Congress has a decades-long record of raising or suspending the debt ceiling nearly 80 times since 1960, including a $5 trillion increase in July 2025 that set the current $41.1 trillion limit. Credit rating agencies maintain stable outlooks, citing expectations of timely bipartisan action to avoid market disruption and higher borrowing costs. The next limit breach is projected for late 2026 or 2027, after which Treasury extraordinary measures typically provide several additional months before any payment risk. Traders assign 97% probability to no default by 2027 because repeated past resolutions and shared incentives to protect Treasury market functioning and economic stability outweigh brinkmanship risks. Even so, an unprecedented prolonged impasse or major fiscal shock could still shift outcomes before the 2027 horizon.