The Gephardt Rule?

[kentuck]

<snip>
Well, anyway. The obvious question is, why have two steps? Why not just agree that the debt ceiling will rise to accommodate what Congress agrees to spend? After all, decisions about spending should be hashed out in the budget. That's the point of having them. Breaking the process into two steps only creates the possibility of default, which would harm everyone. (Just ask Wall Street.)

In 1979, this very thought occurred to a young congressman named Richard Gephardt, who proceeded to do something about it. "I had just gotten to Congress," Gephardt explained to me recently. "Tip O'Neill, the legendary speaker, gave me the assignment to pass the debt ceiling [increase]." Back then, the ceiling was below $1 trillion, a fraction of the $14.3 trillion it is today. But Gephardt's job was difficult and lousy nonetheless. "We [Democrats] were in charge of Congress, but nobody ever wanted to vote for it. Republicans wouldn't give us votes, so it was our responsibility. Every time it came up I had to go to every member and seek their vote. It was painful and difficult and, I thought, unnecessary. I'd say to members, 'Did you vote for the appropriations bill? The defense bill? The highway bill?' They'd all say yes. And I'd say, 'Well, then you gotta pay the bill. If you didn't mean it, don't vote for it. Then you wont have to pay for it.'"

Gephardt realized that the easiest way to fix the problem and impose some rationality on the process, was to do away with the second vote. He consulted the parliamentarian. "I asked if there was a way that when we pass the budget [the debt ceiling] can be deemed 'raised' to accommodate the budget people are voting for," Gephardt said. "He said, 'Yeah, we think we can work that out.'"

Thus was born the "Gephardt rule." For a period thereafter, the adoption of the conference report on the budget resolution would trigger the Gephardt rule and "deem to have passed" legislation raising the debt limit to accommodate the spending and revenue levels approved in the budget. Presto! Problem solved.

....more

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/how-dick-gephardt-fixed-the-debt-ceiling-problem/238571/

===============

DU TomCADem discussed this further in his post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3805158

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-07/how-to-solve-the-debt-ceiling-crisis-forever

[truedelphi]

1. So you and Gephardt think that Congressional critters should work

In accordance with the laws of logic?

Sorry, but that is not how politics works.

[kentuck]

2. It is common sense.

<snip>

From above post:

The “Gephardt Rule,” as it became known, lasted until 1995, when the new House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, fresh from the Republican triumph of the 1994 midterms, recognized the same thing that Tea Party Republicans recognize today: The threat of default could be used to extort Democratic concessions. Gingrich abolished the Gephardt Rule, and within the year the government had shut down.

The way out of the crisis for Boehner and Obama is to agree on a deal that allows a modest, face-saving concession to Boehner—medical-device tax repeal?—in exchange for reimposing the Gephardt Rule. True, Obama says he won’t negotiate over the debt ceiling. But his rationale is that doing so would fatally weaken future presidents, who’d be shaken down every time a debt-ceiling vote approached. If such votes were eliminated, Obama would have nothing to fear—and this damaging showdown could finally come to a close.