The United States cannot keep lurching from self-induced budgetary crisis to crisis.

Republicans weaponized the debt limit during the Obama era, leading to the downgrading of the United States’s credit rating. But rather than being chastened, the deal President Obama agreed to in exchange for preventing default incentivized Tea Party nihilists and normalized governance-by-ransom.

The United States needs to change the status quo before it’s too late.

Prior to 1980, the US government never shut down, and there was never a question as to whether our debts would be paid. But a rogue Attorney General issued a ruling that, rather than continuing to spend at the previously set funding levels, the federal government could not spend what Congress did not affirmatively appropriate.

The current system empowers nihilists who prefer zero government to a government that helps people. That’s why it has to change. With a simple law, Congress could eliminate the debt ceiling and make automatic current-level spending authorizations (called continuing resolutions, or CRs) the fallback if Congress can’t come to an agreement. Instead of inaction creating chaos, inaction would simply continue the current course.

This way, Congress would have to legislate by following the best policies, instead of using crises to attempt to force through cuts to vital programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Take Action: Tell Congress to end government shutdowns once and for all!