The solution to this thing always seems to be "social security is going to stop payments during the default so all recipients will clog their representatives phones threatening to vote for the other party"
I don't think both-sidesism is appropriate here. The Democrats did not pull this stunt on the Republicans even though the $1T Trump tax cuts could have been used as a motivation.
> Yeah, funny how the GOP only pulls this stuff when there's a Dem president (and the Dems have never pulled this on a R president).
That's a selective reading. The parties aren't perfectly symmetrical. The Dems like spending, so they're not going to challenge the debt. They have their own stuff they want to "pull," like trying to abolish the filibuster or pack the Supreme court because it's not currently controlled by liberals.
> like trying to abolish the filibuster or pack the Supreme court
Note that they haven't been able to do either. If enough Democrats were on board with those items (the filibuster would have to be abolished before the packing court packing could begin) it would've happened by now. But many Democrats in the Executive and Legislative branches are very hesitant to do those things. GOP congress folks have not been hesitant to play chicken with the debt ceiling.
> The Dems like spending, so they're not going to challenge the debt.
A lot of our current deficit is due to tax cuts in the current century (Bush, Trump) and I suppose you'd agree that Dems dislike tax cuts, so why haven't they tried to push increases/cut-reversals in debt ceiling negotiations?
The Republicans love to spend money just as much or more than the Democrats. They just like to spend it on things which get even more of it into the hands of the wealthy.
Once you agree to make concessions because your counterparty threatens to cause economic disaster if you do not, you have encouraged them to do that over and over again to get their way.
> Once you agree to make concessions because your counterparty threatens to cause economic disaster if you do not, you have encouraged them to do that over and over again to get their way.
That's just a rationalization for being unwilling to cooperate and compromise.
They're both in a car heading towards a cliff. One party has its foot on the gas, the other has its hands on the wheel, and neither will move. Complaining about how unreasonable the other side is doesn't change that fact doesn't make your side reasonable except to your partisans.
If the Republicans were responsible, they wouldn't be refusing to pass a debt limit increase. If the Democrats were responsible, they'd compromise now and wait for the next opportunity to repeal the debt limit (not fantasizing about untried gimmicks like platinum coins and a constitutional challenge). Neither party is being responsible.
> Only one party's making demands and threatening to drive off the cliff if those demands are not met, though.
No. The Republicans in the House did pass a debt limit increase, but the Democrats are threatening to drive off the cliff unless the increase is done their way.
> The House of Representatives narrowly approved a Republican bill that links avoiding a default with enacting spending cuts and several GOP policies rolling back several of President Biden's policies.
>> Only one party's making demands and threatening to drive off the cliff if those demands are not met, though.
> [EDIT] Less flippantly, re-read what you wrote: it's not a refutation of my claim, but instead re-affirms it.
No. Are the Democrats going to pass the Republican bill to avoid a default? Refusing to pass anything and pursuing untried gimmicks is driving off the cliff and just hoping for a soft landing. Both parties are making demands.
"I agree not to drive off the cliff if you agree to these other things."
Yes, technically those are both demands.
[EDIT] I think the core thing I'm not getting here is why you think the Republicans aren't the ones demanding something in exchange for a debt ceiling increase because they put those demands in bill form and passed them. I do not follow how that somehow makes it not the thing that it literally is.
> "I agree not to drive off the cliff if you agree to these other things."
Both parties have the ability to instantly end this debt ceiling drama right now. They are both choosing not to do so.
> [EDIT] I think the core thing I'm not getting here is why you think the Republicans aren't the ones demanding something in exchange for a debt ceiling increase because they put those demands in bill form and passed them. I do not follow how that somehow makes it not the thing that it literally is.
Because that's artificial. Legislative action needs to happen, different parties have different bills to achieve that action, and they have to come to an agreement but they've decided to play chicken instead. All the crap about how they're making demands and we're not is just political posturing.
It takes two to have a disagreement. The House did its job by passing a bill and sending it to the Senate. If the Democrats don't have any demands, that either means they completely agree and will pass the bill or they are planning to default. I don't believe they completely agree with the bill and I certainly hope they aren't looking for default. The last messaging I heard is the Democrats are DEMANDING a bill solely for raising the debt ceiling. So yes, the Democrats are "making demands and threatening to drive off the cliff if those demands are not met".
