The US federal government spends far more money each year than it receives in revenues, producing a budget deficit that is projected to average in excess of $1 trillion a year for the next decade. Those deficits will add to a national debt that topped $31 trillion last year. Administration officials have given no indication that they would negotiate with Republicans over a debt-limit increase at all — nor that they were preparing to act unilaterally to bypass the debt ceiling, as some progressives have pushed for, in the event of a House speaker refusing to put a debt-limit increase to a vote without steep spending cuts. 214