The Senate appeared poised to stave off a debt ceiling crisis of its own making on Wednesday after Democrats said they could accept a surprise …
The Senate appeared poised to stave off a debt ceiling crisis of its own making on Wednesday after Democrats said they could accept a surprise offer from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to raise the debt limit for two months. McConnell made the offer shortly before the Senate was prepared to hold another vote on extending the nation’s borrowing limit just more than a week before a possible debt default. Republicans had been set to reject the measure. The vote was quickly canceled after Democrats emerged from a meeting saying they could agree to the McConnell offer. “In terms of a temporary lifting of the debt ceiling, we view that as a victory, a temporary victory with more work to do,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) told CNN’s Jake Tapper after the meeting. A key GOP centrist, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), also embraced the proposal, saying it was “going to give us a way out of the woods, which is what we want.” The game of debt ceiling chicken between McConnell and Democrats was beginning to fray nerves in financial worlds given the Oct.18 deadline for action set by the Treasury Department. The White House and Democrats had sought to put more pressure on McConnell, with President Biden for a second time in three days going to the cameras to urge the GOP to agree to raise the debt ceiling. Democrats had also begun discussing a possible carve-out from the Senate filibuster to raise the debt ceiling and get around Republicans, though centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) before McConnell’s proposal had publicly signaled his opposition to that avenue. The deal McConnell offered is unlikely to lead to any GOP votes for raising the debt ceiling, but it will also stop Republicans from blocking a suspension. It would allow Democrats “to use normal procedures to pass an emergency debt limit extension at a fixed dollar amount to cover current spending levels to December,” per a statement from the Senate GOP leader.
