Balanced budget plans, huge spending cuts, and a looming debt ceiling crisis–it all seems painfully familiar. Does the GOP really want to party like it’s 2011 again, or is something else going on here?
There are a number of significant differences between then and now:
- You could argue that the GOP had some sort of a mandate to cut spending after the 2010 election, but not today;
- Obama was sympathetic to the idea of entitlement cuts. There is no talk of a grand bargain today;
- The GOP has even less credibility on balancing the budget today than it did in 2011;
- The red base is much more interested in fighting wokeness than in cutting the budget, which was not a consideration in 2011;
- It is doubtful that the Tea Party really wanted to force a default in 2011. Today, the Chaos Caucus would probably welcome one as a first step in burning it down; and
- The GOP House leadership was willing to ignore the GOP extremists in 2011, but McCarthy owes his job to them.
What these differences mean in their totality is that a default is more likely today than in 2011, but not for any reasons relating to fiscal prudence. This battle will be all about burning it down.