The Hill reports, Senate reaches deal on short-term debt hike into December:
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Thursday that he had reached an agreement with Republicans to extend the debt ceiling into December.
“We have reached an agreement to extend the debt ceiling through early December,” Schumer said.
Mazie Hirono describes the McConnell offer on the debt ceiling to reporters as “bullshit”
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) October 6, 2021
The agreement, according to a Senate aide, would increase the debt ceiling by $480 billion, which based on Treasury Department estimates would extend the debt ceiling until Dec. 3.
“The Grim Reaper of Democracy,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) confirmed during a floor speech that they had reached a deal.
Senators could vote on the deal as soon as Thursday.
In order to vote on Thursday, every senator would have to agree to speed up the agreement, otherwise it could be dragged out into the weekend.
GOP senators say they expect the deal will need to overcome a 60-vote procedural hurdle [Senate filibuster.]
That will require at least 10 Republicans to help advance the debt ceiling deal, even if they ultimately voted against it on final passage. Any one senator could require that the bill get 60 votes to advance.
Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, said on Thursday that 10 GOP senators will ultimately help advance a short-term debt hike. Top Republican says 10 GOP senators will help advance debt hike:
Sen. Thune predicted a painful process amid private haggling.
“In the end we’ll be there, but it’s going to be a painful birthing process,” Thune said, asked about Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) ability to 10 GOP votes to advance the debt ceiling hike.
Insurrection leader Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas), and Mike Lee (Utah) and Rand Paul (Ky.) are requiring that the debt hike legislation, which would increase the nation’s borrowing limit, overcome a Senate filibuster, meaning it will require 60 votes to end debate on the bill.
To make that happen, 10 Senate Republicans will need to vote to end debate, even though they could will then oppose final passage of the bill since that vote only requires a simple majority.
I’m sorry, but you have a constitutionally prescribed duty to honor the full faith and credit of the debts incurred by the U.S. These are debts incurred under a Republican president and Republican Senate, including these very same Republican senators. Goddamn deadbeats.
The deal between McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has sparked grumbling from GOP senators who argue that McConnell caved after Republicans had vowed for weeks that they wouldn’t help Democrats raise the debt ceiling. Republicans has previously warned that they viewed helping end debate on the bill and breaking a filibuster as enabling the raising of the debt ceiling.
The slow-motion insurrection by these seditionists is continuing.
The Senate has locked in a deal to pass a short-term debt ceiling extension on Thursday. Senate locks in deal to vote on debt ceiling hike Thursday:
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) finalized the agreement to hold up to four hours of debate on the debt ceiling extension, followed by a key procedural hurdle to end debate on the bill, which will require 60 votes, around 7:30 p.m.
If they overcome that hurdle, the Senate would then move directly to a vote to pass the short-term debt extension, a move that will only require a simple majority.
Under the agreement, the debt ceiling will increase by $480 billion. The Treasury Department, according to Senate aides, thinks that will set up the next deadline for Dec. 3, the same day government funding is set to expire.
So basically, the “Grim Reaper of Democracy,” Mitch McConnell, has only grudgingly agreed to delay his hostage taking until December 3 – he did not “blink” as too many have said – when he can bind it up together with Republican opposition to government funding, so he can threaten both a government shutdown and a default. Merry Christmas, from the Grim Reaper of Democracy.
Democrats need to use the time they have to pass legislation to neutralize the federal debt ceiling (there are several bills proposed.) Take away Mitch McConnell’s weapon of mass destruction. And while they are at it, do away with McConnell’s other weapon of mass destruction, his “precious,” the Jim Crow relic Senate filibuster rule.
Do not agree to his hostage demand to raise the debt ceiling by budget reconciliation – eliminate the federal debt ceiling instead. Play hardball, and get rid of this anachronism in American law.
And it’s time to put the hurt on this delusional hillbilly coal baron. Manchin Opposed to Abolishing Filibuster to Increase Nation’s Borrowing Limit: Senator Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) says he’s opposed to abolishing the Senate filibuster as a workaround to increasing the nation’s borrowing limit. “I’ve been very very clear where I stand on the filibuster. Nothing changes,” Manchin told reporters, saying Senate leaders need to “lead” and “work” together to avoid an “artificial crisis.”
As I have said before, Joe Manchin Is The New Poster Boy For Appeasement Of The Enemies Of Democracy. By playing the “useful idiot” to the Sedition Party, he is a traitor to his country.
