The Senate Majority Leader announced a third vote within two weeks intended to pressure Republicans to help raise the debt ceiling.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday that he’ll tee up another ill-fated vote on waiving the debt limit, attempting to shame Republicans for blocking action as the country nears the brink of default. The New York Democrat will set a vote later this week to fire up debate on a House-passed bill that would suspend the debt ceiling through the 2022 midterms. But to move forward, at least 10 Republicans would need to vote in support — a 60-vote threshold that the Senate has already failed to reach as GOP leaders insist on Democrats tackling the issue solo. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told President Joe Biden in a letter on Monday that it’s time for Biden to get moving on a one-party solution, stressing that Democrats have “had nearly three months’ notice to do their job.” Schumer’s latest push to squeeze the GOP with debt limit action this week runs up against a ticking clock. Democrats are betting that the needed Republican senators will eventually cave in order to stave off an unparalleled economic disaster, which could hit in as little as two weeks. But if the GOP refuses to fold, Democrats are running out of time to remedy the crisis on their own through a more limiting and time-consuming budget maneuver known as reconciliation. Another failed vote to lift the debt ceiling could worry economists and Wall Street investors, as the Treasury Department warns that the nation could deplete its borrowing ability by Oct.18, or the so-called X Date. “Let me be clear about the task ahead of us: we must get a bill to the President’s desk dealing with the debt limit by the end of the week.
