By the reaction among conservatives, you would think President Donald Trump had just renounced his ties to the Republican Party instead of agreeing to a three-month deal to fund the federal government and extend the debt ceiling. House Speaker Paul Ryan called the Democrats’ proposal that won the president’s backing on Wednesday a “ridiculous and disgraceful” effort to “play politics” with the debt ceiling. But much of the rank-and-file right-wing ire was directed at Republican leaders, including Ryan, for not coming up with a slam-dunk alternative. The Wall Street Journal concluded the bipartisan deal demonstrated “the Republican inability to govern.”
What a bunch of blather. Here’s what the three-month extension on the debt ceiling really represents: not all that much. It simply means Trump agreed to the proposal offered by Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi to keep things rolling along for 90 more days (Republican leaders initially backed an 18-month debt ceiling extension plan), a measure that includes nearly $8 billion in relief for victims of Hurricane Harvey. That’s it. The U.S. economy wins because there’s no immediate debt crisis, the government won’t have to shut down and flood victims won’t have to deal with congressional dithering over what is merely a down payment on much-needed emergency help.
Does that represent some big victory for Democrats? Sort of. Certainly, it signals that their members aren’t wholly irrelevant, particularly in the Senate, but that’s well established given the slim GOP majority (and the tendency of some ultra-conservatives not to support federal spending of almost any kind). It’s also a nice victory for Trump who hasn’t had too many to brag about. Republican leaders look a bit flummoxed as a result, but given their performance to date on most high-profile matters from health care to immigration policy, their appearance of confusion is well deserved. The markets welcomed the news, and average folks likely saw the whole thing as a bunch of inside baseball.
Trump’s outreach offers at least a brief glimpse of the kind of independent, pragmatic and non-political president that he occasionally suggested he wanted to be during the campaign.
Washington’s toxic, hyper-partisan atmosphere existed well before Trump’s arrival. How disappointing that even the smallest step away from that circumstance produces so much outcry. Trump acted responsibly and reasonably. We haven’t had much opportunity to write those words in 2017. It’s a welcome turn of events, if still relatively modest in scope and impact.