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Over the weekend, President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed on a bill to raise the debt ceiling. If the bill passes the House Rules Committee vote today, then House Republicans will vote on it later this week. As we wait to find out the future of the legislation ahead of next week’s default deadline, we’re spending today’s newsletter thinking about how these negotiations fit into the larger cultural battles being waged across the country.

First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:

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A Struggle for Control

Over the past decade, America’s debt-limit negotiations have turned from an institutional formality into a polarized political debate. And in 2023, these negotiations have also taken on elements of the nation’s culture wars. As my colleague Ronald Brownstein noted last week, the budget cuts that House Republicans have argued for are focused on “the relatively small slice of the federal budget that funds most of the government’s investments in children and young adults, who are the most racially diverse generations in American history.” Programs that benefit America’s young people, such as Head Start or Pell Grants, bear the burden of House Republicans’ desired cuts, while Social Security and Medicare are exempt from budget cuts (unlike in previous GOP debt-reduction plans).

“The budget fight, in many ways, represents the fiscal equivalent to the battle over cultural issues raging through Republican-controlled states across the country,” Ron wrote. This debate is a new front, Ron argues, in “the struggle for control of the nation’s direction.” What’s ostensibly a fiscal feud is also a clash between the interests of the older, predominantly white voters who make up the GOP base and the younger, more diverse Americans who Democrats are coming to rely on.

I checked in with Ron by email this afternoon to see how the bipartisan agreement of this past weekend affected the prognosis for programs that serve America’s young people. Ron reminded me that because the deal calls for overall caps rather than cuts to individual programs, anticipating what the specific cuts might be is difficult, until Congress passes its appropriations bills for those programs later this year. And GOP lawmakers did not end up with the 10 years of spending caps they had initially called for: Instead, the agreed-upon legislation includes just two years of caps and then switches to targets that are not legally binding. But even though the country will not ultimately see the full extent of House Republicans’ initial desired cuts, the proposal itself is notable for what it says about the voters the party hopes to reach. As Ron aptly put it:

Looming over these [spending] choices is the intertwined generational and racial re-sorting of the two parties’ electoral coalitions … The GOP has become more dependent on older white people who are either eligible for the federal retirement programs or nearing eligibility.

For the Democrats’ part, Biden’s own budget proposal sought to increase taxes for top-earning Americans (who also tend to be older) in order to preserve spending that benefits young people. This proposal did not make it into the weekend’s agreement, however.

As we keep our eye on the developments of the next few days, Ron’s conclusion offers a helpful reminder of the stakes of these negotiations:

In 2024, Millennials and Gen Z may, for the first time, cast as many ballots as the Baby Boomers and older generations; by 2028, they will almost certainly surpass the older groups. In the fight over the federal budget and debt ceiling—just as in the struggles over cultural issues unfolding in the states—Republicans appear to be racing to lock into law policies that favor their older, white base before the rising generations acquire the electoral clout to force a different direction.

Related:

Why the GOP wants to rob Gen Z to pay the Boomers Why Biden caved

Today’s News

A drone attack hit Moscow, damaging residential buildings in civilian areas. Ukraine has denied “direct” involvement. Elizabeth Holmes reported to prison to begin serving her sentence of more than 11 years. Nine people were injured in a mass shooting at Florida’s Hollywood Beach Broadwalk on Memorial Day.

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Culture Break

Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Bettmann / Getty

Read. Cynthia Ozick’s new short story, “Late-Night-Radio Talk-Show Host Tells All,” about the seduction of radio. Then read this new Atlantic interview about her writing process.

Listen. The latest episode of our How to Talk to People podcast covers the infrastructure of community—and how the design of physical spaces can either encourage or discourage relationships.

Play our daily crossword.

Katherine Hu contributed to this newsletter.