It looks like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin got everyone's sign-off on their two-year budget caps and debt ceiling deal. Monday night, Donald Trump endorsed it in the usual way, with a tweet: "This was a real compromise in order to give another big victory to our Great Military and Vets!" Maybe he thinks there'll be enough money sloshing around in there for the military to finally have his parade.
The thing is, though, he didn't actually say in his tweets that he will sign it, as noted in the Politico morning newsletter, which reported that "leadership in both parties had expected a more forceful endorsement from Trump, several sources told us," while "many others in the White House conceded to us that, indeed, the president needed to see how this all played in the public sphere." One of the House maniacs, Rep. Mark Walker (not go be confused with fellow maniac from North Carolina Mark Meadows) tweeted a GIF of Batman's Joker in front of a pile of burning wreckage, so there's that.
Disgruntlement isn't only coming from the right. What this deal does is set budget caps: It's not the actual spending mechanism, just an agreement on the outlines of how much can be spent. But it apparently also sets out a statement of principles from both sides that angered Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking member on the Appropriations Committee. He called it "the other people's budget deal," and initially said that "[t]he way it is right now, I will not vote for it." Leahy said, "The other 99 can vote for it." In a statement emailed later in the afternoon, he relented and said he would support the bill because it would lift the threat of automatic cuts from the 2011 budget agreement, allowing it to expire and "allow us to continue to make new investments in child care, combating the opioid epidemic, infrastructure and American communities." But, he said, "I understand there is a statement of principles between congressional leaders and the White House, and I have many concerns with its content. The powers of the Appropriations Committee and Congress’s power of the purse are enshrined in the Constitution, and as Vice Chairman of this Committee I will defend its constitutional role."
The deal apparently makes explicit that House Democrats can't include any language in follow-up appropriations bills to restrict Trump's ability to shift money around, which is what Leahy is apparently referring to. That should rankle more members than just Leahy. There's also the problem of setting up the next president, which very well could be a Democrat, with a debt ceiling crisis in her first year. The ceiling is raised for two years, until July 2021. That's a ticking time bomb sure to be detonated by McConnell if the Senate stays Republican. It's a lack of imagination and long-term vision on the part of Pelosi, given the willingness shown by Republicans to get this deal done now.