Mitch McConnell’s Peculiar Debt Ceiling Gambit

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I was browsing through Steve Benen’s blog today, and it reminded me of something that had me scratching my head yesterday. As you know, Mitch McConnell introduced a bill that would have allowed the president to raise the debt ceiling on his own, leaving Congress out of it. But why?

McConnell assumed that Senate Democrats — at least a big chunk of the caucus, anyway — would balk at Obama’s proposal, so he introduced the plan himself. The point was to have Dems object to McConnell’s effort, so the Minority Leader could get a new talking point: the president’s offer is so offensive that even his own party isn’t willing to support it.

This puzzled me when I first read it, but I didn’t bother blogging about it. So now I will. My question is this: why did McConnell think this in the first place? I can’t think of any compelling reasons that Dems would have balked at his proposal. They certainly don’t want a debt ceiling fight while Obama is president, and they’ve never used the debt ceiling to hold a Republican president hostage. That’s purely a GOP gambit.

So what was McConnell thinking? Does anyone know?

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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