Opinion | Biden is delivering on his most far-fetched pledge: Compromise

The president’s congenital centrism is easy to criticize, especially in this era of hard, polarizing views. He’s a conciliator, a dealmaker who likes to say yes and has trouble saying no. He’s also risk-averse, and he avoids escalation when facing potential catastrophe, whether it’s war with Russia or a budget default.

But Biden’s critics miss the glaringly obvious fact that he is behaving precisely as he said he would. His inaugural address was a pledge to restore normal order. “I know speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy,” he said, but still, “we can join forces, stop the shouting, and lower the temperature.”

Join forces with Republicans? Was Biden nuts? Yet gradually over the past two years, dodging brickbats from the left wing of his party, he has done it. First with a bipartisan infrastructure bill, then with a modest gun-control measure, then with the bipartisan Chips Act, and finally with the budget agreement. As Biden said on Wednesday, when the House passed the deal, “I have been clear that the only path forward is a bipartisan compromise that can earn the support of both parties.”

The most damning criticism of Biden’s budget agreement is that he capitulated to Republican hostage-takers threatening to destroy the nation’s financial health if they didn’t get their way. Progressives wanted the president instead to roll the dice on the untested legal theory that 14th Amendment — which states that “the validity of the public debt … shall not be questioned” — renders the debt limit unconstitutional.

The deeper point is that the budget agreement wasn’t capitulation but compromise. Biden got the essence of what he wanted, which was an extension of the debt limit without savage cuts to domestic spending. As for the GOP hostage-takers, it’s true (and outrageous) that they were holding a gun to the nation’s head. But as the FBI will tell you, in a hostage situation, someone needs to negotiate with the crazies — and keep talking until they agree to put down the gun.

What I like best about this deal is that it begins to reestablish a broad bipartisan political center. In the House vote, the agreement was backed by 165 Democrats and 149 Republicans, for a total of about two-thirds of the chamber. The rejectionists included 46 Democrats and 71 Republicans, and a Post analysis showed that they skewed toward the more liberal and more conservative members of each party.

From the start, Biden and his negotiating partner, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), were under attack from their flanks. Democrats argued that negotiators should first agree on a clean debt ceiling extension and then dicker about spending, but Biden lost that round. Republicans wanted to gut non-defense spending, but McCarthy mostly caved on that one.

One memorable moment in the budget drama came when Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.), one of the most fanatical GOP die-hards, sputtered that the deal was “a turd sandwich.” Well, a majority of Republicans decided to eat it.

Matt Bai: Biden won on the debt ceiling. Why doesn’t he want it to look that way?

And please, Democrats: Trimming federal spending is not evil. Biden was right to endorse the GOP demand to restrain spending, and temper it so it did the least damage. The ever-growing federal debt (and the crushing interest on it) pose a threat to the nation’s financial security. Smart Democrats should plant their flag as the party of fiscal responsibility, ready to raise taxes on wealthy Americans, cut pork-barrel defense spending and reform entitlements.

The deal enhances the stature of the centrist Democrats and Republicans who call themselves the “Problem Solvers Caucus,” perhaps the least inspiring political moniker of our time. The group of 64 members, evenly split between R’s and D’s, provided the backbone for compromise. “This vote will happen from the middle out,” predicted Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), the group’s co-chair. And so it did.

Biden’s atavistic embrace of McCarthy — two White, male Irish Catholics cutting a deal in private — is hardly the summit of American politics. But it was a good-faith negotiation that solved a big problem. “My whole soul is in this: Bringing America together,” Biden said at his inauguration. He meant it, and this week he delivered.