House Democrats are sending an early warning shot as the government’s borrowing window inches to a close: winning Democratic support for a debt-ceiling hike will come at a cost for Republicans.

The minority-party Democrats have little power to dictate the debate, but a number of conservative Republicans have long opposed debt limit increases to protest deficit spending. The dynamics could give Democrats leverage in the fight — and they say they intend to use it.

Germany’s upper house of parliament on Friday passed a reform of the country’s borrowing rules and a 500-billion-euro ($542 billion) fund to revamp its infrastructure and revive Europe’s largest economy.

The constitutional amendment to loosen the so-called debt brake also allows for de-facto unlimited spending on defence and security.

The upper house of parliament, which represents the 16 German states, passed the bill with the necessary two-thirds majority after Tuesday’s vote in the lower house, the Bundestag.

Congressional GOP leaders are in a massive pickle as they weigh how to deal with a looming deadline to raise the debt ceiling.

President Trump is pressuring Republicans to not allow Democrats to use the borrowing limit as a leverage point. But fiscal hawks in the Republican conference could make any party-line debt limit bump impossible. And there is not a clear way to get Democratic support for a debt limit hike without significant concessions.

President-elect Trump wants congressional Republicans to figure out a way to avoid a default on the national debt after venting his frustration with the Senate GOP over their failure to raise the debt limit as part of a government-funding package last month.

Trump told Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) at a recent meeting that it’s now up to him to find a way around the debt-limit impasse, according to a Republican source familiar with the conversation.

Is DOGE all bark and no bite?

Billionaire Elon Musk has walked back a prior claim that his vaunted blue ribbon commission on government bloat and inefficiencies would be able to slash the roughly $6.75 trillion annual federal budget by $2 trillion.

Elon Musk, who U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has tapped to oversee a government cost-cutting effort, acknowledged that his declared goal of cutting $2 trillion in spending from the $6.8 trillion federal budget would be a long shot.

"I think if we try for 2 trillion, we've got a good shot at getting 1," Musk, the world's richest person, said in a discussion on Wednesday with Mark Penn, a political strategist and former pollster. He described the $2 trillion target as a "best-case outcome."

Elon Musk on Wednesday backtracked on his goal to cut $2 trillion from the U.S. budget in his role as the co-head of DOGE, Donald Trump’s proposed new advisory body which aims to slash waste and regulations to lower taxes.

Jeff Bezos, Larry Fink and Donald Trump’s Treasury pick Scott Bessent all agree: Turbocharging economic growth is the best route to reining in the U.S.’s massive $36 trillion debt. History is not on their side.

Governments worldwide are grappling with an unprecedented debt load, totaling a staggering $91 trillion. This amount nearly matches the size of the entire global economy and poses a significant threat to the well-being of their populations.

The surge in debt is partly attributed to pandemic-related costs, which have swollen fiscal deficits. Even in affluent economies like the United States, this mounting debt burden now jeopardizes living standards.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Thursday said the swelling national debt is manageable as long as it stays around where it is relative to the rest of the economy.

In a CNBC interview, Yellen also noted that high interest rates are adding to the burden as the U.S. manages its massive $34.7 trillion debt load.