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“The House voted late Tuesday to keep the government funded, suspend the federal debt limit and provide disaster and refugee aid, setting up a high-stakes showdown with Republicans who oppose the package… The federal government faces a shutdown if funding stops on Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.” AP News
The right supports the GOP’s refusal to raise the debt ceiling, and argues that they should demand spending concessions before cooperating.
“There is a long bipartisan tradition of opposition parties inveighing against the irresponsibility of the party in power for debt-limit increases. ‘America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership,’ said Senator Barack Obama in 2006. ‘Americans deserve better.’ Senator Joe Biden voted with him as Republicans, then in the majority, raised it on their own. When Obama and Biden became president and vice president, their view of which stance on the debt ceiling was responsible changed dramatically…
“The potential political cost of the Republicans’ current stance — you guys raise the debt limit without our help — is that it makes them look irresponsible. But voters have not held debt brinkmanship against the parties that engage in it. Democrats won a landslide victory in the 2006 midterms after Biden and Obama voted to let the government hit the debt ceiling. Republicans brought on a government shutdown and flirted with a debt default in 2013, and were rewarded with their own landslide in the 2014 midterms.”
Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg
“Almost every fiscal-discipline measure in the postwar era has been tied to or forced by actions raising the debt limit. The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1985 set out binding deficit limits enforced by a sequestration process. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 contained $500 billion in deficit reduction over five years and created the ‘paygo’ rules that required that any increase in mandatory spending or tax cuts be offset. The Budget Control Act of 2011 contained almost $1 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years through enforceable caps on discretionary spending…
“It is doubtful any of these deficit-reduction measures would have become law if not for the public debate and necessity of dealing with the debt limit. Simply put, the debt limit continues to provide the platform to address the debt. Debt-limit critics argue that the limit is poorly designed, since it operates only at the end of the budgeting and appropriations process. They are correct. But until Congress reforms the Budget Act of 1974, it will remain the only vehicle by which the U.S. limits debt.”
Jeb Hensarling, Wall Street Journal
“Democrats control the White House, Senate and the House of Representatives. They could have raised the debt limit by themselves without needing a single Republican vote. All the Democrats had to do was include debt limit instructions in either of the two budget resolutions that they passed this year…
“Republicans should return to the tradition [from previous debt-ceiling increases] by demanding spending cuts. This would align with the spirit of the debt limit, which is to hold lawmakers accountable for skyrocketing debt. For instance, Congress could attach Sen. Mitt Romney’s TRUST Act, which would create bipartisan congressional commissions to guarantee the long-term solvency of the Social Security, Medicare, and highway trust funds. More than 70 senators have signaled support for the TRUST Act, and it has been endorsed by a bipartisan coalition of 60 House members…
“Alternatively, Congress could agree to limit the size of the upcoming reconciliation bill. Or lawmakers could ban popular budget gimmicks that allow them to evade budget rules… Both parties understand the debt limit must be raised. But if Democrats are going to refuse to pass it themselves and demand that Republicans provide the final votes instead, they will need to offer the GOP something in return. Even modestly addressing the underlying (and soaring) debt is a commonsense solution.”
Brian Riedl, Daily Beast
The left is critical of the GOP’s refusal to raise the debt ceiling, and many argue that the debt ceiling should be permanently removed.
The left is critical of the GOP’s refusal to raise the debt ceiling, and many argue that the debt ceiling should be permanently removed.
"To be clear, in asking for a boost to the debt limit, the Biden administration isn’t asking Congress to pay for new programs. It’s asking Congress to finance initiatives the government has already authorized and costs it has already incurred — including $7.8 trillion in debt that the Trump administration racked up in just four years…
“It matters little to McConnell that his caucus enabled Donald Trump to grow the deficit in percentage terms [relative to GDP] by more than every other president except George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln. His calculations are deeply cynical…
“Conceived to help presidents meet the demands of national emergencies and to ensure that the government can pay bills that Congress has already racked up, the debt ceiling has become a blunt instrument in the hands of a radical and destructive minority. As they address the looming emergency, Democrats might consider the possibility that the debt limit no longer meets the purpose for which it was designed."
Joshua Zeitz, Politico
“If Republicans don’t budge, they would leave the U.S. economy hanging by a thread, potentially forcing Democrats to raise the ceiling by rewriting and passing a massive (and filibuster-immune) budget reconciliation package in a matter of days. It’s the legislative equivalent of passing a camel through the eye of a needle…
“The hypocrisy is stunning. McConnell has voted to increase or suspend the debt limit 32 times, including thrice under Trump… About 97 percent of the current debt existed before Joe Biden’s presidency.”
Dana Milbank, Washington Post
“McConnell keeps saying that Democrats must do this by themselves, but in reality, Republicans are doing something much worse: They are threatening to filibuster. They will block Democrats from doing what Republicans say they want (i.e., to deal with it themselves) in, say, a clean vote, all to force them to do so in reconciliation, to throw wrenches into that process… Democrats should take this moment to end the debt limit once and for all.”
Greg Sargent, Washington Post
"The GOP doesn’t have any actual policy demands in exchange for their votes, as they did in 2011 or 2013. They just want it to be a party-line affair… In a sane world, there would be a simple solution to this problem: Democrats would eliminate the filibuster on debt-ceiling votes (which they can do with a simple majority), suspend the borrowing limit, and move on…
“Both Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema, the Senate’s most vocal defenders of the 60-vote rule, have said they think it is worth keeping in place because it fosters bipartisanship. But when it comes to the debt limit, McConnell and his conference are now insisting that the votes must be partisan. There will be no across-the-aisle negotiation for anybody to cluck about. By Manchin and Sinema’s own logic, the filibuster is doing absolutely nothing here, except making Democrats’ lives a bit more miserable."
Jordan Weissmann, Slate
Some argue that “Congress should find the middle ground and set the limit as a proportion of national income. That would make the debt ceiling less arbitrary and maybe even force a more meaningful conversation around fiscal restraint when the ceiling approaches. Enough with the partisan brinksmanship. Let’s pay our bills and start getting serious about a national debt that is rising at level we cannot sustain — and that the next generation cannot afford.”
Michael R. Bloomberg, Bloomberg