… this isn't going to be "the gov. shutting down"; that's what happens when the budget can't be agreed upon and government employees get furloughed. The debt ceiling is significantly worse: obligations the government has already agreed to pay out can't be met; normally, in a deficit, we'd just borrow more money to meet those obligations. The nature of the "debt ceiling" is that it puts the kibosh on that. The situation of the Treasury exhausting its "extraordinary measures" (the current state, in the article) has never occurred. (We've played this particular game of chicken before though, though this is cutting it closer than I remember in the past.)
Essentially, the government would stop paying for things. Which things is a level of chaos I wouldn't want to see. AIUI, e.g., that could mean things like social security payouts not getting paid out. That'd obviously be bad, as many aging Americans depend on those payments, and such an action would be to throw them under the bus. Another alternative is to default on debt, such as bonds, or perhaps say "we'll pay … uh … later?", and those consequences are mentioned in the article: the US's credit rating could be harmed (we've demonstrated that we're not as reliable a debtor as previously thought; this would translate to higher rates in the future, meaning borrowing costs the taxpayer more). Those people that hold US obligations would be harmed: the value of those would drop, representing the now-realized higher likelihood of a US default. (This would harm, e.g., investment accounts, I would imagine more so for older Americans, as younger Americans are more likely to have more money invested in riskier investments, like stocks. Although should this happens, I fully expect a (at least short term) Wall Street panic and stocks drop too…)
Holding America hostage with the debt ceiling is childish; the only real answer here is to raise the debt ceiling and then act like adults and get together and agree on a balanced budget with a surplus that can be used to start making headway into the owed debt until the national debt is at a reasonable level. But … I don't see that happening anytime soon; I think the most realistic path to such a budget involves taxing the rich, something to which the Republicans won't agree to, or cuts to the budget, which one party won't agree to (social services? Dems hate it; military? GOP hates it).
It's not purely a question of cooperation. The debt is real. How many times are they going to raise the debt ceiling and how high will inflation go if they keep doing that?
When my bills come due, I can't refuse to pay while I figure out how to reduce my spending/increase my income in the future. No matter how much I need to change that future spending, I still owe money today.
The "debt ceiling" and having to raise it separately from committing to spend money is basically a dumb accident that we can't get rid of because one side finds it politically useful to do this dance every time the other party's got the presidency, and the other side's terrified of the attack ads that would play if they proposed getting rid of it.
Enough of the print moar money. It's time we defaulted, so the fed, treasury sec and the GOV finally take budgets and their deficits seriously and not act like the GOV is living like a trust fund kid where mommy and daddy (taxpayers and foreign investors) ensure the funds keep flowing.
If Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton could swing it during hard times then Gov has no excuse not to be able to do it now.
Ah yes, hold the economy hostage to teach a few people in government offices a lesson. Certainly, the outcomes of that will only affect those people in office.
What is the Fed supposed to do when Congress creates the budget and allocates money to be spent? This is Congress attempting to not pay for what it already pledged to pay for, all because they think they can strongarm a far-right agenda through in legislation.
Bipartisanship is dead. Both sides see the other as terrorists who only negotiate in bad faith. They also believe anyone calling for it is doing so in bad faith which is why you are being downvoted.
I call Bothsidesism. There's only one side that are political terrorists. Only one side has consistently blown up the economy and budget. 25% of the current debt is from Trump's tax cuts for the 1%. Only one side tried to overthrow the government, and won't back away from the big lie. It's exhausting. It would be one thing if anything they wanted was based on facts, or logic, or something. But no, it's all nonsense, just more weaponized propaganda from the billionaires. So yes, I think that side is deserving of a $1T platinum coin, and the 14th amendment, and oh so much more.
Part of me wants the democrats to keep playing chicken with the Republicans. I generally back the liberal policies outlined in the democrats version of the bill (it’s focused on closing tax loopholes to pay for things).
More importantly Republicans have shown time and again they are willing to consistently hold their positions without any expectation they'll have to compromise and berate other legislators and bully around to get what they want, I don’t want to see democrats give in to that again and again and again
EDIT: Couldn't Biden do an end run around the Republicans by strategically calling an emergency session after hours via Article II, Section 3 of the constitution? It has no requirements that the majority leader be there to start quorum, only that the session has been declared. Then attending democrats could just vote this thing through and call absence on the rest
Best case IMO is that the deadline passes, Biden picks one method or another to pay for the already-budgeted-by-Congress spending anyway, that's affirmed as OK by the courts, and I get to never hear the words "debt ceiling" ever again.
