How Obama is helping a future President Clinton or Christie

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The fiscal standoff in Washington, once an argument about the president’s health care law, has turned into a complicated debate that has consequences not only for the last three years of President Obama‘s tenure, but also for the presidencies of Hillary Clinton, Chris Christie or whoever succeeds Obama: should either party be able to use the threat of the U.S. going over the debt ceiling as a negotiating tool?

President Obama says no, Republicans in Congress argue yes.

“Imagine if a Democratic Congress threatened to crash the global economy unless a Republican President agreed to gun background checks or immigration reform? I think it’s fair to say that Republicans would not think that was appropriate,” Obama said in his hour-long press conference on Tuesday.

He added, “I’m not going to breach a basic principle that would weaken the presidency, change our democracy, and do great damage to ordinary people, just in order to go along with what the House Republicans are talking about.”

He made this point even more explicitly a few minutes later.

“Future presidents, Republican or Democrat, should not be in a position where they have to choose between making sure the economy stays afloat and we avoid worldwide catastrophe, or we provide concessions to one faction of one party in one House,” Obama said.

The Republicans’ strategy of demanding policy changes in exchange for increasing the federal debt limit had been deployed by congressional leaders, including Democrats, in the past. And in 2011, White House officials decided they would use that push by Republicans to try to negotiate a bi-partisan long-term deficit reduction agreement, an effort that failed. Instead, the 2011 budget negotiations resulted in across-the-board budget cuts known as the sequester that Democrats have spent the last few months bemoaning.

For the Republicans, this strategy was very effective in 2011. It helped them achieve one of their principal goals — reducing federal spending. And while in theory a default on the U.S. debt would hurt both parties, back then such a move would have undoubtedly affected Obama the most, since he had to stand for re-election a year later. Obama advisers have acknowledged allowing the Republicans to link the debt limit to broader policy changes was a mistake that they should not repeat.

But this debt limit approach presents a challenge for any president, Democratic or Republican. Ultimately, despite Obama’s repeated declarations that raising the debt ceiling is Congress’ job, the chief executive will be blamed if the economy tanks. If 2011 sets a precedent, then any Congress run by either party has a strong incentive to turn the debt ceiling into an extended debate and demand policy changes they want in exchange for raising the nation’s borrowing limit. And this is a negotiating tool that is both powerful (a default would have more negative consequences than almost any other policy change) and frequent (the debt ceiling must be raised periodically).

If Republicans continue to use this approach for the next three years, Democrats would have a strong incentive to adopt the same tactics when a Republican is in back in the White House.

So Obama is trying, in this latest budget battle, to take the debt ceiling off the table forever. Unsurprisingly, congressional Republicans don’t want to commit to never again using the debt ceiling as a negotiating tool. Republican members of Congress don’t spend a lot of time considering how their actions will affect the next Republican president. And they understand the debt ceiling is the best time for them to demand cuts in Medicare and Social Security spending that many conservatives support.

This debate about the use of the debt ceiling underlies everything that will happen in the next several weeks. It’s why Obama is using blunt phrases like “I’m not budging.” It’s why House Speaker John Boehner is determined to cast his discussions with Obama as “negotiations” on the debt ceiling, as that keeps alive the idea that raising the debt ceiling is something that is horse-traded, not simply an obligation, as Obama describes it. And it’s why there’s a real chance that the two sides don’t reach an agreement and the U.S. at least briefly exceeds the debt limit and faces the consequences of doing so for the first time in recent American history.