After both the Republicans and Democrats blinked on the National Debt Ceiling in October, both parties agreed to have another moronic showdown over the Debt Ceiling in early December. Mitch McConnell has set his strategy on the old, tired but tried and true strategy of not supporting any notion of raising the Debt Ceiling by Republicans. This tactic is used almost every time the Debt Ceiling becomes an issue, which it does almost every year because politicians (of both parties) are more than happy to spend whatever they want when in the majority but not when in the minority. Now this would be a sign of integrity and principle if they didn’t increase spending on their watch and supported paying for the debt without objection that had been approved by all Administrations prior to the next budget they are sponsoring. If any party wants to hold or reduce the Debt Ceiling then they must do so when they are the Administration setting the future spending, not complaining about paying for what had been approved being spent in the past. Typically, McConnell’s strategy would be termed “brinksmanship” because the Republicans would be using it to gain some leverage in negotiations in some legislative area. However, the current use of this strategy appears to be more of a pre-midterm election political issue positioning ploy. The Republicans will campaign about the Democrats’ recklessly burdening the taxpayers with more debt. Of course, there will be no admission that that debt included spending approved and authorized by Republicans.

It might worth considering whether the situation is appropriately characterized as a “brinksmanship” situation or whether it is more of a “Mexican standoff” where there is no strategy by which anyone can win. This must not be the perspective of McConnell or the Republicans since they believe that they can win with their strategy or else they are hoping that no one, especially the Democrats, can find a strategy that will defeat theirs. I don’t believe that it would be correct to think of this as a Mexican standoff, since I am sure that there is a strategy which defeats McConnell’s and the Republicans. I just don’t think that the Democrats are likely to be able to solve the problem and recognize the solution to countering McConnell’s strategy. Thus, I will continue with the “brinksmanship” characterization of the Debt Ceiling issue.

Now the Democrats are following their side of the “brinksmanship” strategy. They are seeking some path to pass the legislative authorization to increase the Debt Ceiling limit. So, they are looking to negotiate with this politician or that politician (both Democrat & Republican) to get sufficient votes to pass the authorization. They are looking for procedural approaches to get it passed. The Democrats are even looking at financial tricks that trump (I couldn’t resist) McConnell’s ploy. But it doesn’t seem likely that the Democrats will see a way to deny the Republicans the campaign issue that they are seeking.

What is needed is to not just know that this is a critical national issue or crisis but to understand the problem that McConnell has created. To properly understand the problem does mean that you have to know what it means to not increase the Debt Ceiling. Failing to raise the Debt Ceiling will have profound consequences which is why the “brinksmanship” terminology is very appropriate for this issue. Just to avoid the dire impacts of defaulting on debt payments, the Administration in-charge will use every accounting, management, and fiscal control at their disposal. Should they fail, every American will feel the impacts and the nation may suffer consequences for years if not decades.

The whole point of presenting the status of the current Debt Ceiling “brinksmanship” struggle was to provide the context for making it easy to understand what a successful counterstrategy would be for the Democrats.

McConnell’s strategy is based on the premise that he can’t lose whether the Debt Ceiling is raised by the Democrats or not. He and the Republicans will be able to use either outcome to his and the Republican party’s advantage. This was and is his error. It is the quintessential mistake in his analysis. He presumed that he had a win-win game position. What he hasn’t considered is that a better strategist might be able to look at the larger problem-space and see the problem more astutely and by exploring both the problem-space and the solution-space more thoroughly see and find a superior and winning strategy.

A key assumption that McConnell has made is that the Democrats must pass raising the Debt Ceiling and suffer having it used as a midterm and 2024 election issue, or they become responsible for the consequences to the economy, the public, and the nation that failing to do so will have. However, what if President Biden and the Congressional Democratic leadership put the decision and responsibility for the Debt Ceiling issue on McConnel and the Republicans? How does McConnell’s strategy retain his “win-win” assessment? It doesn’t. By simply recasting the decision to be one that the nation is looking to the Republicans for leading on, the Democrats at least re-establish the issue into the “brinksmanship” class of strategies. But with a little bit more problem-solving effort, the Democrats can make the Debt Ceiling issue a “win-win-win” for themselves. With some really smart leadership, the Democrats could potentially extend this strategy into a “win-win-…-win” strategy. This may be a bit much to expect of the Democrats, as neither political party has demonstrated much in the way of ‘smart’ leadership let alone ‘really smart’ leadership.

How would the Democrats recast the decision to this effect? Well, the Democrats through President Biden just have to literally come out and say: “The nation is facing an existential decision for the welfare of the nation’s citizens, its economy, and its leadership role in the world. Because this is a bipartisan issue and is a principled duty for the peoples’ elected Congressional representatives, the Republican leadership and its members of Congress are being asked to make the decision on raising the Debt Ceiling or not. Because this decision will have such broad and far-ranging consequences for the nation and our people, I will help the Republicans in their efforts. I will guarantee one Democrat vote for each Republican vote that they may need to authorize raising the limit, or if they need more Democratic support to accomplish that goal then I will get two Democratic votes to support each one of theirs. If the Republicans decide that the Debt Ceiling should not be raised and will not or cannot deliver adequate votes for passing this legislation, then the Debt Ceiling limit will not be raised based on the judgement and leadership of the Republican members of Congress.”

It should be easy to see why this strategy is an effective counter to McConnell’s. This doesn’t mean that there are no other strategies that might be equally effective or even superior, but it does demonstrate that politicians are not necessarily good strategist unless they are only confronting the quality of strategies that is to be expected of from other politicians.