Congress

Happy New Year, the debt limit is here. Get ready for an all-out war over it.

Published

1 year ago

December 30, 2024

GOP leaders are staring down two bad options to solve President-elect Donald Trump’s debt-limit problem, after failing to execute his demand to lift the federal borrowing cap in the last government funding bill.

One path requires full buy-in from Republican lawmakers to address the issue via budget reconciliation — a huge challenge thanks to the party’s fierce fiscal hawks. The other entails winning over Democrats, who for the most part rejected Trump’s initial debt-limit gambit last week.

“Whoever advised the president that it was even possible needs to better understand how this place works,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said about Trump’s latest push to raise the debt limit.

It’s going to be an urgent issue for Trump as soon as he takes office. The federal government will resume the cap on its borrowing authority on Jan. 1, as the U.S. sits on a national debt of more than $36 trillion, though the Treasury Department can buy time for a number of months with so-called extraordinary measures. The fiscal time bomb illustrates the struggle Trump and Republican leaders face heading into 2025, as they consider whether to court Democrats who will want concessions or their own conservatives who are known for rigidly sticking to their demands to cut funding.

“I’ve told my caucus, if they try to do it under reconciliation, they’ll lose my vote,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on Friday. “I told them: You want to kill reconciliation, put something on that we don’t like.”

It’s going to be a huge challenge for Republicans to raise the debt ceiling on their own. In exchange for increasing it by $1.5 trillion, House GOP leaders have told conservatives they’ll look for $2.5 trillion in cuts to mandatory spending — the bucket of money that controls things like SNAP nutrition assistance, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare — in an upcoming reconciliation bill. That legislation is also supposed to deal with huge party priorities on border security, energy and taxes, which Republicans also say they’ll find a way to pay for. And, as Paul illustrates, fiscal conservatives are already voicing opposition to handling the debt limit through that party-line process.

Paul said he thinks other Senate conservatives have also told GOP leaders they won’t vote for a reconciliation package that raises the debt limit. With a 53-seat majority in the Senate next year, opposition from just a few Republicans will sink those dreams.

Getting Republicans to agree on $2.5 trillion in cuts to mandatory programs over 10 years would also be a challenge for GOP leaders. Trump has ruled out reductions to Social Security and Medicare, the costliest of the programs. Of the roughly $4 trillion the U.S. government spends on mandatory programs each year, Social Security benefits alone total almost $1.5 trillion.

Democrats say the proposal is a public relations nightmare for the GOP.

“Listen, this is the gift that keeps on giving,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said. “This is the absolute worst case for the country — a massive tax cut for the richest of the rich, paid for by slashing, to the bone, health care for seniors and poor kids.”

Raising the debt limit by $1.5 trillion, even with corresponding funding cuts, would not keep the nation from hitting the borrowing cap for long. The U.S. budget deficit, the gap between how much comes in from revenue like taxes and how much is spent, was $1.8 trillion in the fiscal year that ended in September. Congress’ nonpartisan budget scorekeeper projects that interest payments on the national debt will total almost $900 billion next year.

And the timing for when Congress will absolutely need to address the debt limit is tricky, adding to the challenge for Republican leaders.

After the debt ceiling is reinstated on Jan. 1, the Treasury Department will immediately deploy the typical “extraordinary measures,” cash-shifting accounting tactics to ensure the country can continue to pay its bills for at least a few months longer. Then a surge of revenue will begin to flow into federal coffers when tax filing season begins at the end of January, keeping the U.S. from hitting its borrowing limit for a few more months.

All the while, the Treasury secretary will keep refining an “X-date” prediction for when the U.S. would default on its loans without action from Congress. Last year, money from taxes came in far lower than predicted, suddenly speeding up the forecast default date to early June, after lawmakers had assumed they had until August or September to pass a fix.

“Extraordinary measures will extend what the actual, true, de-facto deadline is. But we saw just last year that can vary wildly,” noted Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.

Boyle has long pushed for passage of a bill that would let the Treasury Department continue paying the nation’s bills, despite the debt ceiling, similar to the proposal outgoing Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell floated during previous standoffs over raising the U.S. borrowing limit. But many fiscal conservatives are opposed.

“I want to keep the debt limit. I like it,” Sen. Ron Johnson said last week.

The Wisconsin Republican said he is also opposed to raising the debt limit through reconciliation and plans to roll out a “debt ceiling budget” in early 2025 that illustrates how the national debt has “grown grotesquely” above inflation and population growth in recent years.

Raising the risk of a debt-limit crisis is less advantageous for Republicans as the GOP takes control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, especially as Trump so adamantly insists on swift action and has even called on lawmakers to “terminate” the nation’s borrowing cap altogether. But Democrats warn that slim GOP majorities and demands from fiscal conservatives keep alive the specter of economic catastrophe.

“When they have the trifecta, there’s really no point — other than old bad habits — to threatening the economy with the debt limit,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), outgoing chair of the Senate Budget Committee.

