[radford-neal]

Under the US constitution, isn't money supposed to be spent only if both the House and Senate agree that it should be spent, and either the President also agrees or his veto is overridden? So if the House doesn't want to spend money, it doesn't get spent. It seems that some politicians just can't accept that. They think that for some reason the House is supposed to "compromise" and agree to spend money even though they don't think it should be spent. It seems that it's these politicians who are the radical ones taking the US to the brink of default.

[ngetchell]

Congress already spent/appropriated the money. This is closer to lowering your own credit limit AFTER maxing out the card.

[radford-neal]

I don't know the details of the bill, but doesn't it simultaneously increase the credit limit (avoiding default), while cutting future spending? I don't see any inconsistency.

[kasey_junk]

The inconsistency is that they voted for the spending (and tax cuts) that caused us to reach the debt ceiling. If they wanted to not spend that money it should have been negotiated as part of _that_ process.

And that’s before pointing out that holding the nations credit hostage only happens by GOP legislators when there is a democrat president.

It’s political hypocrisy of the worst sort that has the most likelihood of hurting the most Americans of any decision the federal government can make.

[radford-neal]

The "holding hostage" phrasing implies that somehow the House needs to use the debt ceiling as leverage to cut spending. But to cut spending, the House just needs to not approve spending - no agreement by the Senate or President should be required. So there's something funny going on. I don't know what exactly - maybe they anticipate that the Senate will "hold hostage" spending on essential programs in order to get the House to approve spending on programs the House doesn't want to approve?

Anyway, the "holding hostage" phrasing would make more sense if the House were using the debt ceiling issue to try to force action on some unrelated issue (eg, abortion). Linking the debt ceiling increase with future spending cuts is not that sort of thing.

[kasey_junk]

It is unrelated. They approved the budget that is causing the debt ceiling to be breached already. By tying it to future spending they are trying to conflate the issues when they are not related.

The place to discuss future spending is during the appropriations process, by requiring it to happen now because of the debt ceiling is precisely holding the credit of the US hostage.

[radford-neal]

So why have a debt ceiling at all? A ceiling makes no sense if whenever it is about to be reached, unconditionally increasing it is regarded as imperative, with any attempt to link an increase in the debt ceiling to measures that would limit future debt being denounced as "holding the credit of the US hostage". The only point of a debt ceiling would be encourage such a linkage.

[ngetchell]

The House and Senate already approved the spending. That is what passing a budget means.

The debt limit is a chance for Republicans to force cuts, without having to take a stand on what programs need to be cut.