Daily Herald opinion: We don’t have to do this: Congress hurts the country, and itself, by not ending debt ceiling showdowns

Federal lawmakers don’t need a Harvard economics degree to predict that a budget they pass in April will signal the need for a national debt ceiling increase come Oct. 1, the beginning of the next fiscal year — as well as likely continuing resolutions for appropriations along the way.

They can well foresee where spending demands will take them. They know the deadlines for appropriating funds. And, if nothing else, they have history to guide them. According the Pew Research Center, it has been nearly 30 years since Congress passed all 12 of its required appropriations bills on time and since that time in 1996, it has never passed more than five of the 12 bills by the Oct. 1 deadline. In 13 of the past 15 years, lawmakers have not passed a single spending bill on time.

So, why do we find ourselves bumping our heads against the debt ceiling nearly every year, with intermittent continuing resolutions crises thrown in for not-so-good measure?

There can be only one reason, and it, of course, is not that Congress has determined that periodic financial upheavals are good for the country. It is that periodic financial upheavals provide the opportunity for a high-stakes political showdown over who to blame — or how to avoid blame — for the disastrous consequences of shutting down the activities of a third of the federal government.

Thus, we find ourselves beset by yet another season of fiscal brinkmanship that serves no one other than the operators of the political machinery designed to advance not efficient government but votes.

Sadly, the system ultimately does no one any good. Its most visible victims are the tens of thousands of employees forced to go without paychecks, sometimes even though they are required to work. Its most consequential casualties are the hundreds of thousands to millions of Americans who lose access to needed programs and services.

And, ultimately, all this suffering serves only to further instill in the public a sense that their congressional leaders, in both parties, are incapable of working cooperatively in the interest of the country and the population at large.

As we said in an editorial during a 2023 iteration of this pathetic circus show, there has to be a better way. And there is. Indeed, there are more ways than one. Solutions have been suggested over time, ranging from eliminating the debt ceiling requirement altogether to making increases automatic for approved budgets to allowing the president or some other officer to extend the debt limit unless Congress passes a resolution disapproving.

There are drawbacks to all these proposals, but any of them would be better than the never-ending partisan show that our top leaders in Congress put on now. One of these times, lawmakers are going to feel the sting of their dangerous theatrics themselves and do something to move government forward and renew the public’s confidence in them.

Could this be that time? Let us hope that if nothing else comes of the current crisis of confidence, it might.