GOP offering a short-term debt fix
Under proposal, hike in debt ceiling would last into December
WASHINGTON — Sen. Mitch McConnell, bowing to the threat of a federal default, said Republicans would allow Democrats to raise the debt ceiling into December, but he refused to lift his blockade of a long-term increase in the government’s borrowing limit.
The offer appeared to reflect some nervousness on the part of Republicans in an escalating standoff over the government’s borrowing limit, as a first-ever default on federal debt looms in as few as 11 days. McConnell, R-Ky., has led his party’s refusal to allow Democrats to even take up legislation to lift the cap, instead demanding that they employ a complicated and time-consuming budget maneuver called reconciliation to do so.
But in a statement Wednesday, he said Republicans would “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.”
The proposal offered a way out of the short-term fiscal crisis facing the nation and a means for McConnell to defuse criticism that his party was acting recklessly in blocking Democrats from addressing it. It also confronted Democrats with the prospect of a politically uncomfortable vote that some of them had wanted to avoid, embracing a set dollar amount by which they would raise the debt cap.
“This will moot Democrats’ excuses about the time crunch they created and give the unified Democratic government more than enough time to pass standalone debt limit legislation through reconciliation,” McConnell said.
Shortly after he floated his offer, Democrats put off a planned vote on a bill to lift the debt limit — which Republicans had vowed to block for the second time in two weeks — and arranged a closed-door gathering in the Capitol. Whether or not they agreed to McConnell’s proposal, it would do little to resolve the current partisan impasse over the debt limit, merely postponing a default deadline for a matter of weeks.
With the vote up in the air Wednesday, the government was still on course to its first loan default as early as Oct. 18, an economic debacle that both sides acknowledge could have devastating consequences.
Senate Democrats need 10 Republicans to side with them to allow them to bring up a Housepassed measure that would lift the government’s legal borrowing limit until December 2022, but they appear to be nowhere close. It would be the second time in less than two weeks that Senate Republicans have filibustered a debt ceiling measure.
And it would leave Democrats with three difficult choices. They could bow to McConnell’s demand and begin the reconciliation process that would ultimately bypass the blockade; move to change the Senate’s filibuster rules and allow a simple majority vote to raise the debt ceiling; or keep trying and hope that Republicans fold.
McConnell’s offer was designed to rob Democrats of the argument that they do not have time to capitulate to his demand.
The reconciliation process must start in the House with a budget resolution instructing committees to draft legislation to lift the debt ceiling, and the House is not in session this week. With at least some Republicans promising more dilatory tactics, the process could take awhile, but not until December.
McConnell may be showing concern about the other two alternatives. Carving out an exception to the filibuster rules, which effectively require 60 votes to move forward with most legislation, has been done for judicial and executive branch nominees. But doing so unilaterally to raise the debt ceiling would be a lurch toward ending the filibuster for all policy matters and instituting straight majority rule.
The move has long been resisted by institutionalists and centrists in both parties, including two current Democrats, Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, although some leading Democrats argue this debt ceiling drama could change minds.
“Nothing changed,” Manchin told reporters Wednesday.
Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 4 Republican, warned that if Democrats change the filibuster rule, “they’ll permanently change the Senate, permanently change the relationships that still matter in the Senate, and institute the idea that 50 of you plus a vice president of your party can always do whatever you want to do.”
Praying for Republicans to fold after two failed efforts to break their filibuster is an even riskier play for Democrats. If, for the first time, the U.S. government could not meet its obligations to international lenders, the world economy’s safe-harbor investment would be called into question. Interest rates would probably rise sharply, and global financial institutions would begin searching for new vehicles to store money.
“We’re not asking them to blink; we’re asking them to be the slightest bit reasonable,” Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said of Republican leaders.
While top Republicans have said most of their members would privately support allowing Democrats to move forward on their own, they have been unwilling to vote publicly that way.