The history of the debt ceiling makes for some interesting reading, but I think the most important thing to understand is that is has been used as a weapon for decades now by the Republican Party. This is selective, of course. When there is a Democratic president and the Republicans control Congress, or even one chamber of Congress, they will try to extract concessions with the threat of letting the country default on it debts if they don’t get what they want. But even under Republican presidencies, congressional Republicans have often needed some Democratic votes to raise the debt ceiling.

An example came six years ago in August when Congress passed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 which suspended the debt limit until July 31, 2021. Nancy Pelosi, who was then serving as Speaker, ushered the bill through the House in a 284-149 vote, but the Republicans disapproved 132-65, meaning almost twice as many GOP congresspersons voted to default on our debts as voted to honor our obligations. And they did this during a Republican presidency.

The problem with needing Democratic votes is that it compels the Republicans to make concessions. Trump didn’t enjoy this experience in his first term and he does not want to see it repeated. After he won reelection in November 2024 but before he took office in January 2025, Trump asked Congress to do away with the debt ceiling altogether. When Congress refused, the backup plan was to force the congressional Republicans to do something they’ve never done before, which is extend the debt ceiling relying only on their own votes. This is especially tough to do because the Republicans have very narrow majorities in both the House and Senate, and they have many members who have promised to never extend the debt ceiling.

To make the task possible, the debt ceiling hike was essentially hidden inside the “One, Big Beautiful Bill” which includes some legislation considered to be “must-pass” by nearly all Republicans. But that presented a new problem. Because the government is going to run out of money sometime between July and the end of summer, Congress cannot delay raising the debt ceiling much longer.

That means, for the strategy of hiding the vote inside a bigger bill to work, the bigger bill must not be delayed. At a certain point, if the One Big, Beautiful Bill is still held up in negotiations, Congress will need to split off the debt ceiling vote. And, if that happens, there’s no prospect of the GOP being able to pass it using only their own votes because the roll call will be held in plain sight.

Realizing that this crisis is looming, President Trump reiterated his desire this week to see the debt ceiling abolished. The last thing he wants is to go running to Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries asking for votes, because that will allow them gain leverage that can be used to check his unconstitutional and dictatorial plans and agenda.

But, as Katherine Tully-McManus of Politico noted, this “message publicly undermined his party’s strategy for handling the debt limit this summer as part of their megabill.” If you’re asking extremely reluctant Republicans to extend the debt ceiling, it’s not a great idea to tell them you think the vote shouldn’t happen at all. So, this required some messaging clean-up, and that’s where Russell Vought stepped into the breach.

White House budget chief Russ Vought tempered President Donald Trump’s call for the elimination of the debt limit earlier Wednesday, saying the president wants to keep the debt limit increase in Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” but explore eliminating the debt ceiling down the line.

Vought, in an evening press call with reporters, said the president views the debt limit as a tool that is used only by Democrats to “leverage against all of the reforms that we are doing to save the country.”

The truth is that Trump has it mainly backwards. Since at least the 1990’s, it has been the Republicans who have used the debt limit as a tool to extract concessions, which has forced the Democrats act as adults time and time again by taking politically difficult votes to save the country’s creditworthiness. When Pelosi won concessions in 2019, her party was in the majority. But, due to Republican unwillingness to extend the debt ceiling, the Democrats have provided needed votes even when in the minority. And that’s precisely what will be required if there’s any delay in passing the One, Big Beautiful Bill.

So, Vought is correct when he says that the Democrats could “leverage against all of the reforms” he and Trump are imposing on the country.

Now, the obvious way to convince nearly every Republican officeholder in Congress to vote to authorize more debt is to argue that you’re cutting spending pretty drastically so that the process won’t perpetuate itself.

Trump has tried three arguments and they’re all failing. The first is that his tariffs will bring in so much revenue that everything will more than balance out. But if his tariffs are only negotiating tools to win better trade deals with foreign countries, then they aren’t going to be permanent and therefore won’t help with a 10-year budget outlook.

The second is to argue that the bill itself will save money, but the Congressional Budget Office and outside non-partisan analysts estimate it will increase the debt by 2-3 trillion dollars over a decade.

And the third is to argue that all the savings found by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will pay for it, but DOGE didn’t come close to reaching its goal of trimming spending by one trillion dollars. What’s worse, is that Musk is now loudly (and correctly) complaining that all his efforts were for naught because the One, Big Beautiful Bill will explode the deficits.

The Republicans are now resorting to simple lies about the budgetary impact of their bill by saying the CBO is controlled by Democrats and other like nonsense, but the problem isn’t primarily with convincing the public which doesn’t generally understand complicated accounting. The GOP is attempting to deceive its own members, and so far it is not convincing.

For years, the Republicans have railed at their opponents for authorizing more and more deficit spending without making cuts. Now the Trump administration is demanding that almost every single one of them do the same thing, and to do it to pay for tax cuts paid for with more than 11 million Americans’ health care insurance.

It’s a demand for maximum hypocrisy coupled with suicidal voting behavior, and everyone in Trump’s orbit has to pretend like it’s all a good idea.

Well, Elon Musk is not going to continue to pretend. He will use his money and his Twitter/X platform to sink the bill, and possibly to run primaries against many of the Republicans who vote for it.

But, still, the GOP has walked so far out on this plank, betting everything on the prompt passage of the One, Big, Beautiful Bill, that they may just go ahead and jump in the water.

It does look, however, like it got much less likely this week that the bill will pass by July 4, as the Senate has set as its goal. And that means the debt ceiling may have to be addressed by the Democrats, who will have a very large asking price.