Congress plays deft game of ‘kicking the can down the road’

When I was a young boy, one of our favorite neighborhood pastimes was playing, “kick the can down the street.” We were either too cheap to buy a real soccer ball, or, more likely, too broke to pay for one.  

The U.S. Congress long ago elevated our street sport to a world class political contest called “kick the can down the road.” It demands consummate skill and tactics to avoid, circumvent, postpone and otherwise skirt statutory deadlines. Someone once observed that Congress never met a deadline it couldn’t duck. The latest, and constantly recurring, example is Congress’s deft bobbing and weaving to revise and extend the statutory debt ceiling to avoid defaulting on paying-off our government’s credit card bills.       

One can hardly blame some in Congress for wanting to constrain future government spending as a price for paying-off past debts. However, one can blame Congress for waiting until it’s up against the default wall to begin devising a viable plan for tearing down that wall. Granted, House Republicans have been quietly negotiating behind the scenes among themselves (the aptly tagged, “five family” factions) to produce a blueprint that is both believable and achievable. 

What emerged from those delicate negotiations was a compromise to raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion while making deep cuts in discretionary spending resulting in total savings of some $4.8 trillion over the next ten years, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. 

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) rolled the dice and brought the package to the House floor through the Rules Committee without its first being reported by the relevant committees of jurisdiction. The measure was officially called, “a bill to provide for a responsible increase in the debt ceiling,” and carried the popular title, “The Limit, Save, Grow Act” — a fitting juxtaposition of terms considering the contortions required to pull it off.      

McCarthy knew he would have no Democratic support and would therefore depend entirely on a near-unanimous vote from his 222-member conference. When a last-minute headcount showed him still coming up short he tweaked the bill with a self-executing substitute amendment in the rule to appease enough midwestern members from states producing biofuels. The rule was adopted comfortably last Wednesday, 220-210, but, after two hours of debate and no further amendments allowed, the bill itself barely squeaked through, 217-215, with four Republicans breaking ranks and Democrats voting en bloc against. 

President Biden stayed out of the fray, insisting the debt limit increase should not be held hostage to demands for spending cuts. He spoke from some past experience, having negotiated a debt limit compromise as vice president under President Obama in 2011.   

As Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell noted on April 26, the demand for linkage was propelled by a gung-ho gang of newly elected “Tea Party Republicans.” The immediate impact of the 2011 crisis was a downgrading of the nation’s debt for the first time in history and a collapse in international confidence that the U.S. would pay its bills in the future, even if it could afford to. Tellingly, the agreement did not hold-up in subsequent years as Congress exempted itself annually over the next decade from the discretionary spending caps.  

Even before the House vote last week, Senate Republicans were complaining that McCarthy’s temporary fix would put the next debt limit deadline right in the middle of the 2024 presidential (and congressional) primary season. That could be smart timing if Republicans figure out they cannot gamble with the debt and jeopardize potential control of Congress and the White House.   

That may all be academic since Senate Democrats, meantime, are vowing they will not take-up the House-passed bill and will only consider a “clean” debt limit extension. At least that alternative would punt control of the next debt limit renewal into the next Congress and whichever parties control the two branches.   

Yes, all this can-kicking back and forth allows for plenty of blame-gaming by both sides should a default on the debt happen. But that’s no way to run a country and possibly ruin its economy. I am reminded of Andy Warhol’s iconic paintings of Campbell’s soup cans. They were captured in their ideal, unopened state before being emptied, discarded, and recycled, let alone reused for childish games.   

Still, it’s a never-ending game on Capitol Hill which members employ both for blame-laying and blame-avoidance. It soon becomes too tiresome and frustrating to watch.  Worse, it is wearing down public confidence in our government’s ability to play it straight, pay its bills, and get things done.     

Don Wolfensberger is a Congress Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, former staff director of the House Rules Committee, and author of, “Changing Cultures in Congress: From Fair Play to Power Plays.” The views expressed are solely his own.