Welcome Back, US Senate, And Good Luck…
The US Senate will be back in session after an extended break, and the to say their legislative plate is full is an understatement.
From Punchbowl News:
The problem, of course, is the debt limit. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the federal government will run out of borrowing authority sometime in October. Democrats want to attach a debt-limit increase to the CR, although neither Speaker Nancy Pelosi nor Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has formally said this yet.
Here’s a new Congressional Research Service report that Schumer requested showing former President Donald Trump racked up $5.7 trillion in debt between August 2019 — the last debt limit increase — and the end of his term in January 2021. And here’s a chart that shows the debt the Trump administration racked up over four years. The point Schumer, Pelosi and the White House will seek to make here is that it’s Republicans’ responsibility to lift the debt ceiling too.
Republicans, of course, have said for months that they’re totally opposed to any linkage between the debt limit and CR. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and GOP leaders argue that as long as Democrats are putting together a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that includes huge new social programs and tax increases — essentially reversing the 2017 Republican tax cut — then they’ll refuse to support a debt-limit increase. McConnell wanted Democrats to put the measure in the reconciliation package so they could pass it on a party line vote. Basically his view can be boiled down to this: “You have the White House and Congress, you deal with it.”
Democrats, for their part, say Republicans must support a debt-limit boost because 1) it’s the right thing to do, and 2) Democrats voted for several debt-limit increases while Trump was in office.
In the face of this GOP intransigence, Democrats have only bad options. Let’s review them for a second.
They can try to move a stopgap funding measure with the debt limit increase attached, but that’ll go nowhere in the Senate, where they need 60 votes to advance anything. If the House passes a CR structured like that next week, the Senate will consider but then reject it. Precious time will be wasted there and a government shutdown will then become a real possibility. If Democrats move a clean CR without a debt limit, they’ll avoid a shutdown. But they’ll still have to pass a debt limit on their own in October. That’s a huge risk. Or Democrats could revise the budget resolution to include the debt limit in their upcoming reconciliation package. That’s really, really messy, and party leaders say it’s not going to happen.
Here’s a reality also: There are Republicans who are privately cheering for a government shutdown to interrupt or derail passage of the Democrats’ agenda.
We expect more discussions this week on the CR, but these talks don’t mean much unless there’s an agreement on the debt limit. As you can see, it’s all tied together. The “Big Four” leaders and President Joe Biden will have to negotiate to get anywhere on these two critical issues. So far, that’s not happening. Both sides are still talking past each other. Which means that we can blunder into a shutdown.
Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told their fellow Democrats during a Friday caucus call that they would take up a CR next week (along with the annual defense authorization bill and an abortion measure.) This leaves only a very small window until Sept. 30.
I don’t like the wording on this analysis slightly. The Dems can, and indeed should, pass the debt limit as a stand alone provision using 51 votes. The GOP would, at that point, filibuster the issue which would raise the vote requirement for cloture to 60 votes. So it would not be the Dems failing to drum up enough support but rather the Republicans actively obstructing the debt ceiling increase in a manner they never did and the Dems never did during Trumps wild spending spree administration.
So it seems to me that we shouldn’t be talking about a lack Republican support; we’re talking about their affirmatively blocking the debt limit increase which, it should be noted, is itself a ludicrous legislative fiction to begin with.
In the end we all know what has to happen. Obama learned, to his enormous historical shame, that allowing the debt limit hostage taking to yield any form of results will just yield more debt limit hostage taking and so it can’t be indulged. The Democratic Party simply has to remain united on increasing the limit and the GOP needs to understand that they won’t get paid some warped policy tribute to increase the debt limit to allow for the states financing that they already appropriated and set tax levels for. So the question will be merely whether the GOP forces the country into default over nothing or alternatively how much nonsensical shrieking they’ll put up before enough of them vote for cloture on the matter.Report
Outside of reconciliation, Schumer can’t pass a debt limit increase with 51 votes. So long as some Republican objects, he has to come up with 60 to open debate on such a bill. To do it under reconciliation, according to the rules, he needs the House to agree to take the debt limit increase out of the $3.5T budget bill they are assembling. That might be difficult if the House progressives are planning on using the debt limit increase for leverage in their impending confrontation with Manchin.Report
I agree and accept that. But once a Republican objects and no other 9 Republicans vote for cloture it then becomes Republican’s who are blocking the debt limit increase; Not “Democrats not passing it”.Report
And meanwhile my paycheck, and those of my fellow 2 million civil servants (and at least as many contractors) gets held hostage AGAIN to whack a$$ politics from a Party that claims government should run more like a business, except when doing so means paying debts accrued and increasing revenue to match expenses.
I get not liking government. I don’t like government. But playing with people’s lives and livelihoods is getting really old.Report