ALL COMEDY IS CONSERVATIVE:

McCarthy is continuing to try to tumble these two things together, demanding cuts to federal spending before he will agree to raise the debt ceiling.

This is awkward for the Republicans for two reasons. First, about $7.8 trillion of the $31.4 trillion debt that now must be paid came from the Trump years, and much of it came from the 2017 Trump tax cuts on corporations and the wealthy. During the Trump years, Congress raised the debt ceiling three times.

The second reason the Republicans' demands for cuts are awkward is that they will not actually say what cuts they want. Before the 2020 election, party leaders, including Florida senator Rick Scott, then chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in charge of getting Republicans elected to the Senate, called for cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Those take up a big portion of the annual budget: Social Security alone takes about 21%. Throughout January, Republicans have echoed calls to cut the programs, only to face a backlash.

So they have now backed off on demanding those cuts. On January 20, Trump, who in 2021 pumped up the idea of using the debt ceiling to get their way, warned Republicans not to cut "a single penny" from Social Security and Medicare. On Sunday, McCarthy said that such cuts were "off the table" (although he also insisted that the Republicans simply want to "strengthen" the programs, and Republican proposals that include that language call for raising the age for eligibility, so who knows?). 

For their part, President Joe Biden and the Democrats have said that they will not negotiate over the debt ceiling. It is vital to pay the nation's debts--debts already incurred, many of them under Trump--and the security of that debt must not be questioned. 

But they have made it clear they are happy to negotiate the budget, which is, as I say, a normal part of doing business. 

McCarthy, in contrast, is caught between the rhetoric of the party for the past several years and the reality of the debt issue. 

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