Trump needs to increase US debt ceiling, says he does not need to see a default

PALM BEACH, Florida (Reuters) -President-elect Donald Trump mentioned on Tuesday that he needs the U.S. Congress to increase the nation’s debt ceiling, including that he didn’t need to see the federal authorities default on its debt, which presently tops $36 trillion.

“I simply do not need to see a default. That is all I need,” Trump instructed reporters at his Florida resort.

The final congressional suspension of the debt ceiling, agreed to in 2023, expired on the finish of the 12 months, and since then the Treasury Division has been utilizing extraordinary measures to avert default. 

These measures might stave off a default for a number of extra months, however Congress by the center of this 12 months probably must move laws addressing the debt ceiling.

The debt ceiling has not achieved its nominal objective — limiting borrowing — however has been the topic of periodic brinkmanship in Congress, spooking monetary markets by flirting with the chance of a destabilizing default.

Simply final month, Trump torpedoed a bipartisan stopgap spending invoice by insisting Congress elevate the debt ceiling — or just get rid of it — earlier than outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden’s time period in workplace expires on Jan. 20.

Home Republicans didn’t have the votes to satisfy Trump’s calls for.

For a number of weeks now, congressional Republicans and Trump have gone backwards and forwards on whether or not to attempt to move his legislative agenda in a single large invoice or two smaller ones. Both approach, Republicans would use a procedural software known as reconciliation to sidestep Democratic opposition within the Senate.

No. 2 Home Republican Steve Scalise on Tuesday instructed reporters that his occasion’s lawmakers “plan to maneuver ahead on a single reconciliation invoice” that may goal to spice up border safety and clamp down on immigrants in the USA whereas additionally extending 2017 tax cuts and elevating fossil gasoline manufacturing.

Scalise added, nevertheless, that if Trump prefers to separate the laws into two payments that additionally was a risk.

Trump famous at his press convention that two payments could possibly be preferable.