“It’s the bear trap in the bedroom Republicans love to leave around for negotiating purposes,” Whitehouse added. “Now that they’ve got the trifecta, it loses some of its negotiating appeal and remains extremely, extremely dangerous.”

Congress

Thune is ‘hopeful’ Mitch McConnell will return this week

Published

54 minutes ago

June 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday he hopes his predecessor as top Republican, Mitch McConnell, returns this week from a hospitalization.

Thune said he had not yet spoken directly with the 84-year-old Kentuckian but is getting “readouts from his staff.”

Asked about McConnell’s condition or if he knew if he would be back this week, Thune told reporters, “I’m hopeful that he’ll be back this week.”

A McConnell spokesperson said Sunday that he had been admitted to the hospital but did not provide details on his condition or why he was hospitalized — a break from recent prior instances where the seven-term senator was hospitalized.

A former McConnell staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity was told the senator was doing much better Monday without any further details on what put him in the hospital.

Daniel Desrochers contributed to this report.

Congress

Senate to confirm Jay Clayton as soon as Thursday

Published

3 hours ago

June 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate could vote as soon as Thursday on Jay Clayton’s nomination to serve as director of national intelligence — a lightning speed pace that will necessitate buy-in from all 100 senators.

Confirming Clayton could help shore up enough votes from Democrats to extend a government surveillance program that expired last Friday over opposition to Trump’s pick for acting director, Bill Pulte.

“He will come out of the committee Thursday, at least hopefully, and then if we get consent, we can move,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview Monday about Clayton, who Trump only nominated for the job late last week.

Democrats “ought to be happy with Clayton,” said Thune, adding that he’s a “good” and “solid” pick.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, floated Sunday to CBS News that Clayton could be confirmed this week if every senator cooperates.

Senate Intelligence will hold a hearing Wednesday on Clayton’s nomination. If every member of the panel agrees, he could then get a committee vote Thursday. Confirming Clayton on the Senate floor hours later would require getting agreement from every senator to speed up the process. Opposition from a single member will punt Clayton’s confirmation to next week.

Confirming Clayton Thursday would, crucially, limit — and potentially circumvent — Pulte from becoming acting director of national intelligence, which Trump has slated to take place Friday, June 19.

The president’s decision to put Pulte in charge after Tulsi Gabbard’s departure at the helm of the Office of National Intelligence sparked bipartisan pushback, with Democrats saying they will withhold support for extending Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act while Pulte is in the acting role. Congress allowed the key government spy authority lapse last Friday without a deal.

Trump threw another curveball into a FISA extension over the weekend when he posted on social media that he was against reauthorizing Section 702 unless a GOP elections bill is attached. That bill, known as the SAVE America Act, does not have the votes to get through Congress.

Thune threw cold water Monday on tying the two issues together.

“Yeah, he’s, as you know, passionate about getting that done and wants to use every opportunity to take a shot at it,” Thune said of Trump and his desire to enact the elections bill.

But, Thune said, “we can’t get FISA done” if the policies are linked.

Congress

Senate eyes vote on updated housing affordability legislation

Published

5 hours ago

June 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is planning to put an updated version of a bipartisan housing affordability bill on the Senate floor for a vote this week, according to two people familiar with the bill dynamics and two Senate Democratic aides granted anonymity to discuss ongoing plans.

The version of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act that the Senate will vote on will include most of the House-passed language, including a provision restricting large institutional investors from buying single-family homes. The legislation would also add back Senate bills that were dropped from the House package that passed last month, the two people and the two aides said.

The Senate legislation comes after talks between Thune, Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and ranking member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). The updated Senate package was also discussed with the House and the White House, the aides said.

Still, it’s unclear if House leadership and the White House have signed off on the legislation.

The Senate and House have gone back and forth for months on language for a housing affordability bill as lawmakers on both sides look for a win to tout during a midterm election season dominated by cost-of-living issues.

Both chambers overwhelmingly passed their own versions of the housing bill — the Senate 89-10 in March, and the House 396-13 in May. The White House supported the Senate-passed bill and then backed the House-passed bill after it retained most of the Senate’s language on reining in private equity and other large Wall Street investors in the housing market — a top priority for President Donald Trump.

The Senate’s updated legislation would remove two of the House’s community banking deregulation bills due to budget scoring concerns, said two of the people familiar: two bills that would modify the Federal Deposit Insurance Act around failed insured depository institutions. The Senate bill also added back a provision to authorize the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program for seven years, as opposed to a permanent reauthorization in the Senate’s March legislation.

The Senate additionally re-inserted several upper-chamber priorities, including the BUILD NOW Act, which would incentivize communities to build more housing through the Community Development Block Grant program; the Rental Assistance Demonstration bill, which would raise the cap on housing authorities to convert voucher-based assistance; the Moving to Work bill, which would aim to add a new cohort of MTW public housing agencies; and the VALID Act, which would require Federal Housing Administration mortgage disclosures to include cost comparison information for veterans.

The package retains core wins for the leaders of both the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees and their members and reflects input from all four leaders of those panels, one of the people familiar said.