Eliminating the federal debt ceiling, as President-elect Donald Trump advocated Thursday, would please Democrats and many budget experts, many of whom have long said that it serves no purpose and only invites chaos. 

Yet it would be rued by small-government conservatives, who have long maintained that the debt ceiling helps restrain spending. They argue that negotiations to raise the debt ceiling have provided some of the few historical instances in which Congress has been forced to reach deals to cut the deficit.