The congressional game of chicken over defaulting on America’s debt begins now.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy jump-started the game of chicken over whether the United States will default on its debt when he announced the introduction of the Limit, Save, Grow Act, which is the current Republican plan to raise the debt limit.
The legislation, which is expected to receive a vote next week, is a 320-page House Republican wish list that has no chance of becoming law, given that Democrats control the Senate and White House. It would raise the debt ceiling until March 2024 while tying that to a host of conservative priorities, including slashing government spending to 2022 levels, capping further spending, and repealing much of the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s landmark social spending bill.
The House GOP bill comes as a potential default could happen sometime over the summer. Democrats have long insisted that they will only support a “clean” debt ceiling increase, without any preconditions or spending cuts, while Republicans have long viewed the debt ceiling as the best leverage to pressure the Biden administration into making broader concessions.
