White House advocates for increase to US debt ceiling
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is rejecting a push from some conservatives to stop paying certain bills on time, instead adopting the Obama administration’s argument that the U.S. government failing to make payments of any kind would risk a global financial crisis.
At issue is the country’s looming collision with the debt ceiling, a legal limit on how much the Treasury Department is allowed to borrow to keep paying the country’s bills. Some conservatives are more comfortable with the United States bumping up against the debt limit.
They say the inability to borrow more would force the government to prioritize the payments that matter most and that financial uncertainty would be avoided so long as the country continued making payments to its creditors.
But the Trump administration on Thursday rejected that line of argument, and some in the administration are pushing Congress to raise the debt ceiling quickly.
“Prioritizing might be technically possible, but it’s not actually feasible or even desirable,” a senior White House official said.
The comments come after a week of discordant statements from top Trump administration officials about the debt ceiling, which Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says must be raised by August to ensure the government can continue paying its bills.
Mnuchin told lawmakers last week that his “preference” would be for the debt ceiling to be increased without spending cuts. Many Democrats have said they would not support a debt ceiling increase if spending cuts are attached.
But White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, in an interview Wednesday with the Washington Examiner, said he would “like to see things attached to (a debt ceiling increase) that drive certain spending reforms and debt reforms in the future.”
On Thursday, however, White House officials stressed that Mulvaney was not endorsing a specific White House position and that he was simply referring to the principle he followed when he was in the House of Representatives.
“We’ve consistently said that the debt ceiling needs to be raised and have urged Congress to act before the August recess,” OMB spokesman John Czwartacki said. “Clearly, doing so allows us to meet our payment commitments.”
The divergence between the perspectives of Mnuchin and Mulvaney represent different factions within the White House, and it feeds into different views within the Republican Party over how to handle the looming debt ceiling issue.
“To me, that’s striking,” said Phil Swagel, a former top Treasury official during the George W. Bush administration.
“Even though they sit together and discus the same thing, they emerged not on the same page.”
Illustrating the divide, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has said he will work to raise the debt ceiling, but the House Freedom Caucus, which controls enough votes to prevent Republicans from advancing any bill along party lines, has said any increase must be accompanied by spending cuts.