Republicans have long used the need to raise the debt ceiling as leverage in negotiations over federal spending, but now that there is total GOP control in Washington, with the Trump administration assuming responsibility for success or failure, it may be Democrats’ turn to impose requirements on their cooperation in lifting the borrowing limit.
The debt ceiling was suspended by lawmakers in June 2023 but was reinstated on January 2 of this year, placing a $36.1 trillion cap on federal borrowing. Due to the risk of bumping up against that limit, the Treasury Department on January 21 started taking “extraordinary measures,” short-term financial maneuvers that may include suspending reinvestments in certain federal employee retirement funds and halting an exchange rate stabilization program. Treasury officials will likely deploy those measures for the next several months, but at some point this spring or early summer, lawmakers will need to agree to raise the limit or risk defaulting on U.S. obligations.
The Washington Post’s Joseph Bogage reports Monday that Democrats believe Republicans will need some Democratic votes to pass a debt ceiling increase or suspension, since a number of Republican lawmakers are unlikely to cooperate over concerns about the size of the national debt.
Some House Republicans have suggested linking a debt ceiling increase to aid to California in the wake of the Los Angeles wildfires, with both provisions included in what is expected to be a massive government funding bill that lawmakers need to pass ahead of a March 15 shutdown deadline. But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries rejected that option late last week, and Democrats are now developing a list of demands for their cooperation.
Perhaps the most significant demand Democrats are contemplating is the permanent elimination of the debt ceiling, a move that would rob Republicans of a powerful weapon in future budget negotiations.
“The days of Democrats just voting to raise the debt ceiling under a Republican president, they need to be over, period,” Rep. Brendan Boyle, the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, told The Post. “We need to make sure that Democratic priorities are met, if we are in any way going to vote to increase the debt ceiling. But at the very least, we need to make sure there’s a permanent resolution to the perennial debt ceiling dysfunction.”
Boyle said he also wants to protect funding for social programs including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security – massive parts of the budget that Republicans are reportedly considering cutting to help offset the cost of new tax cuts.
Sen. Ron Wyden, who sits on the Budget Committee and is the senior Democrat on the Finance Committee, agreed that Democrats need to be careful that their cooperation in raising the debt ceiling doesn’t end up simply making it easier for Republicans to slash taxes and increase deficits. “I am against these ideas to raise the debt ceiling in order to provide more tax breaks for billionaires,” Wyden said.
Even some conservatives see the potential for Democrats to win significant concessions. Economist Michael Strain of the center-right American Enterprise Institute told the Post that they can probably do more than protect Medicaid or food stamps. “That would just be kind of fiddling around the edges of these programs when they could do something more meaningful and lasting,” he said.