[Benjamin]

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) is dealing with a particularly divided caucus, including members of the House Freedom Caucus who have been calling for major cuts to mandatory spending programs like Medicaid and food stamps for several years. Their votes could prove pivotal to adopting the budget resolution in the House. Including spending reductions in the House budget resolution may be an attractive way to shore up their support at this stage—especially since these same legislators are likely to be frustrated by a potential debt ceiling increase without corresponding spending cuts this fall.

Molly E. ReynoldsThursday, August 24, 2017: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgo...on-the-budget/
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By Anna Edgerton and Sahil Kapur, 18. August 2017, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...showdown-nears

House conservatives are split over how to approach the upcoming debate over the nation’s debt limit, with some resigned to raising it with little drama and others gearing up for a standoff over federal spending levels that could result in an unprecedented default.

“There’s going to be strong opposition from lots of Freedom Caucus members, and my guess is lots of members of the House Republican conference” if the GOP doesn’t include some kind of spending cuts as conditions, he said.

Since a deal to raise the debt ceiling will need at least eight Democrats in the Senate, the minority party has leverage to block any spending cuts or other policy changes that Republicans may try to add.

One likely scenario is that leaders decide to add the debt ceiling measure to a stopgap spending bill that will be needed to keep the government funded after Sept. 30. This, however, would mean that it could get tied up with President Donald Trump’s demands to fund his border wall with Mexico, something most Democrats have rejected.

On the debt ceiling, members of the House Freedom Caucus have long demanded cuts to spending on mandatory programs like Social Security be part of any debt bill.

The 2011 deal (Obama administration) that averted that default was the last time Republicans were able to extract fiscal concessions for a debt limit hike. Since then, they’ve been forced to raise the debt ceiling without strings attached at every deadline, as Democrats take a resolute position against what they describe as hostage-taking by the far right.

Mark Meadows, the North Carolina Republican who chairs the Freedom Caucus, earlier this month sought to reassure bondholders that the U.S. won’t default on its debt. He said while he’s “bullish” on raising the debt limit, he still preferred to attach some reforms to bend the trajectory of the federal deficit.
“I think we ought to attach something to it, we always have, why should we change this time?” Meadows told reporters after a tax event on Aug. 2. “Either that will get done or a clean debt ceiling will get done. We will raise the debt ceiling and there shouldn’t be any fear of that.”

Raising the debt ceiling allows the Treasury to make payments that have already been authorized by Congress. It doesn’t allow the government to commit to spending additional money Congress hasn’t approved.