Republicans must raise the debt ceiling to prevent default, but they can wait until next year, and it should be part of a package that includes spending cuts.

Representative Chip Roy (R., Texas) said on Thursday, “My position is simple — I am not going to raise or suspend the debt ceiling (racking up more debt) without significant & real spending cuts attached to it.” That’s a perfectly reasonable position in line with past congressional precedent, and it’s one that fiscal conservatives especially should be taking.

The debt ceiling is a weird part of U.S. fiscal law. It is arbitrary, in that there is no reason for it to be set at any given number. It also does not limit spending on its own. It only limits the borrowing the federal government is allowed to do to finance the spending it has already committed to. This creates risk of default if the limit is not raised and more borrowing is necessary to finance already-approved spending.

It has been a long-running complaint by some that this arbitrary provision should be discarded. Opponents liken it to “economic hostage-taking,” in that it allows politicians to make demands against a deadline of default, the economic consequences of which would be potentially devastating.

But as Brian Riedl wrote for NR last year, the debt ceiling also provides a regular opportunity for spending reforms precisely because it creates an arbitrary deadline before which Congress must act. This used to be uncontroversial and was practiced by Republicans as well as Democrats. “Of the eight largest deficit-reduction laws since 1985 — such as Gramm–Rudman in the 1980s, the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, the 2009 PAYGO law, and 2011 Budget Control Act — all eight were attached to debt-limit bills,” Riedl wrote.

What Roy is demanding is simply a continuation of that principle. Yes, Congress should raise the debt limit to prevent default, and alongside that, it should reform spending and reduce the deficit.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Donald Trump is now demanding that the debt ceiling be raised immediately, for the entirety of his presidency. He has also said he’d support abolishing the debt ceiling entirely.

“The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge,” Trump said. Right on cue, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) said, “I agree with President-elect Trump that Congress should terminate the debt limit and never again govern by hostage taking.”

As Warren takes Trump’s side of the argument, Trump has lashed out at Roy on Truth Social and threatened to support a primary challenger in his next election.

There is not a pressing need to raise the debt ceiling right now. The date by which it absolutely must be raised is likely in mid June 2025. It can be raised as part of the budget reconciliation package that Republicans will be taking up once the new Congress is sworn in. There’s no need to do it in the lame-duck session while Joe Biden is still nominally president and Democrats control the Senate.

Eliminating the debt ceiling entirely, as Warren and other progressives want, would be a gift to big government for generations. It would remove one of the only tools currently in existence by which Congress has enacted deficit reduction in the past few decades.

In 2023, progressives whipped themselves into a frenzy over the debt ceiling, calling Republicans “terrorists” and accusing them of “extortion” and “blackmail,” only for then-speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden to come to a rather milquetoast agreement ahead of schedule. The resulting deal slightly moderated deficits and included the strengthening of work requirements for welfare recipients, very modest wins for Republicans during a Democratic administration.

Republicans must raise the debt ceiling to prevent default, but they can wait until next year to do so, when they will have control over both chambers of Congress and the White House. And Roy is right that when they raise it next year, it should be part of a legislative package that includes spending cuts, such as full repeal of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, the recission of unspent funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, reforming the suite of anti-poverty programs that currently cost almost $30,000 per person in poverty, slashing agriculture and higher-education subsidies, addressing the $236 billion in improper payments, adopting already-existing GAO recommendations that would save $208 billion . . .