Recent negotiations fit into some of the larger battles being waged across the country.
Over the weekend, President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed on a bill to raise the debt ceiling. If the bill passes the House Rules Committee vote today, then House Republicans will vote on it later this week. As we wait to find out the future of the legislation ahead of next week’s default deadline, we’re spending today’s newsletter thinking about how these negotiations fit into the larger cultural battles being waged across the country.
A Struggle for Control
Over the past decade, America’s debt-limit negotiations have turned from an institutional formality into a polarized political debate. And in 2023, these negotiations have also taken on elements of the nation’s culture wars. As my colleague Ronald Brownstein noted last week, the budget cuts that House Republicans have argued for are focused on “the relatively small slice of the federal budget that funds most of the government’s investments in children and young adults, who are the most racially diverse generations in American history.” Programs that benefit America’s young people, such as Head Start or Pell Grants, bear the burden of House Republicans’ desired cuts, while Social Security and Medicare are exempt from budget cuts (unlike in previous GOP debt-reduction plans).
