we cannot find “leaders” or “representatives” who know when to stop, we make democracy look like an illusory fantasy. The Chinese already think it is, and people are already starting to agree with them, in no small part due to our partisan incompetence.
The deal is no doubt a terrible agreement in almost every way. The details aren’t worth parsing to assume this. But it is essential. America, the nation conceived on unalienable rights and government dedicated to them, must show that the consent of the governed does not render any government impossible. The deal itself will in no way cement an image of governing competence in place. Many, many, many steps, many of them painful and some possibly unheard of, will have to follow for us even to dream of that. But a default would very nearly, if not definitively, prove our incompetence.
It will take a few days for the deal to be written into legislations. Passage of that legislation is the non-negotiable price of admission, not to any carnival or show but to the next, arduous and prolonged, mission of re-establishing America’s capacity to govern itself.
So any, repeat any legislator, long serving or first term, left or right, radical or plain vanilla, who votes against this package should be ejected from office, almost regardless of who opposes them. The next election should be the latest that any ejection should happen – if a recall is possible, then constituents should pursue it. The best first step for America to prove our viability is for the people to lead their representatives to make basic sense.
Common Conviction 