Biden survives a scare but issues hardly resolved

It is a game that United States President Joseph Biden is all too familiar with, and it is something that he had played when he was a lawmaker for a long time on Capitol Hill: making sure that the government has enough money to keep going and raise the debt ceiling so that America does not default on its domestic and international obligations.

But now the shoe is on the other foot, pinching and perhaps hurting as well.

Late on Thursday, just a few hours before the expiry of the deadline, the President signed a funding bill so that the hundreds of thousands of federal employees continue to get their paychecks and other critical services of the government like social security and medicare were not left behind.

In fact, well-meaning lawmakers were of the view that given the challenges of the pandemic, the last thing that anyone needed was an unnecessary debate and drama over government spending and raising the debt ceiling.

If Republicans queered the pitch this time, it is to drive home the point that Democrats are asking to stretch spending when trillions of dollars are sought for other things like infrastructure and social programs.

The temporary measure that President Biden signed is a nine-week reprieve, or till the first week of December. In the meantime, Congress will witness frayed tempers in both the House of Representatives and Senate on how to go about the exercise of adding on to the debt of US$ 24 trillion to a US$ 21 trillion economy; and all without undermining the strength of the United States in the global financial system.

The “best” part of the shouting matches will be in seeing how both Republicans and Democrats will be handing out political pork to their districts and still delivering eloquent lectures on fiscal prudence.

The Biden White House will expect a lot of drama to unfold when the two Chambers take up the US$ 1 Trillion infrastructure and the US$ 3.5 Trillion social spending plans for final passage.

In many ways, the administration is having to face a lot of challenges from the Democratic Party that has had to reconcile differences from within — first agreeing to back down from wanting to have government spending and raising the debt ceiling in one bill facing strong Republican opposition; and second, still trying to reconcile differences with the Progressives who are not quite on the same page on infrastructure and social spending outlays.

Also, Democrats are keen on having Republicans on board but the Minority Leader, Senate Mitch McConnell, maintains that the ruling party has votes on its own to go about. If Senator McConnell is having the reconciliation process in mind that Democrats could use — with Vice-President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote — that procedure comes not that easily. Most importantly, all Democrats will have to be on board.

Also read: Comparing Biden with Carter is convenient but only for now

President Biden has his task cut out in the next several weeks, not just with keeping the government going beyond December or raising the debt ceiling by the middle of October. He has to bring together his own Democrats, the moderates and the progressives who are not too happy with how the spending mechanisms have been drawn up in the two massive outlays of infrastructure and social spending nets, including climate change.

The problem for the Biden White House is that the Democrats are holding on to a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives, and it is dead-even in the Senate. The reconciliation process that the administration has resorted to on a few occasions cannot be relied on every time. Even here, conservative Democrats do not feel obliged to follow the directions of the White House every time.

In terms of approval ratings, President Biden seems to be slowly limping back since the disastrous and chaotic pullout from Afghanistan and the Taliban storming back to power on August 15. According to the latest survey done by NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist, President Biden has recovered slightly with now showing a 46 per cent disapproval rating when compared to 51 per cent in August.

His approval rating crawled to 45 per cent from 43 per cent last month. “Some of it had to do with the proximity of Afghanistan, and that has sort of faded a little bit and is not as prominent in people’s minds”, Lee Miringoff, Director of Marist said, adding that Biden appears now to be at “more of plateau” than a continued decline.

(The author was a senior journalist in Washington, covering North America and the United Nations)

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