Political engagement is a marathon, not a sprint
The debt ceiling negotiations and playing the long game
Hi, Fancy Comma newsletter readers!
*waves hello* Sheeva here.
It’s a time of exciting change for Fancy Comma in the era of ChatGPT. I love new technology and am always excited to see how it can improve our lives. Seems like the era of boring, formulaic, low-paying articles is long gone, since those can now be written with ChatGPT. I’m happy to have my time back to reconnect with things I really love and pursue new things in life…like politics. I’m a total politics nerd — the more intricate and detailed the policy and its implications, the better for me to nerd out on. Keep reading for an example of what I’m talking about.
This month’s newsletter comes in the aftermath of the debt ceiling negotiations. Have you read this Washington Post article on how the debt ceiling negotiations actually happened? Here’s what they said:
“The negotiations between Biden and McCarthy spanned repeated phone calls over multiple continents and tense, in-person meetings — directly, and through their chief emissaries — in the bowels of the Capitol and at the White House. Over bagels, a basketball celebration and brief conversations during day care drop-offs, a full roster of Democrats and Republicans achieved a deal that averts fiscal calamity.”
Here are the steps it took to get to a deal on increasing the debt ceiling:
January 19, 2023: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen writes a letter to “all members of Congressional leadership,” warning that the US has reached its debt ceiling and could be unable to pay its debts by June 1. Check out this article if you want to learn more about debt ceilings in general, BTW.
February 1, 2023: President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy meet at the Oval Office to discuss the debt ceiling. According to the Wall Street Journal, House Republicans at the time expressed their desire to cut government spending to balance the budget, while the White House stated that they would not be willing to do so.
March 2023: Republicans hold an “issues conference” — there, they talk about legislative actions they would want in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling, many of which originated from the House Freedom Caucus, the right-wing group of GOP House members that are affiliated with the Tea Party and are fiscally conservative.
Early April 2023: Speaker McCarthy unveiled legislation to raise the debt ceiling while cutting costs. The savings would be a hefty $3 trillion over a decade, but with significant cuts to programs such as energy tax credits, student loan forgiveness, and nutrition assistance to low-income people in the US. (Who says balancing budgets is easy?)
Late April 2023: The bill, H.R. 2811, passed in the House by a narrow vote of 217 yeas to 2015 nays. No democrats voted for the bill, and only four republicans voted no: Reps. Biggs, Buck, Burchett, and Gaetz. The passage of H.R. 2811 stunned White House aides, according to the Washington Post, who assumed that Republicans would be too fractured to come to a deal.
With H.R. 2811 passed in the House, which President Biden threatened to veto if it passed the Senate, a “political stalemate” (Washington Post’s words, not mine) began to unfold.
May 1, 2023: In a letter to Speaker McCarthy, Janet Yellen writes, “After reviewing recent federal tax receipts, our best estimate is that we will be unable to continue to satisfy all of the government’s obligations by early June, and potentially as early as June 1, if Congress does not raise or suspend the debt limit before that time.” She also says of lessons learned from past debt limit debacles that, “waiting until the last minute to suspend or increase the debt limit can cause serious harm to business and consumer confidence, raise short-term borrowing costs for taxpayers, and negatively impact the credit rating of the United States.” Yellen warns that with inaction on the debt limit, US families would face “severe hardship,” and that it would “harm our global leadership position” and “raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests.”
The letter, raising alarms, prompts President Biden to invite Speaker McCarthy and other members of Congressional leadership to the White House for negotiations.
May 9, 2023: Biden meets with senior members of Congressional leadership on both sides at the White House for a meeting that the Washington Post describes as “bickering.” With the US facing inaction on the debt limit, credit rating agencies began to sound the alarm that US ratings could go down with no debt limit deal. One Republican and long-time member of the Appropriations Committee (which passes the US budget every year) called the negotiations “a dangerous game of chicken.”
