The obvious GOP ploy to force the Democrats to raise the debt limit alone so the GOP can turn around and scream about Democratic extravagance has an easy answer: split the bill in two … one part to pay for Trump’s contribution to the debt, the other to pay for Biden’s share.
Using estimates from the U.S. GAO, we can price out the debt effects from the Trump tax cut, perhaps even estimate the debt effects of the very poor early COVID-19 response from Trump and his mercenary minions, estimate the loses from the failed trade war with China, etc. … add all this up and have a line item in the all-Democratic bill that raises the US debt limit specifically to repay this Trump portion. Then we have another line item to raise the debt limit to account for Biden’s far more productive uses of federal deficit funding.
In general, I think explicitly tying the federal debt limit being raised to the expenses that have generated this debt, helps shift the focus from “OH no — more debt” to more useful questions of “Was the spending useful and timely?” and this reinforces the idea that we are merely covering our previous spending choices … paying our bills, rather than making controversial new choices. The time to decide that an item on the menu is too expensive is when you are placing your order — not when you have eaten it and the bill comes due.
Tax cuts and war are costly — but balking at the eventual bill merely undermines our international standing as credit worthy. Tax-and-Spend Democrats may sound bad, but compared to Dine-and-Dash Republicans we are models of fiscal sanity and fairness— even on by conservative measures.