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Video: Should we even have a debt limit

Should We Even Have A Debt Limit

From social media to cable news, all the American public sees from our leaders are partisan attacks and hyperbolic rhetoric, but that's not the way it has to be. To prove it, Former Members of Congress (FMC) and the Fulcrum have joined forces to bring you Congress at a Crossroads.

The new monthly video series brings together former members of both parties to discuss the structural issues in today's Congress, as well as the hottest political issues. They won't always agree, but they will always treat each other with respect and civility.


This month, our host, FMC CEO Pete Weichlein sat down with Former Reps. Dave Camp (R-MI) and Bart Gordon (D-TN) to discuss the recent Congressional standoff surrounding a federal debt limit increase, whether we should have a debt limit at all, and what will happen with this same issue when it is revisited in December or January?


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U.S. Capitol.

A rundown of the House bills most likely to become law this week — from seafood fraud enforcement to a sanctions bill critics call a tariff bill.

Photo by Andy Feliciotti on Unsplash

Both Chambers in Session this Week

Last Minute Rush

We’re not going to describe every bill the House aims to take action on this week because there’s lots. Instead, we’re going to focus on the ones that will become law if passed by the House and pull a few notable bills at the beginning of the legislative process. We’ll use the same level of discretion at the end of this week when we review what actually happened between today, Monday Sept. 14 and Friday, Sept. 18.

Probable New Laws

In addition to the bills listed below are also a couple of park renamings. All of these will, if passed, then go to the President for signing and once that’s done, become law.

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The White House, Washington, DC
A large white building with a fountain in front of it

We Can and Should Reform the President’s Pardon Power

On August 21, Congressman Jamie Raskin, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, released a report entitled “Pardons, Inc.: How Trump and His Clemency-for-Cash Racket Let White-Collar Criminals and International Drug Dealers Walk Free and Dodge Billions in Restitution Owed to Their Victims.” As the title suggests, the report documents the president’s startling abuse of his constitutional power to grant pardons and reprieves.

If that problem were limited to Trump, we might look to the ballot box to remedy it. But it is not.

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The Trump Administration’s Plan for Protecting Consumers? Politely Ask Companies to Behave.

Russell Vought, the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, testified before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs in July.

Samuel Corum/Sipa USA via AP Images

The Trump Administration’s Plan for Protecting Consumers? Politely Ask Companies to Behave.

In mid-July testimony before Congress, Russell Vought boasted that, as the acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, he’d refashioned the agency’s approach to pursuing banks and other financial companies accused of exploiting Americans — the role Congress had created for the agency after the 2008 economic crash.

Vought had spent the first 18 months of the new Trump administration trying to dismantle the bureau, much as he and other appointees had done with the U.S. Agency for International Development. At CFPB, he’d ordered mass layoffs, tried to choke off the bureau’s funding and ended the lease on its headquarters, attempting to make good on his vow to put civil servants “in trauma.” But federal courts blocked Vought’s efforts to close the CFPB, with a judge at one point saying the administration had acted with “complete disregard” for Congress.

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A man walks with a ship behind him

man walks near the Punta Cardon refinery, on Jan. 23, 2026. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world with an estimated 303 billion barrels.

(Jesus Vargas/dpa via ZUMA Press/TNS)

Americans should be concerned about the fine print on Trump’s new oil deal

So, it was a war for oil after all.

On social media Friday, President Trump announced that the United States and Venezuela have struck an agreement for “THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY.”

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