Of all the absurd Washington pantomimes none has been as reliably entertaining and maddening as the annual debates to raise the debt ceiling. Although the outcome was always a foregone conclusion (the ceiling would be raised), the excitement came when fiscal conservatives bemoaned the perils of runaway debt and “attempted” to exact spending restrictions through threats “to shut down the government,” (which often led to news coverage of tourists being turned away from national parks.) On the other side of the aisle Democrats would rail that the ceiling must be raised “because America always pays her bills.” Lost was the irony that “paying” bills with borrowed money was fiscally responsible, and that raising the ceiling actually enabled America to continue to avoid paying its bills. After these amateur theatrics, the ceiling would be lifted and Washington would go on as if nothing happened. But at least the performance threw occasional light on the nation’s debt problems.
But this week the news dropped that President Trump had made a “gentleman’s agreement” with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to permanently scrap the “debt ceiling” so that government borrowing can occur perpetually without the need to air the nation’s fiscal dirty laundry. Given how much the national debt has exploded in recent decades, and how reluctant Congress has been to address the problem, it should be no surprise that the proposal has finally been made. The only shock is that it happening when the Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress.
The news came just a day after the President stunned the Republican party by abruptly siding with Congressional Democrats over the best way to deal with current debt ceiling negotiations. These developments should make it clear,
as I described in the weeks after Trump moved into the White House, that budget deficits during the Trump administration will be far larger than just about anyone predicted. In fact, the self-proclaimed “King of Debt” is reaching for his crown and the coronation profoundly affect the fate of the U.S. dollar and the American economy.
Trump came to the White House with essentially no history of stated aversion to government spending and debt accumulation. Instead, he won the votes of Republicans and some independents by staking out extreme positions on immigration, terrorism, and economic nationalism, and by thumbing his nose at a political establishment much deserving of ridicule. Unlike almost all other Republicans, he had nothing to say about fiscal prudence, limited government, entitlement reform, spending cuts, or balanced budgets. In fact, he very rarely criticized government for being too large, but simply for being too stupid.
But as a businessman Trump had made his successes by borrowing, and then by borrowing even bigger when his ventures fell deeply into the red. There really should have been no doubt that he would bring those instincts with him into the Oval Office. Republicans who thought otherwise have no one but themselves to blame for what the future holds.
The debt ceiling came into existence just a few years after the Federal Reserve was created in 1913. At the time that the bank was established many politicians, and certainly many citizens, were concerned that it could potentially lend unlimited funds to the government, a capacity that could short-circuit constitutional checks and balances and lead to the development of a Federal behemoth. As a result, the Fed’s original charter prevented the bank from buying or owning obligations of the U.S. Treasury. This provision allayed the fears of unlimited borrowing and it helped Congress approve the Act.
