HOT AIR BALLOON FLIGHT

At 12:01 am Friday, the US government did not shut down. That was one crisis averted, but another looms later this month when the government could run out of its authority to borrow money. If the debt limit isn't raised, catastrophe lurks. Economist Dean Baker wrote that the US wouldn't be able to "cover its normal expenses, including Social Security payments, salaries for government workers and interest payments on the debt." 

"This is a game of chicken," Baker argued. "Mitch McConnell wants the Biden administration to pay a big price to get him on board on increasing the debt ceiling." The standoff is "ridiculous" and so is one potential solution Biden could adopt: "Due to a technicality in the law, the Treasury Department can print a platinum coin and assign a huge value to it -- say, $1 trillion -- and sell it to the Federal Reserve Board. This would get around the need to borrow."

As Jamelle Bouie wrote in the New York Times, "there are 51 votes" in the 100-member Senate to raise the debt limit, secure voting rights and reform policing in America. "Of course, the Senate does not run on 51 votes. Instead, members must assemble a supermajority to do anything other than appoint judges, confirm nominees and pass certain spending bills. Pretty much everything else must go through a protracted and convoluted process that makes a mockery of the Senate's reputation for debate and deliberation."

In the long run, the most significant battle in Washington this week might have been within one party, rather than between Democrats and Republicans. Speaker Nancy Pelosi contended with strains among Democrats over Biden's twin priorities -- a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and a $3.5 trillion social spending package. Progressives are holding the bipartisan bill hostage in return for a commitment from all Democratic senators to pass the bigger bill.

Three prominent progressives, Pramila Jayapal, Katie Porter and Ilhan Omar, argued that "the infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better Act are two parts of a whole, so they must be passed together."

They wrote, "The Build Back Better Act provides childcare to women who have been pushed out of the workforce. It funds free community college and affordable housing. It finally expands Medicare to cover dental, vision and hearing benefits for our seniors. And it takes meaningful action on climate change -- funding millions of green jobs to build our energy future."

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema have been the two Democrats holding out against the $3.5 trillion plan, which would raise taxes on corporations and high-income earners. Three Rockefeller heirs who are the children of former West Virginia Gov. and US Sen. Jay Rockefeller wrote that Manchin is hurting his own state's interests. But "by supporting the reconciliation bill, he can help unlock economic opportunities, more resilient infrastructure and a more sustainable future for our state and our country."

In the Washington Post, Henry Olsen praised Manchin for seeing that "the nation's fiscal situation is too dire to unnecessarily add to the country's debt burden." Olsen argued that Manchin also correctly disapproves of the sweeping social impact the legislation would have. "Reengineering the fabric of American life is modern progressivism's whole point. Its adherents believe that the nation is in crisis — a climate crisis, a systemic racism crisis, an economic inequality crisis." But can they convince the nation of that? Democrats, Olsen wrote, "expected a landslide" in the 2020 elections, but emerged with a thinner majority in the House and the slimmest possible one in the Senate. "A 50-50 election never augurs radical change."

The heat is on Sinema, with her state's Democratic party threatening a no-confidence vote if she opposes Biden's spending bill. SE Cupp said that's a mistake: "When a party villainizes its moderates, questions a lawmaker's loyalty for not voting in lockstep, threatens their future, trust me -- bad things happen."

A lot is riding on the decisions of Manchin and Sinema, Lincoln Mitchell pointed out. "Failure to pass this legislation will damage an already vulnerable President Biden and deprive the Democratic Party of a major accomplishment it can present to the voters in both the 2022 and 2024 elections. In other words, any Democrat who does not support this deal, protestations about fiscal responsibility or pressing the pause button notwithstanding, is playing directly into GOP hands."

For more:

Julian Zelizer: Democrats are fighting for their political lives

For once, the Covid-19 news was mostly positive this week: infections and hospitalizations are trending lower in the US, vaccine mandates are working and there was hopeful news Friday about an experimental pill that pharma giant Merck says could cut the risk of hospitalization or death in half.

"If the results hold up to scientific scrutiny, this is very big news indeed," wrote Dr. Kent Sepkowitz. "Effective pills given to outpatients could make a large difference for several distinct groups: for people with mild illness, it could prevent progression to more severe, even life-threatening illness, as the study apparently shows; provide an alternative approach to prevent severe disease in vaccine-refuseniks and vaccine-non-responders (those with severely weakened immune systems); and potentially protect those with recent close exposure to an active case (studies already are underway to examine this last possible use)." Still, there are issues that could limit the use of the pill: "cost, side effects, drug resistance, use in pregnancy and, most of all, practicality."

The lingering social costs of the pandemic can't be ignored, wrote Jill Filipovic. "A new survey of 65,000 US workers from McKinsey and LeanIn.org found that a whopping one-third of women said they were considering quitting their jobs or reducing their hours. Female workers were more likely to say that they were burned out. And more of them were discouraged now than they were in the early, shocking months of the pandemic," Filipovic noted. "The survey reveals that the US has utterly failed its female workers. And that too many men have also failed women -- as bosses, colleagues, partners and co-parents."

For more:

Ashish Prashar: This group has a lot to lose when the Covid emergency ends

CNN senior political analyst Kirsten Powers joined the ranks of our regular columnists this week with a look at a "remarkable and soul-baring new book."

"At the age of 35, Kate Bowler was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. Doctors predicted that at best she had two years to live -- essentially handing the Duke Divinity School professor a death sentence," Powers wrote. "Since then, she's been on the receiving end of a maddening collection of cringey cliches presumably meant to encourage her, but which have only made her already terrifying situation more difficult."

Six years later, Bowler's new book, "No Cure for Being Human," raises questions about how we view other people. "Bowler, a historian of self-help, is fed up with 'toxic positivity,' which she defines as 'an overemphasis on the idea that our mindsets determine our reality.'"

As Powers noted, "It's nearly impossible to live in America and avoid the trite admonishments to 'think positive!' when you lose your job or that 'everything happens for a reason' when you go bankrupt from medical bills, even though you have health insurance."

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" was one of the books that made British author Roald Dahl a favorite of young readers around the world. It was also one of David M. Perry's favorite books. "As a nerdy Jewish kid in Indiana and Tennessee in the late 1970s and 1980s, I had far better relationships with books than I did with other kids. If I liked a book, I read it again, and again and again."

So it was disturbing when he learned "that Roald Dahl hated Jewish people like me... And we know he was an anti-Semite because he said so... In 1990, months before his death, he summed it all up by saying, 'I'm certainly anti-Israel, and I have become anti-Semitic.'"

Netflix announced last month that it had bought the rights to Dahl's stories to create a "unique universe" of content.

Perry observed, "The Dahl family has apologized for Roald Dahl's anti-Semitism, but the question remains, for readers and viewers, for TV producers and writers: what might it mean to eat the fruit from this poisoned tree?"