It is possible that hell has frozen over. President Trump and I agree on something very important: Abolish the debt limit.

The debt limit is a political tool that allows the minority party to threaten economic collapse, forcing Congress to negotiate its demands. It serves no other function. None. It has no impact on spending, and it doesn’t restrain the growth of the national debt.

I’ve pushed publicly and privately, whether Democrats or Republicans have been in charge, to scrap the debt ceiling permanently. Now, with Mr. Trump’s support, our country could finally get rid of this form of brinkmanship that has, for decades, threatened the stability of our economy.

The debt limit caps the amount of money the U.S. government can borrow. If the government hits the limit before Congress authorizes an increase, the U.S. would default on its debt. That means not making interest payments on U.S. bonds, not paying our military or halting Social Security checks. Chaos in the financial markets could cause millions of Americans to lose their jobs, while the cost of home mortgages and car loans would skyrocket. In short, we would create a self-inflicted financial crisis.

Republicans claim they want to reduce the national debt, but their actions tell a different story. For decades, they have used their time in power to slash the taxes paid by wealthy Americans and corporations, forgoing trillions needed to fund our government. President George W. Bush’s and Mr. Trump’s past tax cuts alone drove up the national debt by an estimated $10 trillion. Then, whenever a Democrat made it into the White House, Republicans threatened to vote against raising the debt ceiling unless Democrats agreed to whatever political demands the Republicans were focused on.

Consider the last few times either party regained control of the White House. In 2011, when President Barack Obama was in office, Republicans refused to lift the debt limit until Democrats agreed to $2 trillion in cuts, which cost the economy up to seven million jobs and substantially delayed our recovery from the Great Recession. When Mr. Trump won the election in 2016, Republicans promptly increased the national debt by passing a $1.9 trillion giveaway, largely to rich people and giant corporations.