I remember first hearing about some obscure thing called the debt ceiling in the mid-1980s. I was a Washington-based reporter for regional newspapers in Florida owned by The New York Times, and two junior House members from Florida on the Budget Committee were threatening to block a debt-limit increase unless the federal deficit was cut.
Sound familiar?
I — and the American public — have been through variations of the debt-limit dance over the years, with some episodes more dramatic than others. As a congressional reporter, I have become accustomed to an odd Washington spectacle: lawmakers exploiting the full faith in, and the credit of, the United States to force through ideas that probably couldn’t clear Congress without the possibility of default.
But the most recent standoff over America’s ability to pay its bills, which ended on Thursday with a late-night Senate vote, ranks up there in its suspense. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had not led this type of brinkmanship before, and his Republican majority had a significant bloc of far-right lawmakers who didn’t seem to mind a little chaos. After the usual twists and turns, and some surprises, President Biden and Speaker McCarthy finally struck a deal to lift the government’s borrowing limit. The talks worked out — as all of them have. So far.
Covering a debt-limit fight requires an odd combination of knowledge of arcane congressional processes — discharge petitions, rules committee procedures, 302(b) allocations — and pure stamina.
Reporters spend hour upon hour waiting outside the closed doors of private negotiations or lingering around the speaker’s office hoping that a lawmaker will emerge and offer a few wisps of information. In this case, Mr. McCarthy frequently made himself available for what are known as stakeouts (formal meetings with the media) outside his office or the more impromptu “scrums” in the hallways of the Capitol. He had his reasons for communicating with the public as he sought to gain the upper hand in the fierce messaging war he was waging with the White House and congressional Democrats.
Covering these deals requires patience and diversion, especially when nothing happens for extended periods of time. On one recent Sunday night, while negotiations continued far out of view, I killed a few hours by studying the statues and paintings in the nearly empty Capitol Rotunda.
A certain physicality also comes into play when covering such deliberations. I recorded at least 12,000 steps a day running around the marble floors of the Capitol, between the House and the Senate, chasing information. (That reminds me: I should cancel my gym membership.)
Though this year’s fight concluded with time to spare, others had their moments of doubt. The memorable debt-limit clash of 2011 between President Barack Obama and Speaker John Boehner, for example, came down to the wire and had reporters — and Wall Street — sweating. Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner tried to pull off a “grand bargain” of fiscal rejiggering, but it collapsed for myriad reasons. Default was so imminent that the nation’s credit rating took a hit. It was left to Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, to devise a way out.
In his usual way, Mr. McConnell came up with a circuitous plan in which Republicans allowed a debt-limit increase to go through while also allowing themselves to vote against it, an approach I labeled a “legislative magic trick” in an article.
The debt clashes have become so epic, and the content demands of the news business have grown so exponentially, that it takes a team to cover them. The Times had a strong one these last few weeks, which included my congressional partner Catie Edmondson; the White House correspondent Jim Tankersley; the Treasury reporter Alan Rappeport; and the economics editor Deborah Solomon. Then there’s Julie Hirschfeld Davis, The Times’s congressional editor, a onetime Congressional Quarterly reporter and a true congressional process nerd.
Because of the damage a default could inflict on American finances, and the willingness of Republicans to use the debt limit for negotiating leverage, talk has increased of eliminating the limit once and for all, either legislatively or by invoking the Constitution’s 14th Amendment on the inviolability of the U.S. debt.
But if nothing happens, Congress and the White House will be back at it in December 2024, ahead of the Jan. 1, 2025, expiration of the debt-limit suspension approved last week. The New York Times will no doubt be back in the Capitol hallways.
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