- To let the default occur
would hurt average Americans dramatically.
- Why would the Democrats sit back and say,
"Just raise it with no discussion."
Nobody else can do that,
and I don't think the American people want that.
- The United States government is about to go broke yet again,
not because it doesn't have money
but because Congress can't agree on how much the government
should be able to borrow to pay its bills.
This limit on borrowing is known as the debt limit.
Republicans say they oppose any increase
to the government's current borrowing limit
without a commitment from Democrats to cut spending.
Democrats say the government needs to raise the limit
in order to pay its bills for things like Social Security,
veterans' benefits, and federal worker salaries.
Much like in recent years past,
it has again brought the government
to the brink of default.
The debt limit is a form of something
that Congress has always done --
allocate and approve what the government pays for
and how the government pays for it.
But how Congress went about issuing debt
to pay for these things changed during World War I.
With the total cost of the war unknown,
Congress in 1917 created the first form
of what we now call the debt limit, or debt ceiling,
before formalizing it further with a new act in 1939.
After raising the debt limit for years,
without much controversy, Congress initially blocked
President Dwight Eisenhower's debt-limit
increase request in 1953.
- Unless budgeted deficits are checked,
the momentum of past programs
will force an increase of the statutory debt limit.
- Since the end of the Second World War,
Congress has made more than 100 separate
debt-limit modifications,
according to the Congressional Research Service.
But as Congress realized it could leverage debt-limit
increases to extract spending cuts or other concessions,
it led to multiple near-defaults for the federal government.
By 1981, Congress had raised the debt limit
to $1 trillion for the first time,
despite President Ronald Reagan's
promises to cut government
spending during his presidential campaign.
- So-called temporary increases
or extensions in the debt ceiling
have been allowed 21 times in these 10 years,
and now I've been forced to ask for another increase
in the debt ceiling, or the government will be unable
to function past the middle of February,
and I've only been here 16 days.
- When the government hit the debt limit in September 1985,
the Treasury Department for the first time
took so-called extraordinary measures to stave off default
while still making payments to recipients
of Social Security and other programs.
By the time Reagan left office,
he had raised the debt limit more than a dozen times.
The government briefly shut down in 1995 and 1996,
when Congressional Republicans and President Bill Clinton
feuded over the debt limit and government spending.
- I also challenge the Congress to preserve the full faith
and credit of the United States, to rise above partisanship
and pass a straightforward extension of the debt limit
and show people America keeps its word.
[cheers and applause]
-This brinksmanship has become even more frequent
over the past decade
as the government risked defaults in 2011 and 2013.
The 2011 fight even led to a downgrade
of the government's credit rating.
- Nobody, Democratic or Republican,
is willing to see the full faith and credit
of the United States government collapse.
- The opportunity presented by the president's request of us
to raise the debt ceiling is going to produce
what many people will believe is a complete change
in the trajectory of the federal government,
beginning to get spending under control.
- Listen, there's never been a president in our history
that did not negotiate over the debt limit.
Never, not once.
- Now, as Congress stares down yet another debt-limit battle,
some have suggested unorthodox ways
of continuing government payments.
Most of these solutions, like minting a coin worth $1 trillion
or invoking the 14th Amendment,
have been dismissed by scholars and by the Biden White House.
- I believe that the only way to handle the debt ceiling
is for Congress to raise it and show the world,
the financial markets,
and the public that we're a country that will pay our bills.
- After voting to raise the debt limit multiple times
during the Trump administration,
Republicans now say they will not raise the debt limit
unless President Biden agrees to spending cuts.
Hanging in the balance is a possible government default.
- On the debt ceiling, do you support the permanent repeal
of the debt ceiling, sir?
- The permanent repeal of the debt ceiling?
What do you mean? - Of the debt limit, yeah.
- You mean, just say we don't have a debt limit?
- No debt limit.
- No, that would be irresponsible.