The debt-limit time machine: What the last 10 big fights tell us about this one

The president’s “no negotiations” playbook comes after more than a decade of hostile debt fights, during which Biden was often an influential dealmaker. When Democrats fired up bipartisan talks upfront, like in 2011, it ended in major spending cuts and economic fallout. When they wouldn’t engage from the beginning, like 2013, House Republicans eventually unraveled their own ultimatums.

Having lived that history, Biden now continues to goad House Republicans to show they can rally around a plan for fiscal reforms, as the nation approaches the threat of a summer default on its more than $31 trillion debt.

If the past is prologue, the strategy is still a setup for an economically bruising impasse that ends with some budget concessions. Over the last decade, Democrats were often willing to eventually agree to more minor fiscal changes than the deep spending cuts their colleagues initially sought.

“If the president looks back at recent history and is fair-minded about it,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), “what he will see is that it’s always a negotiation process.”

Many Democrats argue there are two significant but nuanced differences between the current debate and past debt-limit deals: first, that the party demanding concessions hasn’t made an offer; second, the growing concern that, this time, Republicans would let the nation default on its debt if they can’t extract their tradeoffs.

“If they’re willing to actually pull the trigger, then that’s the difference,” said Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).

Here’s how negotiations went down the last 10 times Congress acted on the debt limit: