Editorial — We need a new script: The debt ceiling plotline played out periodically is getting old

They yell at each other for long periods of time. And just before the nation defaults on its financial obligations, a deal is miraculously struck.

If we were cynics, we’d strongly suspect that all the drama was a well-crafted plot with pre-determined results. It appears as though our federal legislators were actors going through the motions just so they can stir the sentiments of their base of supporters — and beg for campaign contributions to keep the radicals in the other camp at bay.

This scenario is playing itself out now.

On April 26, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a measure to increase the debt limit by $1.5 trillion or extending it through March, whichever comes first. In addition, they approved a deficit reduction plan totaling nearly $4.8 trillion. They said this should compel Democrats to start negotiating for an increase in the debt ceiling.

“The 222-member House GOP conference largely unified around the bill after weeks of tense negotiations, including last-minute changes leadership reluctantly agreed to include in the wee hours of [the morning of April 16]. Dozens of Republicans who supported the bill were casting their first-ever votes for a debt limit increase,” according to a CQ-Roll Call story published April 26 by the Watertown Daily Times. “Ultimately, four Republicans — Tennessee’s Tim Burchett, Florida’s Matt Gaetz, Colorado’s Ken Buck and Arizona’s Andy Biggs — voted against the bill, the maximum number of defections GOP leaders could afford. The 217-215 vote was otherwise along party lines. But a full-court press from Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other GOP leaders won over others who’d been leaning against the measure, such as Nancy Mace of South Carolina. Mace said after [an April 26] meeting with McCarthy that she’d back the bill after the speaker promised to work with her on future efforts to balance the federal budget, including a possible balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.”

It should surprise no one that U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-New York, has expressed his concerns with the “Limit, Save and Grow Act” that Republicans worked on for weeks. The plan would freeze federal spending at 2022 levels, an article published April 26 by the Watertown Daily Times reported.

“This extreme House plan is a gut punch to upstate families, a gut punch to upstate jobs, a gut punch to our economy,” Schumer said, according to the story. “It may as well have been called the Default on America Act because that’s exactly what it does. It is DOA, dead on arrival.”

We need a new script when it comes to debates over the debt limit.

Republicans are correct that all lawmakers need to take the massive national debt problem more seriously. This calls for prioritizing spending items more prudently. As they add certain items onto our national bill, they should remove others to better balance the books.

However, Democrats have a point in that it’s better to negotiate spending adjustments while drafting the budget than when confronting a debt limit crash. If legislators spent more time conversing with each other rather than merely playing to their base, we may actually stumble over a solution that works.