Sure, there's a chance the "original intent" contingent says it's limited only to gov pensions and military. In that case go with the $1T platinum coin. There's also some option for the Fed to buy treasuries maturing during that period.
I think that they rule based on their political preferences and come up with post hoc rationalizations afterward. Therefore, it doesn’t really matter which method is chosen.
Which methods have been affirmed by the courts? Congress controls the budget/purse by constitution right? I heard somewhere that the tech doesn't even exist to prioritize spending beyond a pure FIFO spending approach.
I think they are saying they would like to have the debt limit as a concept taken to court by Biden ignoring it. The debt limit itself is not explicitly in the constitution.
I believe they meant that they wish whatever method Biden chooses is affirmed by the courts when the eventual case challenging it comes. Some believe the debt limit is unconstitutional due to the 14th amendment which states, "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." I think it is a shaky argument, but I'm not a constitutional lawyer or any other kind of lawyer.
Biden should just take the nuclear approach and challenge the constitutionality of the debt ceiling (really good argument for it) and also threaten to "mint the coin" if the GOP doesn't stop the game they are playing.
I want to see Biden invoke the 14th ammendment and keep paying the bills. This will be challenged in the Supreme Court. If the Court goes with the 14th amendment then we don't have to do these debt ceiling hostage crises anymore. There's a possibility that the "original intenters" on the SCOTUS will say that the 14th amendment only applies to military and gov pensions (a very narrow reading)... then it's $1T platinum coin time.
No. They should concede and raise the debt limit now, then abolish it through legislation the next time they have power. That's the responsible thing to do. This fiasco should make that possible, even with the majorities they had during the last congress.
Of course, "never give an inch" is now the motto of both parties, so it'll never happen and all we'll get is gimmicks.
This action would require a simple majority in the House, a 3/5 majority in the Senate, and either the presidency or increasing both of those to 2/3 majorities. The last time the Dems had that much power was 2010. Is it really surprising that folks are unwilling to accept a decade or more of giving the GOP whatever they want?
The political reality is quite a bit more complicated than that, but frankly I don't want to get into it both because this isn't the right place and because it's depressing. Cheers, though; hopefully we can still find a way to avoid that worst case.
No, that's what budget negotiations are for. The debt ceiling is about servicing the debt that has already been incurred. Biden submitted his budget proposal for next year like almost 2 months ago. The GOP has yet to outline their budget proposal, but when they do then both sides sit down to workout that budget.
> No, that's what budget negotiations are for. The debt ceiling is about servicing the debt that has already been incurred.
That's a false distinction. It's all just legislation, and there's no real reason this needs to be here and that needs to be there except all the branches of government agree they want to do it that way.
If you think I'm wrong, point to the Constitutional provision that spells out debt ceiling increases are not the place to negotiate budget.
Conceding means rolling back legislation that is meant to speed up our path to renewables[0] and cutting spending (in many cases, quite drastically) across the board.
The democrats on the other hand, want to close tax loopholes[1] which is what the GOP is opposing
If indeed there is a conflict between the budget ceiling law and the 14th amendment the courts are the appropriate place to get that settled. Sure, given the makeup of the current SCOTUS it seems more probable that they're going to side with the GOP, but that's not a given. And if they decide that the 14th amendment negates the budget ceiling law then we'll be done with these silly games of chicken over the debt ceiling.
There was a theory posted that democrats will cave at the last minute to republican demands when it's really the powers that be want those concessions and are just using this as cover for democrats.
If you think it's optically positive to keep playing chicken, wouldn't you want them to fold now and then run off the edge next year? If you do it next year, you're six months away from the election and it will be fresh in voters' minds. If you do it now, everyone will forget but will be vaguely aware that the Democrats played irresponsible games with the economy and remember none of the nuance.
The problem with a game of chicken is that eventually everyone loses. This is why having that kind of debt limit is a mistake: the only thing it does is allow one party to unilaterally force the other into games of chicken.
I'm by no means opposed to taking steps to reduce the deficit, but the debt limit has had the above undesirable effect while simultaneously failing to actually reduce anything.
