Debt ceiling threat another Trump folly

’Round and ’round and ’round he goes, and where he stops ... well, when it comes his bombastic rhetoric, President Trump never stops. He runs the risk, if he hasn’t run past that risk a long time ago, of simply not being taken seriously anymore by members of Congress.

The president’s latest blasts have come at House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Trump is making noise about not raising the debt ceiling, a routine matter wherein Congress allows the Treasury to issue debt to allow the country to pay its bills. And Trump is threatening to shut down the government by vetoing spending bills if his border wall isn’t funded.

While this type of inflammatory political flirtation might find favor with the tea party radical right, the core of Trump’s support, not raising the debt ceiling and not passing spending bills would wreak havoc with the economy and send the country into an internal and external spiral. And the border wall, Americans who cheered Trump will recall, was supposed to be built by Mexico.

Ryan and McConnell are more powerful right now than a president weakened by his own big mouth and they say the ceiling will be raised before the late September deadline. And in the end, Trump is not likely to alienate forever GOP leaders — given the ongoing Russia investigation. He may need all the friends he can get — or at least, to avoid making new enemies.

This story was originally published August 25, 2017 at 12:51 PM with the headline "Debt ceiling threat another Trump folly."