McCarthy’s Debt Ceiling Victory Turns the Tables on Biden

President Biden has been prattling on for weeks and months, saying he won’t negotiate until the House Republicans come up with a budget. Well, they just did, and it’s going to force him to the negotiating table sooner than he and his minions think.

AP/J. Scott Applewhite
Speaker McCarthy walks from the chamber just after the Republican majority in the House narrowly passed a sweeping debt ceiling package. AP/J. Scott Applewhite

Speaker McCarthy notched an enormous victory by passing a debt ceiling bill that would lift the federal borrowing allowance by $1.5 trillion over the next year in return for nearly $5 trillion of deficit reduction over the next 10 years. This changes the political fiscal game — completely. 

Mr. McCarthy has turned the tables on President Biden. Why? Because Mr. Biden has been prattling on for weeks and months, saying he won’t negotiate until the House Republicans come up with a budget. Well, they just did, and it’s going to force Mr. Biden to the negotiating table sooner than he and his minions think, regardless of whether they like it.  

Even Democrats in both houses want a negotiation, despite not agreeing with the speaker’s bill. Really, in Washington, other than Senator Schumer and Mr. Biden, nearly everyone wants a negotiation to secure the credit-worthiness of the debt obligations of King Dollar, the world’s reserve currency.  

People know that there are going to be budget savings attached to the debt bill. That has happened eight times in the last 38 years. Two Gramm-Rudmans under Reagan, one more time under Papa Bush, three Clinton-Gingrich deals during the ’90s, and two deals during the Obama years.  

It is remarkable that Mr. Biden has gone 85 days after his first meeting with Mr. McCarthy without a second date. It’s 85 days and counting: No sitting down together for a coffee or a Diet Coke, no drive-in movie. Nothing.  

That is an abomination, especially from a guy who used to sell himself as a uniter and a compromiser. Or, specifically, the guy who negotiated a spending-cut debt deal with a Republican speaker, John Boehner, 12 years ago.  

Talk about hypocrisy. Talk about low politics. Talk about being incapable of speaking the truth.  

I don’t think Biden & Co. took McCarthy & Co. seriously. I don’t think Biden world ever expected the new GOP House to function. They were dead wrong.  

Actually, Mr. McCarthy has put together two major bills. Beside this debt limit deal, he also engineered H.R.1 — the “Lower Energy Costs Act” — that will reopen the fossil fuel spigots that are so important to reducing inflation and increasing growth.  

Today’s GDP report showed barely 1 percent growth and 5 percent inflation — the worst of both worlds — continuing the stagflation that has robbed working folks throughout the country of real wages and living standards. It should be a spur to Biden to get up and do something to help the country, for a change. 

Instead of whining about “MAGA, MAGA, MAGA,” he and his staff should get moving to generate the kind of limited-government budget restraint that the House Republicans are proposing, along with a reopening of our economy-saving energy sector.  

I’ll end where I began: Speaker McCarthy’s debt bill completely turns the tables on President Biden’s phony, lazy stalling tactics. Right now, Mr. McCarthy’s in the driver seat — what an interesting turn of events.  

Like I mentioned last night: Save America. Retire Biden-Harris.  

From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.


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