The farce in the US House of Representatives not only reflects the intensification of infighting within the Republican Party, with the far right replacing the traditional moderates in full control of the Republican Party, but also highlights that American-style democracy has been engulfed by populism.
As long as the United States does not change its fiscal policy, its social policy of wantonly increasing welfare for the sake of votes, and its military policy of reckless militarism, there will be no solution to the problem of surging debt.
Polarized politics and soaring debt are further reflections of America's institutional flaws and governance failures. America's chaos stems from its institutional flaws and the lack of acquired reforms.
Text |Zhang Zhixin.
A mobile phone screen displays a news report on the U.S. debt ceiling issue outside the Capitol in Washington, U.S. (photo taken on May 26, 2023) Xinhua News Agency.
2023 will be another year of polarization of partisanship, surging debt, and serious damage to the image of the United States. The election of the speaker of the House of Representatives has been "difficult to deliver" twice this year, and Republican Kevin McCarthy became the first Speaker of the House of Representatives to be removed in American history. Debt continues to balloon, the federal government has twice been shut down, and the ability of the United States to handle long-term debt has been questioned.
Polarization of partisanship. After the 2022 midterm elections, the United States once again entered a situation of "partition of the government". The Republican leadership has prioritized "repealing Biden's legislative achievements", "dismantling the Capitol Hill riot investigation committee", and "retaliating against the Department of Justice", which determines that the party struggle in 2023 is destined to not stop.
The United States in 2023 will unsurprisingly continue to be on the path of partisan polarization. From the two federal shutdown crises, to the two "difficult births" in the election of the Speaker of the House and the removal of McCarthy, to the House Republicans launching an investigation into Biden, there has been chaos one after another.
3. One after another. McCarthy became the first speaker of the House of Representatives in U.S. history to be voted out;Trump has been charged with allegedly mishandling classified documents, among other things, becoming the first former in U.S. history to be criminally indictedBiden's son, Hunter Biden, has been indicted on charges of illegal possession of firearms, among other charges, the first time a child in office in the United States has been criminally prosecuted ......
On September 30, the U.S. Congress passed a temporary appropriations bill about one hour before the shutdown of federal agencies. The first shutdown crisis of 2023 was averted, but then-Speaker McCarthy was eventually ousted for failing to meet the demands of the far right of the Republican Party for deep federal spending cuts and tighter border controls. McCarthy's political fortunes began in early 2023 with his compromise with ultra-conservatives in the Republican Party. At that time, in order to successfully be elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, McCarthy was forced to accept the harsh conditions of far-right lawmakers after 14 rounds of unsuccessful voting, that is, only one member of the House of Representatives could initiate a motion to vote, and as long as there was a majority of votes, the Speaker of the House could be removed. In order to appease the ultra-conservatives in the Republican Party, House Republicans in 2023 also advanced the investigation of Biden.
The chaos in the House of Representatives needs to be seen against the backdrop of the rise of far-right conservatives in the United States since the beginning of the new century. With the hollowing out of domestic manufacturing in the United States, populism and far-right conservatism are in vogue. In the eyes of the far right of the Republican Party, McCarthy must ** if he fails to defend the interests of conservatives. The new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, won because he was favored by right-wing conservatives. Johnson, as a devout evangelical, is extremely fanatical anti-abortion and anti-gay. Moreover, he is a die-hard Trump supporter who has tried to help Trump overturn the results of 2020.
McCarthy's historic ouster set a very bad precedent for American politics. In the future, the struggle between moderates and ultra-conservatives within the Republican Party will not stop, and the role of the ultra-conservatives in the Republican Party as a deep spoiler will greatly increase the possibility of Congress falling into actual paralysis, and it will be difficult for the status quo in the United States to turn around.
It can be expected that in the future, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party will continue to face more obstruction from ultra-conservatives on the issue of the budget and raising the debt ceiling. On November 16, Biden signed a temporary spending bill passed by Congress to avoid a shutdown crisis in 2023. This is the first legislative achievement of House Speaker Johnson since taking office. The temporary bill sets a "trapezoidal" time frame to allocate funds to approximately 20 percent of federal agencies at current spending levels through January 19, 2024, and to another 80 percent through February 2, 2024. It's worth noting that setting the above two deadlines also means that the House of Representatives has "scheduled" twice in advance for 2024 that could lead to a shutdown, as the two parties remain deeply divided on the specifics of the FY 2024 appropriations bill.
The farce in the House of Representatives not only reflects the intensification of infighting within the Republican Party, with the far right taking full control of the Republican Party in place of traditional moderates, but also highlights the fact that American-style democracy has been engulfed by populism.
At the beginning of the design of the political system, the United States chose a republican form of government that implements representative democracy in order to avoid the "** of the majority". Today, incidents of obstructing the normal operation of the entire legislature due to the unsatisfied interests of a few people have occurred from time to time, which not only reflects that the political polarization of the United States has reached an unprecedented level, but also reflects that populism has enveloped party politics, and "American-style democracy" has been slapped in the face.
Debt has skyrocketed. According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. federal fiscal deficit in fiscal year 2023 is $1$7 trillion, an increase of 23% over the previous fiscal year. This has exacerbated America's already high debt. As of Nov. 21, the U.S. federal ** debt has reached 3375 trillion dollars.
