Don’t Just Raise the Debt Ceiling, Eliminate It
Democrats will pay a political price for increasing the debt limit by themselves, so they should boost it so much it will no longer matter.
Make it worth owning.
Photographer: Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Last week saw a rare triumph of substance over politics in Washington. In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spoke in favor of abolishing the debt ceiling. She’s right: The debt ceiling deserves to go. This strange quirk of U.S. budget process serves no purpose except, now and then, to let one party or the other seek political advantage by threatening to throw the financial system into chaos. There’s never a good time to flirt with a financial crisis, but with the recovery still far from complete, now is an especially bad one.
On Monday, President Joe Biden argued that the Republicans should agree not to filibuster a bill to raise the ceiling, allowing Democrats to pass the measure on a simple majority. Republicans have said they will play no role in resolving the situation. Democrats don’t want to go it alone, arguing that the other party should accept its responsibility for obligations incurred earlier, and that there’s anyway no time for Democrats to do what’s necessary without such cooperation.