> Couldn't Biden do an end run around the Republicans by strategically calling an emergency session after hours via Article II, Section 3 of the constitution
Of all the nuclear options I've seen proposed, this seems the most nuclear.
Yeah, we've definitely begun exploring all the various ways our system is broken & vulnerable if too many people in the wrong positions decide to behave in bad faith and ignore all notions of the spirit of rules & laws or of fair play, but I'm not sure I want us to speed-run that process.
It would only work once. The only thing you need for this to be stopped is having the speaker of the house present to deny the quorum under rules. you're basically counting on absence for this to work. Its a one shot deal (the end run around this is just having the majority speaker camp out near the house at all times)
What happens if the treasury runs out of money? Does government shut down? Do they pick and choose which agencies cease to operate until more tax $ show up? Do they prioritize interest payment over other expenses?
First they try a myriad of loopholes that have never been tried. These include the fabled "trillion dollar coin" as well as an executive order based of a clause in the fourteenth amendment. After that I think it's up to Biden to focus on bond repayment versus shutting down services. We've had government shutdowns before, surely the same thing that happened then would happen again. National parks shut down and non essential federal services have employees furloughed.
The real answer though I think is that we don't really know and it's up to the courts.
What was the process in which the U.S. passed legislation to inject capital into the system through the Federal Reserve + Treasury during COVID relief? Why can't/won't that happen here?
Why were the same legislators willing to print money for COVID relief but not US debt ceiling?
Isn't it a basic law of economics that the debt ceiling needs to be readjusted basically annually due to inflation since it's denominated in dollars, which are inflating slowly every month?
Yes. The last thing you stop paying is interest. The first is stuff that everyone sees - think National Parks. The next is stuff that nobody cares about- think AFDC and medicaid, then you stop paying the military, then you stop paying the stuff that everyone cares about - Social Security and Medicare.
It feels like we've gotten here (to the point of massive national debt, and an economy where rate hikes wipe out banks) for a few reasons:
1) The US economy is like a big forest. Good forest management involves doing controlled burns or allowing small fires. The US has prevented small fires. So now we have a very overgrown, very flammable forest.
2) The US abusing its position as a world monopoly, basically to make money. Issuing more currency as one key way of doing that. There are good monopolies and bad monopolies. I'd argue Amazon is a good monopoly - they continually reinvest in making their product better for customers, keeping the potential gap between what a benevolent monopoly could do, and what they're actually doing, small. Then there are other monopolies like certain large enterprise software companies, that take advantage of their moat to extract value and don't reinvest much. The US govt has done the latter.
Burning the forest down would be chaotic for the world. The world doesn't want that.
The question is - how do you fix it without burning the forest down?
The implied 3.9% probability is lacking context, since reaching the debt ceiling is a fairly regular occurrence. Is this probability any different from previous times is what should we should be asking.
That probability of default is based on the credit triangle which is a back of envelope type of estimation, I would take the number for face value at all.
Disallow spending more than was received in the past fiscal year. Force Congress to do the hard job of balancing the budget instead of relying on ever increasing debt.
I think it’s kind of outrageous the USA is able to do this. I’m no longer sure what the world owes the USA but it’s pretty obvious to me having and endless money printer is quite an unfair advantage.
My sentiment is the rest of the world can clearly see this as being a something of a problem now and it’s why there is some sentiment towards de-dollarization. Not saying that is a good idea but I’m certain those feelings just exist.
1) Fake scares gets eyeballs, which is what advertisers pay them for.
2) Many things the media (including Hollywood) do, if you assume the "liberal media" smear is more true than not, don't make much sense—it's as if that smear is kinda bullshit and they all just love money and lots of the owners of the media companies aren't actually left-leaning at all, and, go figure, that does seem to fit reality more than the smear does, while also explaining their confusing-if-they-were-actually-commited-to-the-liberal-cause behavior.
3) CNN has made some moves lately that make it seem like they're trying to pick up some of Fox's audience after the Tucker Carlson firing. This may not be part of that (actually, I doubt it is—see point #1, "the sky is falling!" gets viewers, which sells ads, and that's enough to explain this) but then again, it might be.
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[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 171 ms ] threadThey've even spent months talking about how bad it will be, but it it will actually be that bad, why won't they budge?
