Did McConnell Fold?
I have a different take from nearly everyone else on the likely outcome of the debt ceiling negotiations now under way. Trump and most conserative commentators are claiming Mitch McConnell "folded" in offering thr Democrats a potentiazl way out of their debt ceiling dilemma. But as soon as I saw the offer, I thought this looked much more like a calculated maneuver. The two choices he gave were, first, to abandon the full $3.5 trillion reconciliation package in exchange for the Republicans not filibustering the debt ceiling. ' The other choice was a two-month extension of the ceiling, limited to current levels of borrowing, that would give the Democrats time to put together a deal that would allow them to extend the ceiling farther through reconciliation. This, I would think, is a version of Staff Work 101, in which the staff puts together a menu of options for the decisionmakers that steers them in the direction the staff wants them to go. Typically it's one opt...