What is still unknown: what will happen next if Republicans block this plan. And that is causing anxiety in the Democratic ranks, with U.S. faith and credit pending balance before a possible debt default next month.
“Yeah, a lot,” Illinois Democrat Sen. Tammy Duckworth said when asked Wednesday if she was worried about the look between the two sides. “I wish we would stop playing this game and keep working for the American people.”
Democratic leaders say no final decisions have been made about their next steps. But in private discussions this week between senior Democratic aides and among top senators, it seems increasingly likely to cast a ballot on the eve of the Sept. 30 deadline, according to several Democratic sources. And there is little legislative time left on the calendar.
The House and Senate will not vote again until Monday evening. Sometime next week, the House plans to take over the spending package, likely setting up a showdown in the Senate in the week of Sept. 27, just before federal agencies run out of money.
The election of Republicans, Democrats say, would be tantamount to this: If they blocked the rising national debt limit, they would also risk shutting down the government on October 1, as well as the billions in disaster aid to communities affected by the recent nature of disasters and cash by Afghanistan’s evacuation effort.
The feeling among Democrats is that they need to pressure Republicans to break up permanently with Republican Party leader Mitch McConnell. But they would need the support of ten Republicans to break a filibuster, which GOP leaders bluntly say will not happen if the debt limit is tied to the bill.
“I know Senator McConnell is deadly serious. He’s not a big joker,” Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas and a member of the Republican Party leadership, said Wednesday. “He knows how this place works. They just have to reconcile and acknowledge that they have to own it.”
In fact, Republican leaders are adamant that Democrats – who control both houses of Congress and the White House – must fully own the politically toxic vote to raise the national debt limit, which now stands at 28.8 trillion. of dollars. The argument: Democrats approved a $ 1.9 trillion Covid aid plan earlier this year and are pushing more than a trillion spending for its national agenda.
So Republicans are demanding Democrats increase the debt limit through a party-line budget process known as reconciliation. But doing so would force Senate Democrats to vote in unison and cast the unpopular vote, even though it would probably take two weeks of time in the Senate (to say the least) to go through the laborious voting process. The debt limit is expected to be breached in mid-October.
In addition, there are procedural questions about how quickly it can be achieved, as Democrats are already using the reconciliation process to push their huge $ 3.5 trillion economic package that is silent on raising the ceiling. debt.
Democrats could offer a $ 3.5 trillion amendment to the bill to increase the debt ceiling. But that measure could affect Senate rules, as they initially chose not to include a debt limit hike in the budget plan that would set the parameters for the larger bill.
One option: a direct vote up or up or down to raise the debt ceiling. But that would still require 60 votes, unless Republicans agreed to go through straight party lines to the 51-vote threshold. Since any senator can force a 60-vote threshold, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the Republican Party whip, told CNN this week that Republicans would not agree to allow a simple majority vote on the debt ceiling.
Thune said they are “doing all the other things,” such as “massive spending and taxes, and through reconciliation: this is the way to cover the debt ceiling.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says Republicans must also own the vote, pointing to $ 5.5 trillion in debt accumulated under then-President Donald Trump. Schumer told reporters this week that “there are several different options” for dealing with the debt limit.
“The White House, President Pelosi and I are discussing this and we believe we should do this. We will do it because it is imperative to do so,” the New York Democrat said.
Justin Goodman, a spokesman for Schumer, said that if there is a defect, “Senator McConnell will fall as the first person in history to force a defect, and every American will know that Republicans in the Senate are to blame.”
A McConnell spokesman responded: “The majority leader, Schumer, knows he has all the tools he needs to raise the debt limit through the same partisan process he uses for his reckless tax and spending.”
But grassroots Democrats remain in the dark about how Schumer plans to solve the problem if there is a confrontation. And while they are angry with the Republican Party’s position, they are also nervous about whether the confrontation could shut down the government and cause lasting economic damage.
“I think it’s unconscious to take that position,” Hawaii Democrat Sen Mazie Hirono said, referring to the Republican Party. “Republicans are expected to wake up from their responsibilities.”
Still, Hirono expressed concern about adding the debt measure to the government funding bill if the result could be a detrimental government shutdown. So, he said, Democrats may have to find a way to get through without Republicans.
“If we want to shut down the government, which is also totally detrimental to the American public, I think we will have to do everything we need to do to raise that ceiling,” he said.
Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat who worked with the bipartisan group of senators to pass a $ 1.2 trillion infrastructure spending bill last month, said he did not know how the debt measure would be approved. , but said he believes it will be tied to the “stopgap” spending bill, known as the ongoing resolution, to keep the government funded on Sept. 30.
“I think he’ll be attached to the CR, but I don’t know,” Tester said.
Tester acknowledged that Democrats would take risks if the government funding bill did not collect Republican votes to pass the debt provision.
“Anyway, this is not about debt,” Tester said. “It’s more about doing shows in some parts of your base. It doesn’t make sense to me, man. We weren’t chosen here to help sink this country. You wonder why China is looking at us, saying we can be in his position. Exactly this kind of crap. “
Jessica Dean and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.