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Ad will collapse in seconds CLOSE June 5, 2017 06/05/2017 12:10 pm By Ed Kilgore Share Nancy Pelosi has put Republicans on notice that they should not rely on Democrats to help them get a debt-limit increase through Congress no matter what comes next. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

It was probably inevitable: After years of acting as the adults in the room by supporting responsible Republicans seeking to fight back conservative efforts to use the threat of a debt default to extract policy concessions from a Democratic president, congressional Democrats are now thinking about playing some games themselves. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi served notice late last week that her caucus might modify its past support for a clean debt-limit increase and instead issue some demands of their own, such as a public commitment from the Trump administration and their congressional allies that they will not follow up a debt-limit increase with a budget-busting top-end tax cut.

More specifically, the talk in Democratic circles in the Senate as well as the House is to hold Republicans to earlier pledges of deficit-neutrality in whatever they decide to do on the tax front. That would have the practical effect of significantly scaling back the GOPs original plans for massive corporate and individual tax cuts, since Republicans are hopelessly divided on the kind of revenue-raisers that would be necessary to pay for them. And more generally, it would deter the administration and the congressional GOP leadership from even considering concessions to House Freedom Caucus types who have eternally demanded deep spending cuts and/or big conservative policy riders as the minimum price for a debt-limit increase. Without monolithic Democratic support, a debt-limit increase is not likely to survive such demands in the House.

The opportunity for a little Democratic hostage-taking on the debt limit is a product of the GOPs messed-up 2017 congressional schedule. Originally, Congress was supposed to be done with the Obamacare repeal-and-replace legislation by now, and well into the tax-cut phase of its agenda, with a debt-limit increase not considered necessary until early fall. But now the Trump administration is publicly admitting that it wont have its own tax-cut proposal written until after Congresss long August recess, even as Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and budget director Mick* Mulvaney jointly signal that Congress needs to extend the debt limit before that recess. The linkage between the two issues is now all but unavoidable, particularly as the White House continues to make it clear that it wont let its alleged concern about budget deficits get in the way of a tax cut.

No one knows at this point how far congressional Democrats will carry the threat to make support for a debt-limit increase contingent on GOP resistance to both deep spending cuts and non-revenue-neutral tax cuts. But for the moment, it probably feels liberating to have something to say on the debt-limit issue other than: Of course we will do the right thing.

This post has been updated with the correct spelling of Mick Mulvaneys first name.

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Democrats Toy With Some Debt Limit Hostage-Taking Of Their Own - New York Magazine