• President Joe Biden is refusing to link increasing the debt ceiling with cutting federal spending, a decision rooted in the Obama administration’s experiences in 2011-15.
• In 2011, Obama and his team negotiated with House Republicans to link a debt-ceiling increase with spending cuts, but the negotiations failed and proved so disruptive to financial markets that Obama and his team emerged determined never to repeat it.
• In 2013, Obama declined to negotiate with House Republicans and the GOP eventually raised the debt ceiling without conditions.
• In 2011, Obama and Boehner came close to a “grand bargain” to control the long-term debt, but their negotiations foundered when they could not agree on the balance between tax increases and spending cuts.
• In 2013, House Republicans returned with a new set of demands for raising the debt ceiling, including unraveling Obama’s greatest legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act. Obama declined to talk with Republicans.
• Biden and his team have taken from the Obama years the lesson that if they don’t negotiate against the debt limit, a sufficient number of Republicans will eventually back down because the economic consequences of default would be so catastrophic.
Published January 27, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Ronald Brownstein’s original post The Logic Behind Biden’s Refusal to Negotiate the Debt Ceiling
