GOP Weighs Quick US Debt Limit Hike to Deny Democrats Leverage

Republican lawmakers are considering a plan to deny a newly elected Democratic congressional majority a powerful piece of leverage over President Donald Trump’s administration by using the current Congress’s last few weeks in office to quickly raise the US debt limit.

The maneuver, if successful, also would remove a remote but potentially disruptive risk from global financial markets, because US federal borrowing authority is on track to run out in the second half of 2027.

If Republicans lose their majority in either the House or Senate in the Nov. 3 elections, that sets the stage for a nail-biting standoff between the president and Democrats — or, worse yet, a possible US payment default. That risk will rise in the second half of 2027, according to estimates by the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Raising the debt limit is near the top of the list of goals key Republican budget leaders have for a crowded legislative agenda when Congress returns to work after the November elections. The newly elected Congress takes office in early January.

“We should get this done sooner rather than later,” said Senate Finance Chairman Mike Crapo, whose committee has jurisdiction over fiscal issues.

‘An Option’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune was more circumspect, saying Wednesday it was “an option” to use the current Republican-controlled Congress’s final weeks to carry out the plan, using a special budget process that wouldn’t require any cooperation from Democrats.

The White House has yet to weigh in on the emerging legislative package. Trump in the past has called for the abolition of the debt limit. Last year, amid negotiations over his massive tax and spending measure, Trump said the borrowing ceiling “should be entirely scrapped to prevent an economic catastrophe.”

Lawmakers in both parties often find a vote to raise the national debt limit to be politically difficult, and the opposition party can use the process to force them to go on the record on embarrassing side issues. Still, the risk would be less immediate once the election has passed.

Congress raised the debt limit by $5 trillion, to $41 trillion, in 2025 as part of Trump’s signature tax-cut law. In the past under divided government, Democrats have been able to win concessions to raise the ceiling, something many Republicans are eager to avoid. In 2019, they forced Trump to match increases in defense spending with equivalent rises in spending on domestic programs.

$4 Trillion Bump?

House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington has floated a $4 trillion increase in the debt limit, joined with with a possible $500 billion increase to the Pentagon budget. To help provide some offset, he argues that more aggressive audits of Medicare, Medicaid and other government health programs could eliminate $200 billion in annual spending.

Such an increase could last roughly two years, as the budget deficit has been trending at around $2 trillion a year.

Thune this week cautioned that partisan budget bills are tricky in the Senate, since they require near-complete party unity for the fractious GOP. Ahead of the election, the Senate decided not to take up a $95 billion budget proposal from the House to fund the unpopular Iran war and a bailout for farmers hurt by the conflict and tariff fights.

Thune and his lieutenants determined they didn’t have the needed 50 Republican votes to move forward on that measure before the election. That means having to contend with pressing munitions needs for the war in the post-election session.

In order to gain the cooperation of GOP fiscal conservatives, any increase in the debt ceiling would likely be paired with cuts to government spending. But the battle over cuts to Medicaid and food stamps in the 2025 Trump tax bill illustrated how difficult it was to find consensus within the party on such cuts.

Competing Priorities

The debt ceiling measure would also compete for time with other Senate priorities that have been left unfinished as the chamber departed for campaigning late Wednesday.

Foremost among those: avoiding a government shutdown when a temporary federal spending package expires on Dec. 11. Lawmakers on the Appropriations committees are eager to seal a deal that puts a new stamp on regular agency funding, but their closed-door talks have been complicated by actions taken by the Trump administration.

Last week, the White House unilaterally canceled $810 million worth of social spending approved by Congress, and Democrats are demanding any December bill restore the funding and prevent Trump from continuing to override congressional funding decisions.

“We know what we are coming in to ask for and what we are going to need to get,” said Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the spending panel.

The Senate also plans to pass a new bipartisan agreement on energy permits that emerged this week, deal with any House changes to a newly passed college sports regulation bill and contend with continued votes forced by Democrats to end the war against Iran.

“It’s going to be a very crowded lame-duck session,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins of Maine said.