In mid-May, Biden and McCarthy agree to delegate the talks to their respective staff. Biden’s staff picked for this task included: Jeff Zients, White House Chief of Staff and Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, as well as others. The GOP team featured various staffers who rotated in and out, and eventually, McCarthy chose two House members, his long-term allies, Rep. Garrett Graves of Louisiana, and Rep. Patrick T. McHenry of North Carolina.
“For all their divisions, the unlikely cast of characters quickly found some common ground on a personal level,” writes the Washington Post. Among the commonalities: “You’ve got two Irish guys that don’t drink, right,” the publication reports McHenry (who also has Irish lineage) saying about Biden and McCarthy. About two weeks away from default, the staffers got to work coming up with potential deals. The staffers undertake negotiations with members of Congress — and they also take turns venting to the press, which has already turned the debt ceiling discussions into a media spectacle by this point.
On May 22, 2023, Biden and McCarthy meet at the White House again. While no deal was reached, Biden and McCarthy both called the meeting “productive,” the WSJ reports. McCarthy says that the 90-minute chat was “better than any other time we’ve had discussions.” After this meeting, McCarthy stated regarding himself and Biden, “We know the deadline…I think the president and I are going to talk every day,” according to the Washington Post. (Oh yeah, the staffers are working hard behind-the-scenes here, too.)
Six days later, on May 28, 2023, Biden and McCarthy strike a tentative deal after another 90-minute conversation, this time by phone, the WSJ reports. “We have come to an agreement in principle. We still have a lot of work to do,” said McCarthy. Releasing a statement, Biden writes, “the agreement represents a compromise, which means not everyone gets what they want.” The comments of the two government officials perhaps meant to signal to the far right and far left that their policy asks were not possible for a completely bipartisan deal.
In the next few days, with nothing set in stone yet, the two parties came together to write the legislation for a bipartisan deal, while also seeking to gain support of party members in the House and Senate.
On May 31, 2023, the bill, introduced in the House as H.R. 3746, two days prior, passes. A day later, it passes the Senate, and on June 3, President Biden signs it into law.
Whew! That was a lot, but good things take time. The main thing I learned from writing this recap is that there are a lot of people involved in crafting bipartisan legislation. I already knew that staffers do most of the legwork, from interning in Congress, but I guess I had assumed that policymakers could just talk it out themselves. I guess not!
The other thing that becomes obvious from this recap is that working together across party lines solves problems.
I love stories like these because I am a problem-solver by nature and I have been active in the political world since high school — well, even before then — I was yelling about Mike Dukakis in taxi cabs when I was six years old. I wrote a whole series on my political involvement throughout my life called “A Scientist in Politics” — check it out!
My passion for politics led me to work on political campaigns — mostly losing ones, since I grew up a democrat in super-red Oklahoma, after all — and eventually, it led to me fulfilling my dream of working on Capitol Hill. Now that I’ve been a DC insider, I look at politics a lot differently. Successful political advocacy takes a willingness to solve problems for every day people, putting others’ needs above your own desires. While Congress is not known for being efficient, I have met the most dedicated public servants there that are all about delivering successes to their constituents. This idealist thinks that’s pretty awesome!
Did you like my play-by-play of the debt ceiling negotiations? I provide legislative analysis and political communications services as a freelance science writer. You can check out Fancy Comma’s political communications services here.
What we’re reading (and writing):
This month, on the blog, we wrote about science communication in the global south, “Mastering out” of one’s PhD program to become a science writer, and self-improvement.
As freelancers, we talk a lot about "red flags” that signal a client is not worth one’s time. Angela from WebWritingAdvice talks about “green flags” in this post!
I loved this blog from WinningSolo about 12 questions for new freelancers.
Check out my commentary summarizing a recent paper on SciComm and ChatGPT on SAiTV.
I loved this post from Tamsen Webster on building a core message.
That’s all for this week! If you liked our post, please share it with your friends!