Both republicans and democrats are heavily invested in the stock market which will crash and burn if US defaults.
It's all a show.
This is a slow burner.
That's a selective reading. The parties aren't perfectly symmetrical. The Dems like spending, so they're not going to challenge the debt. They have their own stuff they want to "pull," like trying to abolish the filibuster or pack the Supreme court because it's not currently controlled by liberals.
Note that they haven't been able to do either. If enough Democrats were on board with those items (the filibuster would have to be abolished before the packing court packing could begin) it would've happened by now. But many Democrats in the Executive and Legislative branches are very hesitant to do those things. GOP congress folks have not been hesitant to play chicken with the debt ceiling.
They were very, very close. IMHO, it's only a matter of time, and when it happens, there will be no delay.
A lot of our current deficit is due to tax cuts in the current century (Bush, Trump) and I suppose you'd agree that Dems dislike tax cuts, so why haven't they tried to push increases/cut-reversals in debt ceiling negotiations?
The Republicans love to spend money just as much or more than the Democrats. They just like to spend it on things which get even more of it into the hands of the wealthy.
And defaulting is somehow better than that?
That's just a rationalization for being unwilling to cooperate and compromise.
They're both in a car heading towards a cliff. One party has its foot on the gas, the other has its hands on the wheel, and neither will move. Complaining about how unreasonable the other side is doesn't change that fact doesn't make your side reasonable except to your partisans.
If the Republicans were responsible, they wouldn't be refusing to pass a debt limit increase. If the Democrats were responsible, they'd compromise now and wait for the next opportunity to repeal the debt limit (not fantasizing about untried gimmicks like platinum coins and a constitutional challenge). Neither party is being responsible.
No. The Republicans in the House did pass a debt limit increase, but the Democrats are threatening to drive off the cliff unless the increase is done their way.
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/26/1172368638/house-of-represent...:
> The House of Representatives narrowly approved a Republican bill that links avoiding a default with enacting spending cuts and several GOP policies rolling back several of President Biden's policies.
[EDIT] Less flippantly, re-read what you wrote: it's not a refutation of my claim, but instead re-affirms it.
> [EDIT] Less flippantly, re-read what you wrote: it's not a refutation of my claim, but instead re-affirms it.
No. Are the Democrats going to pass the Republican bill to avoid a default? Refusing to pass anything and pursuing untried gimmicks is driving off the cliff and just hoping for a soft landing. Both parties are making demands.
"I agree not to drive off the cliff if you agree to these other things."
Yes, technically those are both demands.
[EDIT] I think the core thing I'm not getting here is why you think the Republicans aren't the ones demanding something in exchange for a debt ceiling increase because they put those demands in bill form and passed them. I do not follow how that somehow makes it not the thing that it literally is.
> "I agree not to drive off the cliff if you agree to these other things."
Both parties have the ability to instantly end this debt ceiling drama right now. They are both choosing not to do so.
> [EDIT] I think the core thing I'm not getting here is why you think the Republicans aren't the ones demanding something in exchange for a debt ceiling increase because they put those demands in bill form and passed them. I do not follow how that somehow makes it not the thing that it literally is.
Because that's artificial. Legislative action needs to happen, different parties have different bills to achieve that action, and they have to come to an agreement but they've decided to play chicken instead. All the crap about how they're making demands and we're not is just political posturing.
Essentially, the government would stop paying for things. Which things is a level of chaos I wouldn't want to see. AIUI, e.g., that could mean things like social security payouts not getting paid out. That'd obviously be bad, as many aging Americans depend on those payments, and such an action would be to throw them under the bus. Another alternative is to default on debt, such as bonds, or perhaps say "we'll pay … uh … later?", and those consequences are mentioned in the article: the US's credit rating could be harmed (we've demonstrated that we're not as reliable a debtor as previously thought; this would translate to higher rates in the future, meaning borrowing costs the taxpayer more). Those people that hold US obligations would be harmed: the value of those would drop, representing the now-realized higher likelihood of a US default. (This would harm, e.g., investment accounts, I would imagine more so for older Americans, as younger Americans are more likely to have more money invested in riskier investments, like stocks. Although should this happens, I fully expect a (at least short term) Wall Street panic and stocks drop too…)
Holding America hostage with the debt ceiling is childish; the only real answer here is to raise the debt ceiling and then act like adults and get together and agree on a balanced budget with a surplus that can be used to start making headway into the owed debt until the national debt is at a reasonable level. But … I don't see that happening anytime soon; I think the most realistic path to such a budget involves taxing the rich, something to which the Republicans won't agree to, or cuts to the budget, which one party won't agree to (social services? Dems hate it; military? GOP hates it).
