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5 ways the debt limit fight could play out under Trump

5 12
14.01.2025

President-elect Trump and congressional Republicans are plotting how to address the nation’s debt limit this year.

The debt ceiling, which caps how much money the Treasury can owe to pay the country’s bills, was reestablished earlier this month after being suspended for the past year and half. The national debt now stands at more than $36 trillion.

Trump has called for Congress to move quickly to raise or suspend the debt ceiling. But internal rifts on spending and partisan divides could complicate the path forward.

Here’s a few possible scenarios Trump and Republicans have floated.

Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said this month that Republicans are looking to tackle the debt ceiling as part of a massive reconciliation bill that would contain large pieces of Trump’s agenda.

The maneuver would allow the party to pass the legislation through the Senate with a simple majority, bypassing Democratic opposition — and taking away Democrats’ leverage to extract concessions in exchange for votes to avoid a default.

“The intention is to handle the debt limit in reconciliation in the process, and that way, as the Republican Party, the party in charge of both chambers, we then get to determine the details of that,” Johnson told reporters last week.

“If it runs through regular order or regular process and as a standalone, or as part of the appropriations, for example, then you have to have both parties negotiating, and we feel like we’re in better stead to do it ourselves,” he also said.

But Republicans are already hoping to use that complex maneuver to take on a growing wish list of items in areas like........

© The Hill