Of the many problems likely to be caused by the GOP’s extremely narrow margins in the House next year, the debt ceiling, for now, seems to be the one that has most captured Trump’s attention. Truth Social reveals him to be very angry about it all — despite the fact that the recent history of debt-limit standoffs is a creation of his own party.
Going back more than a decade now, Republicans have regularly used the debt ceiling as hostage-taking exercise, risking national default and credit downgrades in a performative effort to look like budget hawks, or what they imagine budget hawks would look like. Because Republicans will start next year in control of both chambers of Congress and the White House, there are no hostages to take except themselves. Couple that with their initial 217-215 margin in the House — barely a vote to spare — and there’s plenty of opportunity for inflicting Republican-on-Republican pain.
Whether or not the debt ceiling ultimately gets raised is entirely within Republicans’ control, yet the potential for a fight still looms — a realization that may well be the source of Trump’s recent ire that a debt ceiling reckoning will come due in the first half of 2025.
Some backstory to this latest confrontation:
- Congress voted in 2023 to suspend the debt ceiling until 2025 — when there would be a new Congress and, perhaps, a new president. The deal had the support of then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, who was coming off of a grueling speakership battle.
- Unfortunately for Republicans, the president come 2025 turns out to be one of their own. The suspension technically expires on Jan. 1, but the Treasury Department will be able to keep the government running for a few more months through the now familiar “extraordinary measures.”
- The drama Republicans perpetually stir up around raising the debt ceiling apparently began to loom large for Trump earlier this month: After Elon Musk blew up the House’s spending bill, Trump demanded the House work into its next version some kind of debt ceiling suspension. That bill didn’t pass, leaving Trump railing against Republicans who have built opposing debt ceiling increases into their personal brand, like Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX).
This all leaves Trump trying to whip votes through Truth Social by attacking everyone involved, including departed House Speaker McCarthy. “The extension of the Debt Ceiling by a previous Speaker of the House, a good man and a friend of mine, from this past September of the Biden Administration, to June of the Trump Administration, will go down as one of the dumbest political decisions made in years,” he complained on Sunday.
Trump seems to think his only hope is not members of his own party but House Democrats, who earlier this month were content to let the CR comedy play out without lending a hand, and who will be especially unwilling to pass any debt ceiling solution that also includes toxic elements of Trump’s agenda. (There’s already talk of trying to woo debt-ceiling hostage-takers with such prizes as cuts to mandatory spending, a category that includes such things as food stamps, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.)
“I call it ‘1929’ because the Democrats don’t care what our Country may be forced into,” he posted, seemingly hoping the prospect that his own party might force a default — rendered through a questionable historical analogy — might coax Democrats on board.
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OT
By new years the world population will pass 8 billion. For perspective Elmo Musk with his $425 billion personal fortune could offer every human on Earth $53 dollars.
Just a useless factoid
Then there’s Speaker Johnson herding cats.
The MAGA Repubs: The only political party that consistently sh_ts in its own mess kit.
I call it “1929”. It’s a number at a level that’s never been seen before. A lot of people don’t know this, but I named it “1929”. It’s the highest number in the history of numbers.
Trump’s brain, Musk, will have the answer.
The Democrats’ only offer should be to repeal the debt ceiling entirely and forever. We all know this is the correct policy! Support the correct policy!
The debt is an emergent property of taxes and spending, not some independent variable to be trotted out by Republican hostage takers when it suits them to be the flies in their own ointment.