How is this different?
If Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton could swing it during hard times then Gov has no excuse not to be able to do it now.
(the crash wasn't until '01/'02)
More importantly Republicans have shown time and again they are willing to consistently hold their positions without any expectation they'll have to compromise and berate other legislators and bully around to get what they want, I don’t want to see democrats give in to that again and again and again
EDIT: Couldn't Biden do an end run around the Republicans by strategically calling an emergency session after hours via Article II, Section 3 of the constitution? It has no requirements that the majority leader be there to start quorum, only that the session has been declared. Then attending democrats could just vote this thing through and call absence on the rest
Of course, "never give an inch" is now the motto of both parties, so it'll never happen and all we'll get is gimmicks.
This action would require a simple majority in the House, a 3/5 majority in the Senate, and either the presidency or increasing both of those to 2/3 majorities. The last time the Dems had that much power was 2010. Is it really surprising that folks are unwilling to accept a decade or more of giving the GOP whatever they want?
That's the political reality. If they don't want to deal with reality, then I guess we'll see what happens.
Changing that figure are what negotiations are for, but (at least) one side has loudly and publicly refused to negotiate.
That's a false distinction. It's all just legislation, and there's no real reason this needs to be here and that needs to be there except all the branches of government agree they want to do it that way.
If you think I'm wrong, point to the Constitutional provision that spells out debt ceiling increases are not the place to negotiate budget.
The democrats on the other hand, want to close tax loopholes[1] which is what the GOP is opposing
[0]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/heres-whats-in-the-gop...
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/15/debt-ceil...
I'm by no means opposed to taking steps to reduce the deficit, but the debt limit has had the above undesirable effect while simultaneously failing to actually reduce anything.
Of all the nuclear options I've seen proposed, this seems the most nuclear.
The real answer though I think is that we don't really know and it's up to the courts.
We've only ever faced shutdowns due to budgets not being passed.
Both are awful. But the former is _far_ worse.
Isn't it a basic law of economics that the debt ceiling needs to be readjusted basically annually due to inflation since it's denominated in dollars, which are inflating slowly every month?
It feels like we've gotten here (to the point of massive national debt, and an economy where rate hikes wipe out banks) for a few reasons:
1) The US economy is like a big forest. Good forest management involves doing controlled burns or allowing small fires. The US has prevented small fires. So now we have a very overgrown, very flammable forest.
2) The US abusing its position as a world monopoly, basically to make money. Issuing more currency as one key way of doing that. There are good monopolies and bad monopolies. I'd argue Amazon is a good monopoly - they continually reinvest in making their product better for customers, keeping the potential gap between what a benevolent monopoly could do, and what they're actually doing, small. Then there are other monopolies like certain large enterprise software companies, that take advantage of their moat to extract value and don't reinvest much. The US govt has done the latter.
Burning the forest down would be chaotic for the world. The world doesn't want that.
The question is - how do you fix it without burning the forest down?
I think it’s kind of outrageous the USA is able to do this. I’m no longer sure what the world owes the USA but it’s pretty obvious to me having and endless money printer is quite an unfair advantage.
My sentiment is the rest of the world can clearly see this as being a something of a problem now and it’s why there is some sentiment towards de-dollarization. Not saying that is a good idea but I’m certain those feelings just exist.
2) Many things the media (including Hollywood) do, if you assume the "liberal media" smear is more true than not, don't make much sense—it's as if that smear is kinda bullshit and they all just love money and lots of the owners of the media companies aren't actually left-leaning at all, and, go figure, that does seem to fit reality more than the smear does, while also explaining their confusing-if-they-were-actually-commited-to-the-liberal-cause behavior.
3) CNN has made some moves lately that make it seem like they're trying to pick up some of Fox's audience after the Tucker Carlson firing. This may not be part of that (actually, I doubt it is—see point #1, "the sky is falling!" gets viewers, which sells ads, and that's enough to explain this) but then again, it might be.
What Billionaire wouldn't want that kind of bling?