McConnell: Dems ‘won’t get our help’ to lift debt ceiling

WASHINGTON — Republicans will oppose raising the federal debt limit if Democrats pursue their $3.5 trillion, 10-year plan to strengthen social and environment programs, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday.

The Kentucky Republican’s threat was the most explicit he has been about his desire to force Democrats to either take the politically unpopular step of unilaterally renewing the government’s borrowing authority or to pare back President Joe Biden’s domestic policy agenda.

His remarks suggest that another high-stakes budget showdown between the two parties, with the government’s financial soundness in the balance, may be on tap.

The party not controlling the White House often uses such moments to seek leverage, such as when Republicans pressured President Barack Obama into a 2011 deal that cut spending.

The government’s ability to borrow cash to finance its operations expired Sunday, when a 2-year-old temporary suspension of borrowing limits lapsed. The Treasury Department has used accounting moves ever since to keep the government afloat, but the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that such actions will suffice only until October or November.

If the government loses access to fresh money, it could prompt a federal default, which has never occurred.

Analysts have said that could badly wound the economy, perhaps over the long term, forcing up interest rates and federal borrowing costs.

Last month, McConnell said he couldn’t “imagine a single Republican” voting to raise the spending ceiling in an environment of “freefor-all for taxes and spending.”

On Thursday he was more explicit. His remarks came just days before Democrats plan to begin pushing a budget resolution outlining their $3.5 trillion domestic programs package through the Senate.

“Let me make something perfectly clear: If they don’t need or want our input, they won’t get our help,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “They won’t get our help with the debt limit increase that these reckless plans will require.”

At least for now, Democrats seem unlikely to pare back their plans to bolster education, health and environment programs that are the backbone of Biden’s policy aspirations.

But some moderate Democrats are reluctant to vote to renew federal borrowing powers without at least some GOP backing.

They could put language suspending the debt limit anew in a bill Congress will have to approve by Oct. 1, the start of the government’s new budget year, to keep agencies open.

That would force Republicans to decide whether to provide the needed votes for a bill that, if defeated, could cause the government to both default and close its doors.

The government’s current debt ceiling is $28.4 trillion.