Senate leaders are weighing a plan that would allow Democrats to pass legislation raising the nation’s borrowing limit ahead of a Dec. 15 deadline without any support from Republicans in the evenly divided chamber.
Under the scheme being considered, at least 60 senators — including 10 Republicans — would have to support a one-time rule change allowing the debt ceiling extension to pass by a simple majority, rather than forcing the bill to clear the 60-vote legislative filibuster.
The House Rules Committee unveiled the language allowing for the new process — including the one-time exception — on Tuesday in a bill aimed at delaying cuts to Medicare. The measure specifies that the debt ceiling be increased by a specific dollar amount, rather than suspended indefinitely.
Most Senate Republicans have said they will not vote to raise the debt ceiling so long as Democrats continue to push President Biden’s nearly $2 trillion social spending bill, which passed the House without GOP support last month.
Democrats have argued that Republicans have a responsibility to vote to raise the debt ceiling, claiming it has been done on a bipartisan basis in the past and is necessary to pay for spending done when the government was under Republican control.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Tuesday that he is confident an agreement will be reached to raise the debt ceiling ahead of the deadline, which has been set by the Treasury Department.
“Over the past few days, we have made good progress on this issue, and I’m optimistic that we will be able to prevent the awful prospect of the US defaulting on its sovereign debt for the first time ever.” Schumer said on the Senate floor.
“Nobody wants to see the US default on its debts,” Schumer added. “As [Treasury] Secretary [Janet] Yellen has warned, a default could eviscerate everything we’ve done to recover from the COVID crisis. We don’t want to see that and I don’t believe we will see that.”
In October, Congress passed a temporary debt ceiling increase to allow for more time to concoct a plan to raise the limit for the long term. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) agreed to a short-term solution as Republicans pushed Democrats to raise the debt ceiling on their own using the reconciliation process.
Some Republicans voiced reservations Tuesday about allowing the one-off change.
“I think the Democrats should raise the debt limit through reconciliation,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told reporters. “They’re spending the money by themselves through reconciliation, they should raise the debt ceiling through reconciliation.”
Lawmakers have also floated attaching the debt ceiling increase as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, a must-pass bill that is a key priority for Republicans. That proposal has been met with strong pushback from GOP lawmakers, with Graham calling the idea a “complete, utter disaster.”