UPDATE: Only 11 GQP Senators voted to advance to a vote on the bill, breaking the Senate filibuster. They then voted on the bill: Senators voted 50-48 along party lines on the short-term increase in the nation’s borrowing limit. GOP Sens.Richard Burr (N.C.) and Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) did not vote.
Just to be clear, every Senate Republican voted to default, in violation of their constitutional duty to honor the full faith and credit of the debts incurred by the U.S. It was the Democrats who were the only responsible governing party which prevented an economic catastrophe from occurring by doing what is constituiionally required.
Note: Mike Lofgren, who served for 28 years as a Republican staff member for the House and Senate Budget Committees and has written extensively about politics and the Constitution, writes Biden Can End Debt-Ceiling Sabotage Once and for All:
Republicans like Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, no longer invoke high principle. Mr. McConnell said that the world’s largest economy and global reserve currency are “a hostage worth ransoming.” With a potential default looming, he has been blocking a vote to raise the limit. On Wednesday, he said that he would allow an increase in the debt ceiling until December, which would merely set up the nation for a further debt melodrama and another rattling of markets.
No free, constitutional government should provide legal means for its own sabotage. The 14th Amendment offers a way out. It is not only a directive to Congress that it must not vote to default; it also enjoins every officer of the government, including the president, to recognize the sanctity of the nation’s full faith and credit and to take care that it be maintained.
If the debt-limit dysfunction continues, President Biden must direct the Treasury secretary to take the steps required to prevent default.
It’s time to end the charade of the debt-limit vote and stop legislative terrorism on it for all time.
[T]he Republican threat became more serious after the Newt Gingrich revolution. The United States came close to default in 1995 (accompanied by a government shutdown), 2011 (causing a government bond rating downgrade) and 2013 (also bringing a debt downgrade).
* * *
Most industrialized countries do not face this melodrama. The first debt limit dates to the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917. This legislation was, and remains, a hangover of the congressional supremacy that prevailed from 1865 until the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. What everyone disregarded was that there was already a constitutional provision addressing the debt.
After the Civil War, the 14th Amendment helped establish the terms of the American victory over the Confederacy. Section 4 of that amendment states that “the public debt of the United States, authorized by law,” shall “not be questioned.”
Some may hold that a president invoking it to include bond issuance would violate Congress’s Article I appropriation powers. But the 14th Amendment would require all necessary steps to redeem bonds and issue bonds to replace those being rolled over, as well as uphold the sanctity of bonds in the Social Security and other trust funds. This is hardly a blank-check executive power over appropriations, but it would stave off a credit collapse because of congressional hostage taking.
No president has invoked the 14th Amendment to address the debt ceiling. But in 2011, when President Barack Obama faced Republican opposition to raising the ceiling, an ex-president, Bill Clinton, said that, rather than leave the country vulnerable to default, if he were then in office, he would raise it using the 14th Amendment “without hesitation and force the courts to stop me.”
Admittedly, invoking the 14th Amendment is not an ideal solution. It has never been tested in court. In my estimation, the Supreme Court would most likely dismiss a legal objection as a dispute between two branches, and the debt-ceiling vote might go the way of many other conflicting or redundant statutes — something that is on the books but either ignored or treated as hortatory. The situation with this issue is untenable, since Republicans seem to care not about the actual debt so much as about using debt-ceiling crises under Democratic presidents for political advantage.
President Biden should use the tools the Constitution provides to protect the country, use the bully pulpit and tell us in a prime-time address why he did it and turn around a public opinion that is often deludedabout the debt limit.
Ending once and for all the jury-rigged process of last-minute debt-ceiling extensions will remove at least one tool of sabotage from those who would hold the nation hostage.
After the vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer lit into the Default Party for their hostage taking and sabotage of the U.S. government. As you might imagine, the delusional hillbilly coal baron from West Virginia, Mitch McConnell’s “useful idiot” and the poster boy for appeasement of the enemies of democracy, Joe Manchin, objected. Schumer frustrates GOP, Manchin with fiery debt ceiling speech (Oh, boo-freakin’-hoo, the seditious insurrectionists were “frustrated”? The right-wing bias of The Hill is nauseating sometimes):
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) sparked anger among Senate Republicans after he railed against them just after they helped advance a short-term debt ceiling extension over a key hurdle.
