Follow the Leader?
“Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling. Without this, we should never make a deal.” Who said that? Surely not a fiscal conservative who wants to hold the line on runaway federal spending! Nancy Pelosi perhaps? Or Chuck Schumer? No, Donald Trump said this on Truth Social on December 20, 2024.
The previous day, the House had rejected 174 to 235 a deal that Trump supported. In fact, he supported it so strongly that he warned before the vote that any Republican who votes against it should be “primaried” — that is, defeated in the primary by another Republican. “If Republicans try to pass a clean Continuing Resolution without all of the Democrat ‘bells and whistles’ that will be so destructive to our Country, all it will do, after January 20th, is bring the mess of the Debt Limit into the Trump Administration, rather than allowing it to take place in the Biden Administration. Any Republican that would be so stupid as to do this should, and will, be Primaried,” he threatened on his social-media platform Truth Social.
The defeated continuing resolution (CR) would have kept federal government operations funded at current spending levels until March 14, 2025, and would have suspended the national-debt ceiling for two years. Notwithstanding Trump’s threat, 38 Republicans joined 197 Democrats in voting against the CR. For the 38 Republicans who voted nay, suspending the debt ceiling was a bridge too far. As for the 197 Democrats, they did not suddenly become fiscal conservatives. Just as Trump did not want to “bring the mess of the Debt Limit into the Trump Administration,” the Democrats wanted to do exactly that.
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