Why are Republicans afraid to govern to where the debt ceiling prevailed?
By Jayna Kuklin
The House of Representatives voted 314-117 on May 31 to pass the debt ceiling compromise bill after spending an hour debating on the legislation before the June 5 deadline.
The bill required a majority of 218 to pass and eventually move on to the Senate. However, over 70 Republicans voted against it.
What is it about the bill that makes Republicans afraid to lead? Or, the better question would be, why is the debt ceiling severe to where Republicans are afraid to govern?
One notable explanation is "...the timidity of the White House leaders stems from a misreading of the political moment we are in and the nature of the opposition they face."
The same article states that Republicans do not care about the United States of America as a whole, but rather they care more about a scattered number of states, which ironically a majority of them are the former slave-holding states of the Confederacy.
It should also be noted that Republicans also do not believe in the same social contract or constitution that binds our nation that the Democrats do. The decision was made clear after the vast majority of Republicans voted to overthrow the current government on Jan. 6.
The Republicans barely settling on a deal on the debt ceiling with the Democrats is not surprising, despite the administration having committed itself to reach the deadline without one. It should be worth noting that if the debt ceiling deadline is reached without a deal, then a potential financial disaster is bound to happen, which will push Democrats to make a deal happen.
However, if we delve deeper into the D-Day with no deal theory, the administration would be forced to take the wheel in running the government without enough finances to meet its obligations. In other words, the executive branch of the U.S. government could have new powers by default and use them to politically squeeze Republicans.
Of course, this is not a course of action that we want to take, but we are running out of time and options, and the Republicans have not been helpful in the slightest with their refusal to cooperate. Their refusal to cooperate when it comes to the debt ceiling is only going to worsen the economic situation and by the time an actual solution comes to fruition, it would already be too late.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen said he blames House Republicans for the situation with the debt ceiling, even going far to say that "trying to use the 14th Amendment would be better than a default."
It has been the eighth time in the past 12 years the debt ceiling issue has landed in the Capitol, and this is partly due to the lawmakers' fear that if they extend the authority of borrowing, it would not be for the long term.
If we don't want to have $3.5 trillion in debt between 2024 and the next 10 years from now, then Republicans need to stop making excuses about why they're afraid to govern and be leaders, even if it means having to cooperate with people whose views they disagree with.
Because after all, it isn't even about being afraid of the national debt or even about the debt ceiling It's about putting the nation and its people's needs first, as we should have been doing from the very start.
Jayna Kuklin was a former policy and research analyst/intern at Weiner Public News and is a journalism student at California State University, Northridge in Los Angeles, California.
