Sha-lah-lah-lah-lah-lahti-dah! *

Go Team.  

Biden Taps Two Negotiators to Reach 
Debt Ceiling Deal With Republicans

President Biden selected Shalanda Young and Steve Ricchetti 

to talk directly with aides to Speaker Kevin McCarthy in an attempt 

to avoid default.

If President Biden can effectively delegate, and the team surrounding him (not family) can step up and help him get the job done... no worries about taking away Dad's car keys and leaving him in the (White) H/house with a self-regulated routine and semi-independence.

But if the team members cannot step up on the job -- not "cover" for him -- just do the grinding and grinding and grinding that it takes to produce a final outcome in the necessary back-and-forth that causes friction but brings about resolution **, the job will get done by others working for/with him.

That's the only way, I think, President Biden can win over enough voters to keep his leadership job.  No pressure on the team, but... we need results here.  

Sometimes you gotta fight when you're a man...

Sometimes you gotta listen to the experts, and take a risk that can payoff -- to show them you will not cave and go down quietly.  People are watching to see if Team Biden can negotiate, and if his loyalties on the campaign path hold.

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Here is Shalanda Young's background:

Since joining the committee in 2007, she held various positions and eventually became the first Black woman to serve as its majority staff director in 2017. Ms. Young played a crucial role in shepherding trillions of dollars worth of pandemic relief packages and disaster aid into law, in addition to the annual negotiations over how to keep the government funded. In 2019, she helped negotiate an end to a spending fight that had led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.  

“My work on the Appropriations Committee taught me that both sides can compromise without compromising their values — even when that means no one gets everything they want,” Ms. Young told lawmakers in 2021.  

Her work has earned her bipartisan praise in both the House and Senate. Former Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, who served as the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, endorsed Ms. Young to lead the budget office.   “She knows how to bring things together, and that’s what we as appropriators try to do,” Mr. Shelby said at the time.

And Steve Richetti:

As a counselor to Mr. Biden now, Mr. Ricchetti has helped broker deals on legislative packages that have become major tenets of the president’s domestic policy agenda. Mr. Ricchetti was a key player in negotiations over the $1.2 trillion infrastructure law, which Congress passed in 2021 after Mr. Biden and a bipartisan group of centrist senators struck a deal.  Mr. Ricchetti also communicated with senators to help the Biden administration pass a climate, health and tax package last year, maintaining an open channel with Senator Joe Manchin III, the conservative West Virginia Democrat.  He helped set up the initial structure of Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign, later serving as chairman. In that role, Mr. Ricchetti maintained deep relationships across Capitol Hill and in the donor community 

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* I know, people with that name have probably heard that too often to even bother smacking ya down in annoyance, but it IS a great name! .. Lah-Ti-Dah! (mic drop)

I really hope TeamD can deliver, and doesn't surrender the poors here...

** Sorry, purple prose, I realized as I was typing, but it works here.  Springtime, babe.