The federal government has to raise the ceiling on the debt or face a default on its bonds, which would set off a national and international crisis. Congress has raised the debt ceiling many times in the past, including three times during Trump’s term.
An extraordinary part of the national debt was generated during Trump’s four years in office, according to ProPublica, especially his 2017 tax cut for the 1% and corporations:
One of President Donald Trump’s lesser known but profoundly damaging legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on his watch. The financial burden that he’s inflicted on our government will wreak havoc for decades, saddling our kids and grandkids with debt….The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by a leading Washington budget maven, Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. And unlike George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln, who oversaw the larger relative increases in deficits, Trump did not launch two foreign conflicts or have to pay for a civil war.
Republicans do not want to raise the debt ceiling. President Biden challenged them to come up with their own plan. They did. It involves cuts of 22% to everything but Social Security, Medicare, and defense spending.
Dana Milbank wrote in the Washington Post:
Jen Kiggans had the haunted look of a woman about to walk the plank.
The first-term Republican from Virginia barely took her eyes off her text Wednesday as she read it aloud on the House floor. She tripped over words and used her fingers to keep her place on the page.
The anxiety was understandable. Like about 30 other House Republicans from vulnerable districts, she was about to vote in favor of the GOP’s plan to force spending cuts of about $4.8 trillion as the ransom to be paid for avoiding a default on the federal debt.
“I do have serious concerns with the provision of this legislation that repeals clean-energy investment tax credits, particularly for wind energy,” she read. “These credits have been very beneficial to my constituents, attracting significant investment and new manufacturing jobs for businesses in southeast Virginia.”
Directing a question to the Republicans’ chief deputy whip, Guy Reschenthaler (Pa.), she asked for “the gentleman’s assurance that I will be able to address these concerns as we move forward in these negotiations and advocate for the interests of my district.”
The gentleman offered no such assurance. “I support repealing these tax credits,” he replied, offering only the noncommittal promise to “continue to work with the gentlewoman from Virginia, just like we will with all members.”
Kiggans then cast her vote to abolish the clean-energy credits her constituents find so “beneficial.”
House GOP leaders are celebrating their ability to pass their debt plan, even though it has no chance of surviving the Senate nor President Biden’s veto pen. But the bill’s passage has achieved one thing that cannot be undone: It has put 217 House Republicans on record in favor of demolishing popular government services enjoyed by their constituents.
In Kiggans’s Virginia, the legislation she just backed would strip tax incentives that go to the likes of Dominion Energy, which is building a $9.8 billion offshore wind project in her district. She also voted to ax solar and electric-vehicle incentives for hundreds of thousands of Virginians, and tax breaks projected to bring $11.6 billion in clean-power investment to the commonwealth.
In addition, the bill she supported sets spending targets that require an immediate 22 percent cut to all “non-defense discretionary spending” — that’s border security, the FBI, airport security, air traffic control, highways, agriculture programs, veterans’ health programs, food stamps, Medicaid, medical research, national parks and much more. If they want to cut less than 22 percent in some of those areas, they’ll have to cut more than 22 percent in others.
According to an administration analysis of what the 22 percent cuts translate to, Kiggans is now on record supporting:
Shutting down at least two air traffic control towers in Virginia.
Jeopardizing outpatient medical care for 162,300 Virginia veterans.
Throwing up to 175,000 Virginians off food stamps and ending food assistance for another 25,000 through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program Women, Infants and Children.
Cutting or ending Pell Grants for 162,900 Virginia college students.
Eliminating Head Start for 3,600 Virginia children and child care for another 1,300 children.
Adding at least two months to wait times for Virginia seniors seeking assistance with Social Security and Medicare.
Denying opioid treatment for more than 600 Virginians.
Ending 180 days of rail inspections per year and 1,350 fewer miles of track inspected.
Kicking 13,400 Virginia families off rental assistance.
Similar calculations can be made for the other 30 House Republicans targeted by Democrats in the 2024 elections who joined Kiggans in walking the plank. Since enactment of the clean-energy credits Republicans have now voted to repeal, for example, clean-energy projects worth some $198 billion and 77,261 jobs have moved forward in districts represented by Republicans, according to the advocacy group Climate Power…
Trump’s huge deficits funded tax cuts for the rich. Biden’s deficits are investments in the future and lifelines for struggling people.
The Republicans’ draconian plan with its deep cuts passed by one vote.
But this week, they jammed their giant, secretly negotiated debt-limit bill through the Rules Committee on a party-line vote — at 2:19 a.m. And they did it with a “deem-and-pass” rule.
