A promising proposal that would force them to do just that has come forward from the Concord Coalition this week. The coalition is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to fiscal responsibility.
The coalition notes that if the debt limit is not raised, “All of the same obligations would still accrue. The only change would be to compel a default on commitments that result from past policy decisions... It has always been assumed, for good reason, that the United States of America would pay its bills. Refusing to pay some or all of its bills would not be an act of fiscal responsibility; it would be turning the federal government into a deadbeat.”
So the coalition proposes raising the debt limit immediately in order to end the “crisis” atmosphere and then promptly offer a reform that would prevent a similar crisis from ever occurring again. Maybe the coalition is hopelessly naive in its belief that negotiations could result in coming to grips with out-of-control spending and inadequate tax policies, but they are certainly right that the debt limit itself is a flawed mechanism that is just enabling irresponsible spending.
Rather than continuing to use the debt ceiling as a way for Congress to ratify its own earlier bad decisions, the Concord Coalition wants the limit to be an immediate factor in every spending decision Congress makes.