April 14, 2011

Why Does Obama Want a Debt Ceiling Fight?

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In the past, both Democrats and Republicans have used fights over the debt ceiling to embarrass the opposition party whenever it happened to be in power. Yawn. But they’ve never threatened to vote against raising the ceiling in order to extort goodies of one kind or another from the president. Obama, however, has indicated he’s open to just this kind of extortion, and Republicans are eager to take him up on it. Jon Chait:

I don’t really blame the Republicans for this, either. If Obama is going to begin by saying he’d like a straight vote on the debt ceiling but is willing to make policy concessions, what do you expect the Republicans to do? Keep in mind, the assumption that the Congressional minority can use the debt ceiling as a hostage to win substantive policy the president opposes is entirely novel. Obama has introduced this new development.

Jon calls this Obama’s “insane hostage bargaining strategy,” but I think we should at least admit the possibility that Obama is neither stupid nor insane. Sticking firmly to a negotiating position is hardly rocket science, after all, and all analogies to poker playing aside, it’s hardly plausible that Obama doesn’t get this. So surely the most likely explanation for his position is that he wants Republicans to make demands on him.

I don’t know exactly why he wants this. Maybe he’s itching for a fight. Maybe he thinks it will make Republicans look bad. Maybe he wants to cut spending but would rather give the appearance of having been forced into it. I don’t know. But he’s pretty obviously inviting Republicans to do this, not just stumbling into it accidentally. The only question is why.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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