The answer is complicated and a little bit silly. If Congress acts through "regular order" (i.e., the normal legislative process, requiring 60 Senate votes), they can vote to *raise* debt limit to a specific dollar amount, or they can *suspend* it for some specific period of time
https://twitter.com/interfluidity/status/1439987217246474247
In recent years lawmakers have repeatedly decided to *suspend* it. This avoids bad (misleading) headlines about how Congress raised debt to $30T or whatever -- since voters are confused about what debt limit is and don't realize it's about paying off bills already committed to
If on the other hand Congress deals with the debt limit through reconciliation, their only option is to raise the debt limit to a specific dollar figure, NOT suspend it. Dems are afraid that scary # will show up in attack ads (b/c of voter confusion mentioned in previous tweet)
So Dems would prefer to deal with the limit through regular order, which requires Republican votes, rather than reconciliation.
To force everyone (D & R) to commit to that strategy, Dems deliberately left out anything related to debt limit in their "budget resolution" passed last month. That budget resolution says what Congress can and cannot do in reconciliation bills.
Dems can go back and amend that budget resolution, and thereby allow themselves to deal with debt limit through reconciliation, but that's an involved process that will require lots of floor time. More in this thread.
https://twitter.com/crampell/status/1439318587097948160
In short: Dems fear the bad optics of good governance.
My own view is - the bad optics of unilaterally raising the debt limit are annoying but actual default would be much much worse (both in terms of optics and more to the point reality).
My own view is - the bad optics of unilaterally raising the debt limit are annoying but actual default would be much much worse (both in terms of optics and more to the point reality).
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