Democrats mull short-term debt ceiling offer to avoid budget reconciliation
- GOP's Mitch McConnell offered short-term debt ceiling support to Democrats
- Several Democratic senators want to avoid the budget reconciliation process
- White House press secretary Jen Psaki said no 'formal offer' had been made
Several Democratic senators are considering the Republican party’s offer for a short-term increase of the debt ceiling as a bargain to pass President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda. The senators, however, want to avoid the budget reconciliation process that would force them to go through at least one additional round of a “vote-a-rama” that the Republicans could use to put the Democrats in a tight spot. The budget process would also force Democrats to specify the debt limit raise.
Democrats, who emerged from their caucus meeting, said they’re concerned about the precedent that would be set by raising the debt limit through this tedious process, according to CNN.
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“There’s not going to be reconciliation,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, chairman of the Budget Committee.
Asked how they would raise the debt ceiling before December, Sanders said, “We’ll see. Around here two months is a lifetime.”
Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin did not address the caucus, but Democrats don’t believe they have the votes yet to gut the filibuster to raise the debt ceiling.
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“Right now, it’s unclear,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said when asked if they’d have the votes to gut the filibuster.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki responded to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell‘s proposals to avert a default on the debt limit. “We could get this done today, we don’t need to kick the can, we don’t need to go through a cumbersome process that every day brings additional risks,” she told reporters on Wednesday.
Psaki said “there’s been no formal offer made.” She said even the “scant details that have been reported present more complicated more difficult options than the one that is quite obvious in the President’s view, and it’s in front of the faces of every member up on the Hill.”
McConnell said on Wednesday that the Republican party would clear the way to suspend the debt ceiling on a short-term basis. to let Democratic lawmakers come up with a more long-lasting solution before the end of the year.
In a statement posted on Twitter on Wednesday, McConnell wrote, “To protect the American people from a near-term Democrat-created crisis, we will also allow Democrats to use normal procedures to pass an emergency debt limit extension at a fixed dollar amount to cover current spending levels into December.”
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