The speech from Schumer came after 11 GOP senators joined with all Democrats to end debate on the short-term debt hike. Republicans had worked for hours behind the scenes to try to arm-twist and lock down the at least 10 GOP votes needed to overcome the hurdle.
WRONG! 11 GQP Senators only voted to advance to a vote on the bill, breaking the Senate filibuster. Every Senate Republican then voted to default, in violation of their constitutional duty to honor the full faith and credit of the debts incurred by the U.S. It was the Democrats who were the only responsible governing party which prevented an economic catastrophe from occurring by doing what is constitutionally required. Republicans are deserving of no credit as if they did something noble.
Schumer blasted the GOP debt ceiling strategy, accusing them of playing a “dangerous and risky partisan game” and saying Democrats were able to “pull our country back from the cliff’s edge that Republicans tried to push us over.”
The remarks angered Republicans, who each voted against the short-term debt ceiling extension in the final vote where only a simple majority was needed. It also sparked pushback from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who could be seen with his hands over his face for part of Schumer’s remarks.
“I didn’t think it was appropriate at this time, and we had a talk about that,” Manchin told reporters as he left the Capitol for the night. “I’m sure Chuck’s frustration was up, but that was not a way of taking it out.”
Manchin added that senators needed to “de-weaponize” and “stop playing politics.”
Fuck you, Manchin. Does he ever say this about the “Grim Reaper of Democracy,” Mitch McConnell, and the Sedition Party that this “useful idiot” is appeasing? There should be no quarter for traitors who engage in seditious insurrection against their country. America does not negotiate with terrorists, foreign or domestic. It’s long past time to crush this slow-motion GQP insurrection,
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Ed Kilgore explains, “No, Mitch McConnell Didn’t ‘Cave’ on the Debt Ceiling,” https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/mitch-mcconnell-didnt-cave-debt-ceiling.html
“McConnell blinks” was the widely echoed headline, and Democrats eagerly embraced this framing too: “McConnell caved.”
[I]t’s true that McConnell moved first to de-escalate the situation. The explanation emanating from sources on Capitol Hill is that the Senate minority leader was panic-stricken over the possibility that his debt-limit brinkmanship would drive filibuster champions like Joe Manchin into support for filibuster reform. Color me skeptical.
But more likely, Manchin’s statement on October 6 eschewing any interest in filibuster reform was simply yet another vociferous pledge that he will never ever support a carve-out from the legislative filibuster, or abolition of the maneuver altogether. The said filibuster is, after all, the principal source of the West Virginian’s extraordinary power this year, since the necessity of piling most of Joe Biden’s agenda into a filibuster-proof budget-reconciliation bill gives Manchin a virtual veto over that massive piece of legislation.
So what’s in it for McConnell aside from preserving his beloved filibuster? First and foremost, he gets what he wanted most from the whole debt-limit fight: all 50 Democratic senators voting for a specific-dollar debt-limit increase with a lot of zeroes on it. The actual number of zeroes is irrelevant for purposes of 2022 attack ads, which can simply charge vulnerable Democrats with voting to “add hundreds of billions ($480 billion to be exact) to the national debt” in their socialistic zeal to tax and spend and borrow. This was, of course, precisely what Democrats wanted to avoid via a suspension of the debt limit, rather than an increase, along with bipartisan cover. Now all that needs to happen is ten Republican votes for cloture and then a strict party-line vote for the actual debt increase.
In addition to gaining some attack-ad fodder, McConnell gets to replay the whole demagogic exercise whenever the new debt limit is breached, most likely in December. It adds another bargaining chip to the one he already holds in being able to threaten a government shutdown when the stopgap spending bill runs out, also in December.
Sure, many MAGA folk are likely under the delusion that increasing the debt limit is about enabling more spending rather than paying for past spending, much of it sanctioned by Donald J. Trump himself. But on the other hand, it’s unlikely they will soon be marching in the streets, shouting “Mitch didn’t force them to use reconciliation!,” which is precisely the inside-the-Beltway basis for calling him a big fat loser.
As Ben Jacobs wrote at New York shortly after McConnell made his offer, it “just pauses the ongoing game of chicken between McConnell and Schumer.” It’s the ability to keep Washington’s reigning Democrats in a state of crisis and potential disunity that is McConnell’s most important asset at this stage of his obstructionist career. I’m sure he looked at that prospect with the unblinking eyes of a wily old schemer.