The federal debt ceiling needs to be raised

Democrats need to raise — or, if they're feeling bold, eliminate — the federal debt ceiling before they lose control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January. Failure to do so would be political and public-policy malpractice. Why? Because Republicans have made clear their intent once again to take the debt limit hostage next year, refusing to raise it unless their demands are met. Among those demands could be spending caps, cuts or reforms to entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare, or enactment of other conservative policy goals. Whether one agrees with those ideas or not, the way to accomplish them isn't by risking the full faith and credit of the United States government. Were the federal government to breach the debt ceiling, it would do massive damage to the economy. The national debt isn't money set aside for future spending. It's money that the government, under both Republican and Democratic presidents and Congresses, has borrowed to pay for everything from national parks to national defense. As of Tuesday, the national debt stood at a little more than $31.3 trillion. The ceiling is around $31.4 trillion, a limit that is expected to be reached sometime next year. To get a sense of how quickly that limit might be reached, consider that the debt passed $31 trillion in early October. The economy is already teetering on the brink of a recession. Failure to raise the debt limit would lead the federal government to default on its obligations, very likely pushing the country and the world into a recession or making an existing recession far worse. That's a risk no responsible politician should be willing to take. The idea of a debt ceiling is, in theory, reasonable. The federal government should be judicious in its spending, and having a cap should serve as check on outrageous spending. Both parties have raised the debt ceiling in the past without much controversy. However, that's not how things work in practice anymore. Republicans make a lot of noise about deficit spending and the national debt, at least while a Democrat is in the White House. The issue mysteriously fades into the background whenever a Republican is president. GOP politicians have realized that Democrats aren't willing to unleash economic mayhem and now use the once-routine chore of raising the debt ceiling as leverage to win policy concessions. None of this is to say Democrats should use escalating the debt ceiling — or eliminating it — as an excuse for reckless spending. Republicans, who will have a slim majority in the House, could negotiate with President Joe Biden and other Democrats in good faith, but that's probably not what's going to happen. (Such deals are possible, as evidenced by support from both sides of the aisle for legislation aimed at heading off a potential strike from railroad workers.) Instead, the most extreme Republicans will probably demand all manner of concessions that Democrats will be loath to grant. Would-be House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., probably won't have the political capital to stop them, even if he wanted to. Hence the urgency. Yes, Democrats have other issues that need to be addressed during the lame-duck session. For instance, it appears likely that a bill protecting same-sex marriages will become law, as it should. Democrats and some allied Republicans also have an opportunity to pass the Electoral Count Reform Act. Doing so now would help prevent allies of a losing presidential candidate from trying to circumvent the will of the people, as happened less than two years ago. Biden has expressed a desire once again to try to pass a ban on assault weapons during the lame-duck session. An attempt at reasonable gun-control measures is laudable, but a ban on assault weapons is unlikely to draw the bipartisan support necessary to become law. Democrats need to prioritize, and at the top of their list should be heading off an unnecessary showdown over the debt ceiling. It's true that if Democrats do significantly raise or eliminate the debt ceiling, Republicans would wield it as a political weapon against them in future elections. Conversely, if Republicans refuse to raise the debt ceiling and economic disaster strikes, whom do you think they're going to blame? Biden and the Democrats. Democrats have the power to head off a crisis they can see coming from a mile away. Better to deal with it before it becomes one.