It’s time for Congress to retire one of its most dangerous weapons

When it comes to legislative sagas, the annual ritual of increasing the U.S. debt limit is the equivalent of a nuclear standoff. Every sane lawmaker agrees that not raising the Treasury’s authority to finance the national debt would lead to a U.S. default — and a fallout that could tank global financial markets and risk a recession.

In reality, these debt-limit showdowns have created the opposite effect of mutual assured destruction. Back then, U.S. and Soviet leaders knew the easiest answer was to do nothing — not firing the missiles avoided nuclear holocaust.

On Capitol Hill, that’s not an option. Lawmakers must affirmatively cast a risky political vote or else chance a financial holocaust.

But it’s time for Congress to retire one of the most dangerous weapons in its arsenal. Once considered a perfunctory nuisance vote, the debt ceiling has now become the most toxic fiscal vote on Capitol Hill after more than six years of standoffs. Republicans fired the first shots, bringing the nation within hours of default in the summer 2011 showdown with President Barack Obama that ended with $2 trillion in savings.


Now Republicans, with full control of Congress and the White House, face a borrowing deadline on the nation’s nearly $20 trillion debt of mid-October, at the latest. Some conservatives are balking at calls from President Trump’s advisers to simply increase the limit without spending reforms, and Democrats are happily awaiting the inevitable call from House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) begging for votes.

Read more at The Washington Post