Many mainstream accounts of the recent debt ceiling deal make it sound like the negotiations represented a give and take between spending and saving — with President Biden and Democrats aligned with spending, and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republicans aligned with saving. The real interests of the Republican Party in these negotiations, however were not actually about spending, or the national debt, or even about pushing an anti-government platform. Rather, they were about consolidating power and wealth for those who already have it, from corporations and the wealthy to the U.S. itself on the global stage.
Indeed the very spark for the deal — House Republicans’ threat to tank the economy if their slash-and-burn approach to domestic programs wasn’t honored — showed a glee in naked power unencumbered by a greater sense of responsibility to the people of this country.
That exaltation of brute power is the clearest theme among key conservative demands that made their way into the deal. Perhaps no example is clearer than the preservation of funds for the promotion of U.S. power around the world. The majority of Republicans wanted, and got, a budget boost for the Pentagon — the agency responsible for using the threat of …read more
Source:: Institute for Policy Studies