Even then, after all the reversals and surrenders, the bill came within one vote of failing. The lawmaker who cast the final, deciding vote? Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.).
How apt that this legislation, built on one broken promise after another, should be carried over the finish line by the world’s most famous liar.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The GOP is only interested in the national debt when they don’t control the White House.
It’s another one of their meaningless, false flag issues just like abortions, labor unions, taxes, public education, and 2nd amendment rights to own weapons of war.
They gripe about taxes all the time but when they lower taxes, they only lower taxes for corporations and the richest one-percent and maybe give the working class a limited tax cut that ends in a year or two (what Traitor Trump did) while getting rid of popular middle class deductions like interest on credit cards (they got rid of that middle class deduction under President Teflon Don Raygun) and property tax, that the real estate industry fights because doing away with property tax as a deduction for the middle class would destroy the housing and building industries and market.
Still, that hasn’t stopped the GOP from bringing the property tax issue back repeatedly, When they want to cut corporate and wealthy taxes more, they keep looking for ways to replace those revenue losses by hitting the middle class by taking away or reducing (with lower limits allowed) some of our deductions.
The year the credit card interest deduction went away, our income taxes increased by several thousand annually, on the same income. Back in the 1980s, my wife at the time, and I carried a lot of credit card debt due to a car accident that wasn’t he fault, and depended on that interest deduction a lot.
We weren’t alone. A lot of middle class families lost their homes from that one because they went from barely being above water to drowning financially.
If those 30 Republicans were so “reasonable” they would get with Democrats to pass the debt ceiling, and then challenge a damaged freedom caucus at every turn. Yet, they worry about being “primaried” and fall in line with Kevin. The Republican Party is toast, if not now, soon. The party brought the tea party arsonist along for years thinking they could be controlled and now the Republicans are controlled by oligarchs who see benefit in an ungovernable legislature unable to hold anyone to account. Meanwhile, the national media will chicken little the debt ceiling crisis to their hearts content and the Democratic Party thinks its important to play nice.
This is where Democrats should do something that looks like strategy, which they sorely need. They should call the GOP out for their willingness to decimate ‘common good’ services needed for vulnerable Americans while they protect tax cuts and loopholes for the ultra-wealthy.
It’s an abdication and forfeiture of the expectation to ever be taken seriously again. This is literally the easiest decision a government official has to make.
In other News of the Absurd, an organization that claims 7,000 ministers as members, Pastors for Trump, plans to hold evening church meetings for Trump all across the country this summer.
Because god’s chosen vessel is a profoundly ignorant philandering would-be playboy and serial con man and crook and pathological liar and malignant narcissist and insurrectionist
Gee. I didn’t even mention “rapist.”
cx: “accused rapist”
I was just listening to “Pod Save the World” and hyper nationalist Hindu’s are doing the same thing with Modi. Why are so many so willing to follow idiots off the cliff?
He’s another gem, that one.
“Pod Save…” was mentioning the need for a global democratic movement to counter the current international autocrats. I just don’t think rational thinkers are coordinated like their diabolical brethren.
Hatred and grievance attract big followings
Here is a part of what Senator Bernie Sanders has to say:
…On April 26th, the Republican House passed the so-called Limit, Save and Grow Act by a vote of 217-215 that would cut federal spending by nearly $5 trillion over the next decade.
Under this legislation, discretionary spending would be frozen at 2022 spending levels for next year and would only be increased by one percent for the next nine years. If Republicans stick to their pledge to exempt the Pentagon from these draconian budget cuts, spending for non-defense programs would be cut by at least 22 percent next year and up to 58 percent by the year 2033.
Here are just some of the estimated impacts of what the American people can expect:
Deep and sweeping budget cuts that would push 790,000 Americans out of their jobs and push our economy towards a recession.
Up to 21 million Americans could lose Medicaid, ripping away the healthcare they need.
1.2 million women, infants and children would not receive the nutrition they need to stay healthy through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program.
Nutrition services, such as Meals on Wheels, would be cut for more than 1 million low-income seniors.
640,000 families would lose access to rental assistance and more than 430,000 low-income families would be evicted from Section 8 housing.
200,000 children would be thrown off of Head Start and 180,000 kids would lose access to childcare.
80,000 jobs would be cut at the Department of Veterans Affairs alone and millions of veterans would be forced to wait much longer for the care they need.
2 million Americans would lose access to health care services through Community Health Centers.
80,000 young Americans would lose their ability to attend college and Pell Grants would be slashed for 6.6 million students.
In other words, while we are experiencing more income and wealth inequality than ever before, and when 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, the Republican proposal would cause massive suffering for the most vulnerable people in our country…