Posted on 01/27/2025 3:44:25 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
DORAL, Fla. — Democrats in Congress are considering forcing a showdown over the debt limit to rein in President Donald Trump’s vast plans to reshape the U.S. economy and remake the federal government.
For 30 years, Republicans have used the threat of a national default to make Democrats negotiate over GOP demands. But as America hurtles once again toward a potential debt crisis, Democrats see an opportunity to turn the tables to cut off Trump’s agenda and take the debt limit off the table in future legislative battles.
Last week, the national debt hit the legal limit of $31.4 trillion. (The debt limit does not directly cut spending, but it bars the country from borrowing more money to pay for spending Congress has already approved.) Unless Congress acts to lift or suspend the cap, Trump’s Treasury Department will be forced to stop borrowing sometime this spring. That could trigger a calamitous default, probably tanking the U.S. economy and causing a global crisis.
Republicans control both chambers of Congress as well as the White House and could lift the debt limit on their own. But internal divisions over spending block that path. As the House GOP huddles this week at Trump’s golf resort in Doral to try to resolve their differences, Republican leaders recognize they are likely to need Democratic votes to raise the debt limit — and Democrats know it.
“It’s inevitable that they’re going to need us,” Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-Massachusetts) told The Washington Post.
The question for Democrats is what they want in exchange.
It’s a stark role reversal in Washington. Republicans have been weaponizing the debt limit since at least 1995, when House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) threatened to let the government default unless President Bill Clinton gave in to his budget demands...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
‘Please don’t throw me into that briar patch !!!’
Empoundment.
Oh no, don’t throw me into the briar patch. Shut it down, shut it all down.
[WAPO] Last week, the national debt hit the legal limit of $31.4 trillion....
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP_WS/debt/current
The current debt is $36.22 trillion. It has been a few years since it saw $31.4T.
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