Politics, like fashion, can be cyclical. And in the coming weeks, America is about to go through the economic version of the return of low-rise jeans — a baffling choice that even in theory benefits only a few select individuals, but in practice is a terrible look for everyone.

The debt ceiling, in case you’ve purged it from your memory, is the legal limit for how much debt the United States can take on as a country. Once that limit is hit, the U.S. Treasury can no longer issue bonds...