A key Democrat in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday said the United States will not default ahead of the chamber’s vote on a bill …
A key Democrat in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday said the United States will not default ahead of the chamber’s vote on a bill that would suspend the debt ceiling for over a year. “It is not going to happen,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) told reporters in Washington. The United States is poised to be unable to meet its financial obligations if lawmakers don’t raise or suspend the debt limit by Oct.18. But the suspension bill, passed by the House of Representatives along party lines last week, has virtually no Republican support in the Senate. Democrats control the 50-50 chamber but need 60 votes on a cloture motion before a final vote. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said it is the Democrats’ responsibility to deal with the ceiling because the party has been operating on a “partisan basis.” One possibility is folding a provision into the budget reconciliation package Democrats are aiming to ram through Congress with no Republican support. But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday that’s not an option. “Reconciliation is a drawn out, convoluted, and risky process with default and downgrade hovering over us,” he told reporters at the U.S. Capitol. Another way would be for Senate Republicans to not use the filibuster, which inserts the 60-vote requirement. If the party went that route, Democrats could pass the House bill with its 50 votes and the tiebreaking vote that can be cast by Vice President Kamala Harris.
