Praise for Speaker McCarthy, who has kept his caucus together amid debt debacle

OPINION:

Give House Speaker Kevin McCarthy credit. The stone-faced Californian has approached the debt ceiling talks with a seriousness not seen for some time from his fellow House Republicans. If that were not enough, kudos to his avoiding the temptation to negotiate with himself in public while the White House has remained virtually silent.

It’s a refreshing change. Previous GOP leaders at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue seemed unable to keep their thoughts private. They never seemed to learn it was impossible to be hard-nosed about anything after you’d put everything on the table.

Even more unusual is Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s willingness to take a back seat to Mr. McCarthy in the negotiations. His most important contribution thus far has been to clamp down on the chance a bipartisan rump group might come forward with a plan to break the logjam that’s short on spending restraint and long on new sources of revenue.

We’re also shocked, frankly, that the White House is dropping hints that President Biden is considering invoking a provision of the 14th Amendment having to do with Confederate war debt as a workaround regarding the debt ceiling. That’s a nonstarter.

Likewise, we’re not clear why Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, often described as “a serious person” and “the adult in the room,” is putting her reputation on the line perpetuating the idea that default is just around the corner. She should be the one we can count on to put a stop to the nonsense and get people working on a serious plan like her predecessor Robert Rubin used to. Instead, her most recent letter to Mr. McCarthy, dated May 22, reiterates her “best estimate” guess that the Treasury could not continue “to satisfy all of the government’s obligations by early June if Congress does not raise or suspend the debt limit before that time.”

Anyone who has been around Washington for more than a day knows she’s got a lot more tricks up her sleeve, if she chooses to use them, to push default off until the end of the fiscal year, if not longer.

We also noticed how curiously silent the Democrats who control the Senate have been on the debt limit since many of them seem to believe — as the White House and Treasury Department do — that financial Armageddon is approaching. You’d think Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who represents the global financial capital that would be hardest hit if default comes, has hardly anything to say.

It’s curious until you consider how many vulnerable Senate Democrats are up for reelection in 2024 versus the number of Republicans. Mr. Schumer may be calculating the only place his majority has to go is down — so he doesn’t want senators running for reelection in states that then-President Donald Trump carried in 2020 casting votes that could come back to bite them.

Frankly, the Senate Democrats’ silence is embarrassing but not unexpected. By contrast, Mr. McCarthy has at least gotten a bill through the House. It wasn’t easy. Unlike Nancy Pelosi, he doesn’t demand blind obedience from the members of his conference. The deal he cut with his caucus almost fell apart more than once on its way to being passed. There are some, probably even among the GOP Conference, who’d wished it had. They’re wishing for a confrontation that would settle things once and for all without realizing that default on the debt wouldn’t be it — especially if it turns out to be manageable.

We expect a deal before default really happens that won’t make anyone happy and which the fiscally minded among us will say kicks the can down the road. Among the things we’d like to see is the proposed 1% annual spending cap, accompanied by automatic spending cuts if the cap is breached and a return to the 2019 pre-COVID-19 spending baselines.

Those are temporary patches, but they’ll help. What we need, though, is more than reform on the margins crafted in times of perceived crisis.

The 1974 Budget and Impoundment Act needs to be ripped apart. Congress must change the way money is authorized and appropriated sooner than later. After the latest budget deal is finished would be a good time to start the conservation. Not in the Capitol, but around the country, where it needs to happen.