Congress has adjusted the debt ceiling more than 100 times since the end of World War II, according to the Congressional Research Bureau. In recent years, due to the increasingly fierce partisan disputes, the debt ceiling negotiations have been constantly arguing, resulting in market turmoil and shutdowns. Similar to previous debt default crises, the two parties always reach an agreement at the last moment of default, causing the outside world to question the ability of the United States to pay its debts.
Rating agency Moody's announced in November that it would downgrade its U.S. sovereign credit rating outlook to "negative" from "stable", and another rating agency, Fitch, downgraded its U.S. sovereign credit rating to AA+ from AAA in August. Desmond Rahman, an economist at Enterprise America and a former member of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said that rating agencies have "good reason" to be concerned about the AAA bond rating of the United States, and that the current deficit is putting public debt on an unsustainable path, and that another cause for concern is Washington's "political dysfunction" and the lack of any real bipartisan political consensus on resolving budget issues.
According to the data, from the perspective of the holder structure of U.S. bonds, the largest proportion of U.S. Treasury bond holdings actually come from the United States, and the holdings of U.S. bonds by overseas holding countries have decreased significantly in recent years. According to statistics, the proportion of debt held by the public holders in the United States, represented by common ** and pensions, has reached 41 recently5%；Federalist** and Federal Reserve hold 205% and 15%;Foreign ownership has fallen from 34% a decade ago to 23% today.
According to the International Capital Flows Report (TIC) released by the U.S. Treasury Department on November 16, the total size of U.S. bonds held by overseas investors decreased by $101.6 billion month-on-month in September 2023. The top three overseas "creditors" of US bonds, Japan, Chinese mainland and the United Kingdom, reduced their holdings by US$28.5 billion, US$27.3 billion and US$29.2 billion respectively that month. In particular, it is rare that the top three overseas official holders of U.S. bonds are significantly synchronized**, indicating that the outside world has increased the risk aversion of U.S. bonds, and in the long run, confidence in the U.S. debt repayment ability has decreased.
There are four main reasons for Biden's debt surge.
One is the deep tax cuts implemented during the Trump era. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed by Congress in 2017 will lead to a decrease of nearly 1 percentage point in revenue as a percentage of GDP in 2023.
Second, some of the preferential tax policies implemented by Biden** have backfired, such as the corporate tax credit policy introduced during the epidemic, which has led to a sharp decline in **income.
Third, since 2022, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates several times in response to high inflation, causing serious pressure on interest payments. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, in fiscal year 2023, the United States** paid $659 billion in interest, an increase of nearly $200 billion from fiscal year 2022.
Fourth, soaring military spending has put tremendous pressure on spending. The United States currently spends about $900 billion a year on its military. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cumulative spending of the U.S. military from 2024 to 2033 will reach a staggering 10$3 trillion.
Therefore, as long as the United States does not change its fiscal policy, its social policy of wantonly increasing welfare for the sake of votes, and its military policy of reckless militarism, there will be no solution to the problem of the surge in debt.
The source of chaos. America's chaos stems first and foremost from the institutional flaws of its constitutional system.
Adam Smith, a professor at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, pointed out that the constitutional order of the United States has remained basically unchanged for nearly two and a half centuries, of which the Declaration of Independence was signed more than 200 years ago, and the 26th constitutional amendment adopted in 1971 has been 52 years since now. Due to the current political polarization in the United States, where the two parties are evenly matched, any fundamental institutional reform is almost impossible. Americans still seem to be obsessed with the glory of the "founding moment," accustomed to turning every political question into a constitutional one, accustomed to seeking answers to the problems facing the United States today from the Constitution adopted in 1787. As a result, the rigid control of American politics by the ancient Constitution has hindered the flexibility that the United States needs to respond to rapid social change.
The United States' refusal to reform some of its own irrational systems has also led to chaos.
According to the data of the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. fiscal balance budget fluctuates greatly from year to year, with only 2000 achieving a budget surplus and 1999 achieving a fiscal balance between 1962 and 2023, and the rest of the years have deficits of varying degrees. The United States, on the other hand, is still sticking to the "debt ceiling" system, believing that it can help save money.
On October 11, Vitor Gaspar, director of the IMF's Department of Fiscal Affairs, said that the U.S. budget process had effectively collapsed, leading to an unnecessary funding crisis, so the U.S. should lift the debt ceiling and adopt stronger budget rules.
Electoral politics in the United States determines that politicians' behavior is based on the principle of whether they are conducive to election and re-election, which is a major institutional defect of American-style democracy. The so-called "debt ceiling" is the maximum amount of debt that the U.S. Congress has set for the federal government to borrow to meet incurred payment obligations. Touching this "red line" means that the US Treasury has exhausted its borrowing authority. This mechanism was established in 1917 to regularly review spending,** but it has become so difficult to achieve its original purpose of controlling debt growth, and has become a routine bargaining chip for both Democrats and Republicans to compete for votes and pursue their own interests.
The author is an associate researcher at the Institute of American Studies at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations
Outlook, No. 52, 2023).