Opinion 5 questions for the Democrat running a quixotic campaign against Biden
This has led the Minnesota Democrat’s colleagues to scoff at his challenge, which they consider absurd because they say he doesn’t disagree with Biden on policy, a claim Phillips rejects.
His effort is virtually hopeless. Still, I wanted to know: Does Phillips really disagree with Biden about anything significant? Here’s what I found out from our wide-ranging interview:
1. What would a President Phillips do differently about the southern border?
Rep. Phillips has insisted Biden’s failure to secure the U.S.-Mexico border constitutes one of their deepest differences, so I asked what he’d do instead. He supports a bipartisan bill to dramatically speed up the processing of asylum cases while holding all applicants in “Humanitarian Campuses,” with very few released into the interior. The bill would give legal status to many undocumented immigrants already in the United States and broaden legal pathways for still more to apply from afar.
Phillips also supports creating large centers in Central America where asylum cases can be adjudicated without a trek to the border, with “dormitories” where applicants can remain safe, a somewhat novel notion. He’d pair this with new limits on who can seek asylum after arriving here.
But asked which categories of people he’d restrict from applying for asylum, Phillips declined to say, claiming he’d open this up to a “conversation.” Meanwhile, Biden agrees on the need to expedite asylum processing; he’s asked Congress in vain to fund exactly that. Both men see the solution as shifting incentives so that fewer migrants travel to the border while more migrate legally from abroad (another big Biden initiative). Ultimately, their differences are minor.
Phillips retorts that Biden has had “50 years” in public office yet still can’t achieve bipartisan backing for such a compromise. But the obstacle isn’t Biden’s ineptitude; it’s Republican hostility to reforms that would facilitate migration, rather than dramatically reduce it. Phillips points out that some Democrats might oppose more restrictions on asylum. That’s true, but pressed on whether he acknowledges that the GOP is the bigger problem, Phillips replied: “Yes.”
2. Would Phillips support ending the filibuster?
Last year, Biden came out for suspending the filibuster in certain cases, such as codifying abortion and voting rights, but some moderate Democrats refused to go along.
“I would do away with the filibuster,” Phillips, a well-known moderate, told me, noting that “it is not a construct of the Founders.”
3. Would Phillips end the debt limit?
I asked Phillips if he would support ending the use of the nation’s borrowing limit — and the threat of default and economic Armageddon — as a tool of extortion to extract spending cuts, which Republicans have attempted twice during Biden’s presidency.
Phillips acknowledged that the debt limit is “destructive” and should be “reformed.” He expressed openness to an idea that would transfer control over the debt limit to the treasury secretary, which would disable it as a weapon for congressional Republicans.
4. What does Phillips mean by “fiscal responsibility”?
Phillips, who presents himself as a fiscal moderate, told me that any reform of the debt limit must be paired with a “mechanism” to compel lawmakers to adopt “fiscal responsibility.” One idea he floated: A “balanced budget requirement.”
But that requirement could theoretically compel very deep spending cuts and deprive lawmakers of an important tool, as deficit spending can spur the economy during downturns.
When pressed on this point, Phillips said he’d seek a mechanism that “begins to reduce” deficits, not immediately eliminate them. Asked what spending cuts he’d seek, he ruled out cuts to Social Security and vowed to subject the Defense Department to stricter executive branch fiscal oversight.
Still, when I asked which poses a greater threat to fiscal responsibility — Democratic spending or GOP hostility to taxes on the wealthy — he said: “Both.” That will irritate Democratic voters, as it implies that current Democratic priorities are fiscally irresponsible and blames both sides even as Republicans relentlessly shield the rich from taxes with no concern about deficits whatsoever.
5. Does Phillips really believe Biden is Trump’s weakest opponent?
As the Atlantic’s Tim Alberta reports, months of private discussions with Democrats convinced Phillips that they’re panicking about Biden’s age and unpopularity but won’t say so publicly. Phillips reiterated these worries, telling me Biden is “perhaps the only Democrat who could lose to Donald Trump.”
The only one? It would be reasonable to fear for any Democrat facing Trump, given the nation’s polarization, economic dissatisfaction and Trump’s electoral-college-friendly strength with working-class whites. What’s more, Biden is a moderate, has a strong record and is the only Democrat who has beaten Trump, so the suggestion that any other Democrat would be stronger against Trump than Biden seems highly dubious.
But Phillips dug in. “I believe any moderate, competent Democrat with character can beat Donald Trump,” he told me. “I’m going to demonstrate that.”
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