With chaos and brinksmanship the chosen governing strategy of the Russian asset in the White House, everything is at stake, including the global economy. Within a few weeks, the nation is going to hit its debt limit. The Treasury Department should be able to move enough money around to avoid default into early summer, but after that, it's anybody's guess what Trump will do.
The House under Nancy Pelosi has done what it can to mitigate Trump's penchant for chaos. It’s revived and adopted the Gephardt rule from a few decades ago, which automatically raises the debt ceiling when the House passes a budget, at least as far as the House is concerned. The Senate would also have to adopt that budget for it to take effect, that being a major rub of the plan.
Two Democratic senators, Tim Kaine and Jeff Merkley, have introduced their own fix (trigger warning for bad acronym): the Protect our Citizens from Reckless Extortion of our Debt and Irresponsible Tactics (Protect our CREDIT) Act of 2019. In their statement, the senators laid out what the bill would do, requiring the president to determine the amount of debt necessary at the beginning of the fiscal year and propose a new debt limit. That new limit would go into effect within 15 legislative days unless Congress introduced and passed a resolution of disapproval, which would have to be signed by the president. Finally, if during that fiscal year "the federal debt gets within $250 billion of the limit, the President shall submit another written certification, explaining what drove the need for additional debt and proposing a new debt limit for the remainder of the fiscal year, subject to the same congressional disapproval process."
The smart part of the bill, as they say in their statement, is that the whole idea "of having the President increase the debt ceiling, subject to a vote of congressional disapproval, was originally proposed by then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2011." Yep, they're serving McConnell's own idea right back up to him. When McConnell suggested it during the Obama administration and with a rabidly partisan new Republican House, he was trying to quiet the maniacs and calm the markets, saying "we're certainly not going to send a signal to the markets and to the American people that default is an option."
Of course, then he was "quickly excoriated online by tea party bloggers, with Erick Erickson of the Web site RedState.com blasting the plan as 'the Pontius Pilate Pass the Buck Act of 2011.'" After which his tune changed. The debt ceiling became to him "a hostage that's worth ransoming." We'll see what he considers it now that it's his party in control, and his own seat up for re-election next year.