House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) will speak at the White House in Washington, D.C., on September 29, 2019, alongside Vice President J.D. Vance, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota), the day President Donald Trump meets with Congressional leaders from both parties ahead of a September 30 deadline to fund the government and avoid a government shutdown. 2025.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
Washington’s next fiscal crisis is on the horizon. It may be difficult to fix it.
Analysts predict the U.S. will breach the $41.1 trillion debt ceiling at some point in 2027, and the Treasury Department will ask Congress to raise or suspend the cap before exhausting “contingency measures” to avoid a catastrophic default. If Democrats take control of one or both chambers of Congress in November’s midterm elections, it would open the door to conflict as the party seeks to wrest policy victories from Republican President Donald Trump at the expense of avoiding the challenge of climbing over the fiscal cliff.
President Trump also proposed last week to give every American $5,000 in dividends if Republicans win the midterm elections, which could move the US closer to the debt ceiling sooner.
And while some Republicans have proposed raising the debt ceiling this year to pre-empt the possibility of brinkmanship next year, perhaps during a lame-duck session immediately after the election, some Republicans have already ruled out such a move without significant spending cuts as the national debt balloons to more than $40 trillion, a record high.
“There’s already some discussion going on that if we lose the midterm elections, we’re probably going to be in a lame duck situation,” said Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Missouri. “Because I don’t think the president wants the Democrats to squeeze every pound of his flesh out of him.” Burleson proposed a constitutional amendment that would require the U.S. government to balance the budget and set a cap on future federal borrowing.
But Burleson also said, “A blanket increase will not get my vote.”
“If you’re a fiscal conservative, you should take every opportunity to reduce the deficit whenever there’s a vote to raise the debt ceiling,” he said.
Other conservative MPs agreed, citing the recent rise in Treasury yields as a reason for the spending cuts and denying full approval for additional borrowing.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, told CNBC when asked if he supported raising the debt ceiling by the end of the year.
“If we’re going to sit down and work on the debt ceiling, or if we’re going to sit down and talk about tax-related things, we’re going to have to get serious about spending restraint, so we’ll see,” Roy said.
This leaves Republican leaders House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and Majority Leader John Thune (R-La.) in a predicament. Mr Johnson enjoys a narrow majority in the House of Commons, with only three people able to leave the party on a party-line vote. And getting the debt ceiling bill past the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate would require votes from Democrats, who are likely to balk at deep cuts to spending programs frequently targeted by Republicans.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (R-N.Y.) speaks on the Senate steps with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (L) (D-N.Y.) during an event with Congressional Democrats on May 21, 2026 in Washington, D.C.
Win McNamee | Getty Images
Democrats will also be hesitant to agree to raising the debt ceiling even if they win the November election, given that it is one of their most important points of influence over the White House.
“I want to know exactly what their proposal would look like and compare it to what we could do with a majority,” said Rep. Suhas Subrahmanyam, a Virginia Democrat. “If they try to put us in a lame duck position, we’re not going to go along with it.”
This is not the first time the debt ceiling has been used as leverage when a majority party in Congress controls the White House.
In 2023, House Republicans led by then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy brought the country to the brink of debt default, then struck a deal with then-President Joe Biden to cut spending in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. Despite controlling only one chamber of Congress, Republicans were able to score multiple policy victories during this episode.
But despite its potential impact, some Democrats remain cautious about the debt ceiling. Past debt ceiling conflicts, although they did not result in default, had a negative impact on U.S. credit standing. Fitch downgraded the U.S. credit rating from “AAA” to “AA+” following the previous standoff, saying that “repeated political conflicts and last-minute resolutions over debt limits have undermined confidence in fiscal management.”
Rep. Richard Neal (Massachusetts), the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said Democrats “want to keep fiscal responsibility on the table.”
“But I think we have to remember that the 2017 tax cuts and last year’s tax cuts have contributed significantly to this problem,” Neal said.
Neil also added a warning: “It’s dangerous to play with this.”
Asked what Democrats would like to see in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, Neal said: “We need to have an open conversation about it.” “We know we don’t want to default.”
