The arsonists take credit for putting out the blaze.

Late Saturday night and again Sunday morning, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and two of his lieutenants gave smug spins to scrums of reporters at the Capitol over a holiday weekend, declaring they were successful in ending an economic crisis that Republicans had unnecessarily provoked.

Of course, that’s not how they describe their deal with President Biden. But that’s what we endured with a needless deficit that undermines global confidence in the country’s financial reliability and in the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, and can still lead to default and a recession.

All for the relatively modest cuts and policy concessions McCarthy obtained, which have had some direct costs and will do little to reduce long-term debt, especially if Republicans extend Trump’s tax cuts as they propose. And this manufactured crisis is not over, despite the Republicans’ rebounding gymnastics. In principle, the budget agreement must become law.

Here’s what would make this whole mess worth it: adding a provision to repeal or neutralize the World War I-era law that created the debt limit in the first place.

Okay, that won’t happen right away. But I predict it will someday, if only because the shooting spectacle that the law invites is a disgrace and no way for a great power to rule. (Only one other developed country, Denmark, has a debt limit.)

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has long opposed the debt limit, even when she was chair of the Federal Reserve. I believe it is very destructive to put the President and myself, as Treasury Secretary, in a situation where we may not be able to pay the bills that result from [Congress] past decisions, she said in 2021 and repeated this month to an international audience.

Unfortunately, her boss didn’t get the memo. Biden, once the tradition-bound dealmaker, said last October when Democrats talked about repeating the pointless bill, you mean say we don’t have a debt limit? No. That would be irresponsible.

Let’s hope Yellen teaches him.

What is irresponsible is the weaponization of the law by the Republicans. They perverted what was originally a fiscal reform to help Congress oversee Treasury borrowings,

make in it

a recurring hostage and ransom scheme when a Democrat is president.

Find a plot is arguably unconstitutional, a violation of both the 14

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Amendment mandate that all government obligations must be met and Article II requires a president to execute the laws. That seems to include laws committing the nation to various spending obligations, right?

But a constitutional challenge to the debt limit law would be complicated and unpredictable. In any case, there is no question if the standard looms. (Biden said on Sunday he would consider such a challenge “in a year or two”.)

We shouldn’t have to go to court anyway; Congress would simply have to cast a bipartisan vote to end the legal limit.

These squabbles about raising it are a disservice to legislature voters: they are mind-numbingly misleading. Republicans are masquerading as fiscal conservatives by opposing a higher debt ceiling unless they get spending cuts and other concessions they otherwise couldn’t pass in the regular budget process. The fiscally conservative thing to do is to pay the bills created by both parties’ spending and taxes–cutting decisions.

The deal McCarthy made illustrates the sleight of hand. It would do nothing to rein in the real drivers of what is an unsustainable growth in national debt: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits for the huge population of aging baby boomers; an ever-growing Pentagon budget; and insufficient revenue given the excessive tax cuts in each of the past two decades.

The stalemate itself has actually increased the deficit. Even if the nation staves off catastrophe, uncertainty on Wall Street and among US bondholders worldwide has wreaked economic havoc, just as it did when Republicans held the debt limit hostage in 2011 and 2013. Taxpayers foot the bill. An analysis released last week by the Brookings Institution called the high premium charged on government bonds maturing in June a sign that financial markets fear deferred payments.

Some of the Biden concessions that Republicans crow about the most have a negligible impact on any deficits. For example, a proposed expansion of job requirements for skilled beneficiaries of food aid and welfare programs. That’s not a debt reduction; grafting the right-wing policy wish list.

The McCarthy-Biden deal had to be translated into legislative language and dirty details, amid early raspberries from the right and left. Expect more raspberries as House lawmakers have 72 hours to review the package. It must then be approved by the narrowly divided House and Senate, which in turn must iron out their differences. And all of this must happen before June 5, when Yellen says the government will exceed its borrowing limit.

What could go wrong? Enough, when you’re dealing with a Republican House majority that put McCarthy through a humiliating 15 votes just to be elected speaker. Still, I’m willing to bet that there will be enough support to compensate left and right dropouts and pass the package.

That would raise the debt limit enough to get past the 2024 election. The fire would be out for now. But the arsonists will be back unless Congress or the Supreme Court takes their matches away.

@jackiekcalmes