Biden's debt ceiling options come down to politics
That's just kind of how the presidency works.
There’s at least one big difference between Joe Biden and Barack Obama: when people talked about minting a trillion dollar coin during the Obama years, it was mostly a far-fetched joke. It still probably won’t happen. But it’s now listed among the possible outcomes, along with the less cartoonish option of ignoring the debt limit under the provisions of the 14th amendment, striking a deal with Congressional Republicans, and letting the country go into default on its debts.
If that seems to you like it’s not exactly a difference between Obama and Biden, but indicative of something else, then congratulations - we’ve covered the first lesson of the presidency. Context matters, even more than people might think. It’s true for comparing Biden with other recent presidents, and it’s also true for thinking through the debt ceiling possibilities.
If we want to think through the different possibilities for what Biden can (and can’t) do going forward with debt ceiling negotiations, it helps to refocus a bit on the capabilities and limitations of the presidency itself. Media coverage of presidents tends to zero in on their individual characteristics and political styles. This in turn lends itself to an emphasis on negotiating skill. But this is actually quite far down on the list of what presidents can do – they don’t just win people over with the cleverness of their arguments or the charm of their personality. They can read a legislative situation, looking at their opponents’ incentives, and craft a strategy accordingly. But they’re unlikely to fundamentally alter the incentives of any member of Congress, in either party.
What can presidents do? They can focus their coalition on particular agenda items (or try to). This has been a pretty successful aspect of Biden’s presidency thus far. But it’s not all that relevant in the context of the debt ceiling, which is different from a normal legislative agenda.
If you look closely at presidential history, it’s also a lot of looking for ways to make politically possible the ultimate demand of the presidency: to protect and defend the Constitution, and to ensure the nation’s continued survival. Executive power by definition has some element of discretion and uncertainty built in – it exists to make decisions when other options have been exhausted and the well-being of the nation is somehow at stake. Politics in 2023 may be especially dramatic and marked by disagreement, but the well-being of the nation and the legitimacy of new forms of presidential action to preserve it have always been matters of contestation. This is what makes the president’s job hard despite the power of the office.
Presidents have the power to make crisis decisions, and they also have the responsibility to make them work politically. In the past, the idea that presidents have an electoral mandate, the use of war powers to emancipate enslaved people in the confederacy, the use of the radio to speak to the public about the “bank holiday” during the Depression, and the use of presidential signing statements to alter or undermine legislation were all ways of opening up new avenues for presidents to lead politically and do what they thought needed to be done. Using the 14th amendment or the Treasury power to circumvent the debt ceiling (and thus probably permanently destroy it as a concept) would also fit into this category.
These kinds of innovations are as often about politics as about power. Probably more often than not the challenge is about selling the new actions to a big enough coalition to sustain them – to the president’s core supporters, broader party coalition, and the electorate in general. We tend to talk about the expansion of presidential power in strictly legal terms, debating the meaning and boundaries of executive power and implicitly looking to courts to resolve these disputes. This is the legacy of the Vietnam War, Watergate and imperial presidency era, and also of the War on Terror. These questions have their place in the discussion of separation of powers, but they’re not substitutes for policy debate and political coalition building.
This is relevant for debates about debt ceiling resolutions. Maybe the unilateral options available to Biden are good and maybe they’re not, but the argument that presidential power shouldn’t be expanded because the other side might also use it is not a great one because that is never not going to be true. There are other questions to ask. If the executive role is expanded in that way, what checks would be in place? What political price would there be for overusing it or using it in a harmful ways? These questions aren’t easier, but they are potentially more fruitful and dynamic.
This also brings us to the political calculus that Biden faces. With several bad options in front of him, which choices might offer the best prospects for keeping a political coalition together? He’s not going to be able to change the legislative incentives for Congressional Republicans, and the fact that the cuts they propose are likely to be unpopular does not appear to be a disincentive. What shapes Biden’s move to either make concessions or move unilaterally is his read on his own coalition. Progressives will presumably be the most deeply unhappy with legislative concessions. But they may ultimately be seen by the White House as captured. Would any of them really run against him in the primaries, or lead a defection to a third-party candidate? These aren’t impossible, but they’re not exactly political winners for this segment of voters and politicians. This constituency is important, but they’re not exactly pivotal from a strategic standpoint.
The other flank of the Biden coalition is the center – independents, disaffected former Republicans, mainstream and moderate Democrats in Washington and in the electorate. This is likely to be the natural constituency for coloring within the lines, expecting Biden to deliver on the normal politics he promised, and seeking compromise as a principle of how politics is supposed to work. Polls thus far leave us unclear on the balance of public opinion on the subject. And it’s not entirely clear that Biden could sell this wing of his coalition on a more dramatic, unilateral solution.
In other words, I think we can get a better handle on the the possibilities going forward by thinking about Biden’s coalition and what he has to sell politically in case of choosing each option. And thinking through the situation this way, it seems less likely that he’ll push the boundaries of executive authority rather than opt for a deal, because that’s where the coalition and incentives seem to be pointing.
But the fact that we’re even talking about it suggests that something important has changed since 2011, and the contours of the problem are different, perhaps laying the groundwork for more drastic action down the line (under Biden or a successor someday). Biden doesn’t have any more formal power to mint a coin or invoke the 14th amendment than Obama did. The formal rules are the same. What’s changed is the opposition – after a disastrous 2010 midterm, Obama’s Republican opponents held more seats in the House and much more sway in defining the president’s actions. Obama ran on the promise to change the tone and the country and get away from divisiveness, promising a much different style of politics than he ultimately had to navigate. Biden’s approach has been different, but the Republican Party has also been weakened by perceptions of its intransigence and lack of interest in governing. They still have plenty of political support nationally, and have a pivotal role thanks to their House majority. But the changes to their national status and reputation since Obama’s first term have opened up more political possibilities, making it seem plausible that a Democratic president could take drastic action on a recurring problem like the debt ceiling. But as we may soon see, possibilities don’t always materialize. At least not right away.